RiverRun Invites Indies Nationwide to Join Reading Marathon

This October, RiverRun Bookstore will be hosting its second "Great Expectations: A Reading Marathon" (GERM), a 24-hour, customer read-a-thon. And now the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, bookstore is inviting independent booksellers nationwide to take up the challenge, too.

RiverRun created GERM last year to do its part to counter the decline in reading cited by the 2004 National Endowment for the Arts survey, Reading at Risk. "We wanted to prove that people still care about reading, and let them show their reading loyalties and simultaneously raise money for a local nonprofit," said the bookstore's events coordinator, Michele Filgate. "So Great Expectations: A Reading Marathon was born.... It's a fun challenge that a lot of people are willing to take up!"

To participate, customers seek sponsors from among family and friends, and they're required to read at the bookstore for some, or all, of the 24 hours. Participants can buy, borrow, or bring their own books for the event. Proceeds are donated to a local charity.

New this year is the effort to involve other bookstores across the country. Jenn Northington, events coordinator at The King's English in Salt Lake City, has been helping RiverRun plan GERM as a national event. Filgate said, "Other booksellers I've spoken to so far all seem excited about it, and I hope to get as many independent bookstores as possible on board with us!"

The emphasis of the event and its fundraising is community involvement. "The idea here is to raise money for a local nonprofit of the bookstore's choice," Filgate explained. "Our nonprofit of choice for our last read-a-thon was to the local middle school's Homework Club. That got a lot of former Homework Club members to come participate. It was great to see so many teens who care about reading participate in the read-a-thon!"

The idea for Great Expectations came to Filgate last fall while she was browsing book blogs and noticed that several were hosting reading marathons from home. Filgate and co-worker and co-collaborator on the original read-a-thon, Liberty Hardy, then decided, why not try to hold one at the bookstore?

This year's event in Portsmouth will be held from 6:00 p.m. on Friday, October 10, to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 11, at RiverRun's used bookstore, SecondRun. The bookstore will provide plenty of snacks, and give out prizes donated by local businesses throughout the 24-hour-period. Prizes are given to those who raise the most money for charity and/or stay for the duration. "Oh, and some literary trivia in the middle of the night helps give people a break and stay awake," said Filgate.

"We also have some local authors drop by and read from some of their own writing," she said, but she added a caveat. "The primary part of the read-a-thon, though, is people curled up in comfy chairs, on couches, or on the floor, reading to themselves. This isn't a read-aloud marathon."

RiverRun invites indie bookstores around the country to sponsor their own read-a-thon during any weekend in October. More information is available online or by contacting Filgate at riverrunevents@gmail.com. --Karen Schechner