How fun! I'm a little late but I'll join the next round :-D

Jen, I agree. Those are the most difficult shelves to touch. There are several like that - shelves that have thousands of books, but only one person or a very few people who are using those shelves. So if the book is very popular with hundreds and hundreds of shelves, those shelves will never make it to the top five pages. The trick is to find a book with that shelf that isn't quite as popular with GR readers. I was lucky with the Allie shelf to find a book that was even already on my TBR list - Big Al by Andrew Clements. It only has two pages of shelves.

I'm having trouble finding something I want to read on the uncategorized shelf. People must not leave books on that one long, so it shows up at the very end of the list of shelves - usually showing 0 people having it on that shelf. I just read a book that had the uncategorized shelf, but it showed up on page 6! Very frustrating!

Karen
I have a question. If a book we read does not touch any shelves, do we still count it when we report?

Slayermel wrote: "I had stumbled across a book on the shelf "read to allie", so out of curiosity I went to allies shelf to see how many books her mother had read to her. Do you know her mother has read 1097 books t..."

I definitely agree Allie is a lucky girl! I'm finding that the difficult part about Allie's shelf, though, is that only one person has an Allie shelf, so getting it to appear in the first five pages of shelves on a book is proving tricky. I've read dozens of those books with my son, but Allie's shelf isn't in the first five pages of their shelves, so it doesn't count for those. Anyone else having this problem?!

I had stumbled across a book on the shelf "read to allie", so out of curiosity I went to allies shelf to see how many books her mother had read to her. Do you know her mother has read 1097 books to allie. I was so impressed. Allie is one lucky girl.

Laura wrote: "Or you could go to the library, Jen, and avoid the book buying temptation

;)"

haha, I guess that would be the obvious choice, huh? :)

Thanks for the comments...

Or you could go to the library, Jen, and avoid the book buying temptation

;)

Allie must be a young child, so of course the books on that shelf are children's books. I'm impressed with how many books her mother must have read to her! You are going to have to read a certain amount of picture books to touch other shelves as well - such as picturebooks and picture-books. But isn't that what the challenge is all about? Reading a variety of different types of books - some that might not even be right up your alley? Or I guess you could just plan to skip those shelves.

Angela wrote: "Has anyone found a book with the shelf: read-to-allie that is not a childrens book? I really do not want to read a childrens book- most of these are like Dr. Suess or a book you would read to a chi..."

You can always go spend a few minutes in the kids' section at Barnes & Noble and read one of the books while you're there (because, like Laura says, they're fast reads). I do that with my son quite a bit...we go in and read several books, and then we just buy the one we're most interested in. I think it's perfectly acceptable to do that in the kids' section (there's usually even a table and chairs you can sit at). No one has to know you're reading them for a challenge ;)

But the nice thing is - they are fast reads! I have not found anything on that shelf yet, and none of the picture books I read were on that shelf.

Has anyone found a book with the shelf: read-to-allie that is not a childrens book? I really do not want to read a childrens book- most of these are like Dr. Suess or a book you would read to a child (dont have children, so no book laying around here). Thanks!!

Oh, Betty, any books you read count for the challenge - that's the point of the challenge otherwise it'd take forever to 'touch' all of the shelves.

Jen- audiobooks count :)

Can we count audibooks for this? I'm not a big audiobook fan, so it doesn't really feel like it "counts" to me unless I'm physically reading the book. But I'm "reading" an audiobook right now, so I thought I'd check

Oops, one other thing I meant to say is on the spreadsheet I found it easier to put each shelf I touched the colour red so I could identify them quicker, thought I'd pass that along.

I did the same thing as Joanie, and only counted them in the first 5 pages, too. I'll have another look because at first I wasn't doing it right anyway. I usually only get time to do two books and that's all we count, right? Just the ones that are in the month's shelf, not the rest of the books we read within that month? I only ask because I have to fit my review books in around the monthly schedule.

