BookTubeAThon 2018 is almost here! For those of you who don’t know, BookTubeAThon is an annual reading challenge where participants attempt to read seven books in seven days. Anyone can participate, including you. All kinds of books count: children’s books, graphic novels, audiobooks, whatever you want. And there are seven challenges that everyone tries to accomplish. Watch the full challenge video here.

This year’s challenges:

1. Let a coin toss decide your first read.
2. Read a book about something you want to do.
3. Read and watch a book to movie adaptation.
4. Read a book with green on the cover.
5. Read a book while wearing the same hat the whole time.
6. Read a book with a beautiful spine.
7. Read seven books.

Here are my picks:

1. Let a coin toss decide your first read.
   • The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fischer
2. Read a book about something you want to do.
   • Either The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell or Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman
3. Read and watch a book to movie adaptation.
   • Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
4. Read a book with green on the cover.
   • A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
5. Read a book while wearing the same hat the whole time.
   • Mooncop by Tom Gauld
6. Read a book with a beautiful spine.
   • The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
7. Read seven books.
   • Fly on the Wall by Emily Jenkins

Mooncop, The Underground Railroad, Fight Club, Long Way Round, and Fly on the Wall were all already on my personal TBR, so they were pretty easy picks. Only one of these was on audiobook, and I’ve found that I need at least three audiobooks to have a really effective BookTubeAThon. Unfortunately there was basically nothing else on my person TBR available on audio from my local library, so I started browsing the “available now” section of the library’s audio app to get some more options. I still needed a book with green on the cover (there is absolutely no green on any of the five I’d already found), so I started by just scanning for color.

A is for Alibi is almost solid green, and a book I first considered reading only hours earlier. I’d been listening to a beautiful tribute to Sue Grafton on NPR and thought it would be worth reading at least the first book in the famous alphabet series. I wanted an alternative to one of my physical books, so when I saw The Year of Living Danishly I figured a book about living in Europe for a defined but significant time could be on par with a book about traveling around the world in one long trip as something I’ve always wanted to do.

That left me with a coin toss. I decided to go through the whole list of available titles, pull out everything that looked interesting, and make the coin toss into a sort of bracket. It went like this:

ROUND ONE

Heads
Hidden Figures
Bird by Bird
You Can’t Touch My Hair
Tails – WINNERS
The Princess Diarist
Goodbye, Things
But What if We’re Wrong?

ROUND TWO

Heads
Hidden Figures
Bird by Bird
You Can’t Touch My Hair
Tails – WINNERS
The Princess Diarist
Goodbye, Things
But What if We’re Wrong?

ROUND THREE

Heads – WINNER
The Princess Diarist
Tails
But What if We’re Wrong?

So that’s it, that’s my TBR for BookTubeAThon 2018, with my challenge two book to be decided near the end of the week when I know if I need a physical book or an audio one.

It’s not too late to pick your own books and join in! The challenge starts July 30th at midnight. Remember, you don’t need to pick seven full novels. For my first BookTubeAThon, four of my seven books were extra short ones like plays and graphic novels. It was still a challenge and still a lot of fun. The worst thing that will happen is you won’t read seven books in seven days, which is exactly what will happen if you don’t try at all.