Karen wrote: "re: military, I have no idea why it's on there twice, in the same spelling too so no, you don't have to read 2 books for that."

There are also two for "children-s-literature" which are exactly the same as far as I can tell.

Joanie wrote: "I just realized that I have been doing this all wrong!!!!! OMG!!! I was only counting a shelf as being touched if my book appeared on the first 5 pages under that category. For example, if I r..."

Don't feel bad Joanie...I did that when I first read the rules. It took me forever to get it straight!

Joanie wrote: "I just realized that I have been doing this all wrong!!!!! OMG!!! I was only counting a shelf as being touched if my book appeared on the first 5 pages under that category. For example, if I r..."

Oh no! Just take your time, Joanie...

I just realized that I have been doing this all wrong!!!!! OMG!!! I was only counting a shelf as being touched if my book appeared on the first 5 pages under that category. For example, if I read Pride and Prejudice and it was listed as "romance" I would only count it if it was on the first 5 pages of romance books listed. On the flip side, I've counted books that were on page 12 of a particular book's list because it was on the first page of a certain shelf. Even my explanation doesn't make sense! I just read Andrew's question and realized my mistake. That explains why it was taking me HOURS to look up each book. Uughh.....guess it's time to start a recount.

Lynlee4 wrote: "Karen, I have a few questions...
*how would you like us to report the extra books we've read to skip a shelf?
*'military' is on the list twice..would we need to read two off that shelf?"

Hi Lyn, I really only need to know about your extra books when you have finished the challenge so just keep a note of what books you've read to skip shelves.

re: military, I have no idea why it's on there twice, in the same spelling too so no, you don't have to read 2 books for that.

Karen, I have a few questions...
*how would you like us to report the extra books we've read to skip a shelf?
*'military' is on the list twice..would we need to read two off that shelf?

Thx Karen - it takes quite awhile to do this I found! Even with the spreadsheet, although it helps, it still takes time. Sometimes I look at the shelves first before deciding to read this one or that one. This is a really interesting challenge, tho, I'm definitely enjoying it!

Laura wrote: "Drat then maybe I should do a recount for mine because I counted the shelves before I read the book. But I read the book within about a week of doing the counts.

Hmm...never considered this l..."

Oh, Laura, don't bother about re-counting...Just leave the ones you've done. So the 'new' rule applies from now on only :)

Drat then maybe I should do a recount for mine because I counted the shelves before I read the book. But I read the book within about a week of doing the counts.

Hmm...never considered this little wrinkle.

Cam: wrote: "Hi Karen, just looking through and I don't think this question has been asked. Noticed with my last book, that 5 days ago it was on 21 shelves (when I started it) and today when I actually calculat..."

Good question there, Cam. Unfortunately, it's not something that we can control as GR users will continuously add / remove books & also edit the shelvings. Even so, I don't think the changes will be dramatic (ie. dropping 1 shelf & gaining 10 shelves etc). So, count the shelves when you have finished reading and that's should be your official count of shelves for that book for this game :)

Hi Karen, just looking through and I don't think this question has been asked. Noticed with my last book, that 5 days ago it was on 21 shelves (when I started it) and today when I actually calculated it, it was on 23 shelves. The book had in the last 5 days dropped 1 shelf off the first five pages, but then had gained 3 more categories. So with the first five pages of any one particular book constantly changing how or do we have to adjust our totals to accommodate this?

Karen wrote: "Jen wrote: "I just want to make sure I'm tallying my shelves correctly...

I took a random book from my TBR list - Mystic River by Dennis Lehane - and looked up its shelves. On the first page of ..."

Thanks! Guess I need to pick a more popular book next time around! :)

Jen wrote: "I just want to make sure I'm tallying my shelves correctly...

I took a random book from my TBR list - Mystic River by Dennis Lehane - and looked up its shelves. On the first page of shelves for ..."

Jen, that's correct :)

Karen has come up with an amazing spreadsheet that is insanely useful and easy to use. I highly suggest using it.

I just want to make sure I'm tallying my shelves correctly...

I took a random book from my TBR list - Mystic River by Dennis Lehane - and looked up its shelves. On the first page of shelves for that book, there is a shelf called "Boston"; however, there's no "boston" shelf on the official list. So would I be correct in NOT counting that shelf? I ONLY count the ones that correspond with those on the official list and not any of the others, even if they appear in the first 5 pages for that book?

If I need to clarify, just let me know! Thanks!

Lynlee4 wrote:I wondered the same thing. I did a search, there really is a shelf titled -

Go figure

Thanks, Lynlee! That is weird.

Operandi wrote: "Is there a list for the 1001 books, or can we pick any books from the book?"

You'll need to check the shelf really... I think some of the books that aren't even in the actual 1001 list might actually be listed on the shelf. This is because GR members allocate books to shelves.

Andrew wrote: "So if its on a shelf that is listed in the first five pages it count? It doesn't have to be on the first five pages within a certian shelf?"

If I understand what's you're asking correctly, yes.
You're counting the shelves listed within the first 5 pages of top shelves for that particular book.
The book you're reading does not have to be within the first 5 pages of a certain shelf.

Is there a list for the 1001 books, or can we pick any books from the book?

So if its on a shelf that is listed in the first five pages it count? It doesn't have to be on the first five pages within a certian shelf?

Amanda wrote: "What is the "-" shelf between 2008 and 1001-book-list in the list of top shelves?"

I wondered the same thing. I did a search, there really is a shelf titled -

Go figure

What is the "-" shelf between 2008 and 1001-book-list in the list of top shelves?

Lynlee4 wrote: "Are my eyes playing trick with me or are there 2
children-s-literature "

There are 2 - I don't know why... It's all copy, paste, & sort with excel so there must be 2 on GR somehow...

Mel wrote: "Karen, I don't know if this has been asked or not, but for the shelves that we skip, will it be fantasy that we have to read to make up for them through the whole thing, or will we be able to read ..."

Good Question, Mel!!
To make up for skipping a shelf, read a book from the month's shelf so for Feb is Fantasy and we'll see what's for March & April! :)

Karen, I don't know if this has been asked or not, but for the shelves that we skip, will it be fantasy that we have to read to make up for them through the whole thing, or will we be able to read whatever March's shelf is, then April's? Just out of curiosity.

Are my eyes playing trick with me or are there 2
children-s-literature

Thanks for the clarification!!!

Ok. That makes sense now. And that makes it a lot easier. Thanks for clarifying.

Oh, I see. Skip just means not read anything from those shelves. It doesn't mean we are trying to read something from each shelf in any sort of order.

Luann wrote: "That does clear things up, except the part about skipping shelves. How does that work?"

Hhm... I'm not sure how to be clearer about this one.
If you'd like to skip some shelves, you can, up to 5 shelves. However as a penalty, you'd have to pick up a Fantasy book per skipped shelves.

Natasha wrote: "I'm still a little confused. I thought we were supposed to read one book from each self. The next book you read may touch the same shelves as P&P, you ignore those but count the other shelves that ..."

Nope, you get to count the 57 shelves of P&P that matched the official list. And then if you pick up another book of which some of the shelves are the same as P&P, you don't count those. Only count the shelves which have not been 'touched' yet. Basically, to 'touch' all 329 shelves at least once to win (or 324 shelves if you skip 5 however note the penalty).

I'm still a little confused. I thought we were supposed to read one book from each self. The next book you read may touch the same shelves as P&P, you ignore those but count the other shelves that haven't been 'touched' yet.So if we did read P&P, that doesn't count for 57 shelves or does it only count for one that we choose (like classics or literature)? That's basically what I'm confused about.

That does clear things up, except the part about skipping shelves. How does that work?

Thankyou Karen, that cleared up my question