Navi’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2018)

Navi’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

I hope to read nothing but nonfiction from now until the end of 2020 (*fingers crossed*) so this is the perfect challenge for me!

Jeopardy Champion
12/6/19 - ?
Books read: 9/135

• Art & Photography:
1)
2)
3)

• Autobiography:
✔ Solitary 12/27
2)
3)

• Biography:
✔ Renaissance Woman: The Life of Vittoria Colonna 12/21
✔ Young Walt Disney: A Biography of Walt Disney's Younger Years 12/21
✔ House of Nutter: The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row 12/24

• Diary & Memoirs:
✔ Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child 1/4
2)
3)

• Business & Finance:
1)
2)
3)

• Cookbooks / Food & Lifestyle:
1)
2)
3)

• Cultural/Social Issues:
1)
2)
3)

• Current Affairs & Politics:
1)
2)
3)

• Gardening:
1)
2)
3)

• General Non-Fiction:
1)
2)
3)

• Gift Book / Coffee Table Book:
1)
2)
3)

• Health, & Fitness / Medical (for the lay-person):
1)
2)
3)

• History:
1)
2)
3)

• Home Decorating & Design / Architecture:
1)
2)
3)

• How To:
1)
2)
3)

• Humor:
1)
2)
3)

• Journalism:
✔ The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age 1/3
2)
3)

• Military:
1)
2)
3)

• Music, Film, & Entertainment:
1)
2)
3)

• Nature & Ecology:
✔ American Wolf - 12/16
✔ A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and Its Relevance Today 12/20
✔ No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Man-Eater in History 12/19

• Outdoor Adventuring:
1)
2)
3)

• Parenting:
1)
2)
3)

• Pets:
1)
2)
3)

• Pop Culture & Celebrity:
1)
2)
3)

• Psychology:
✔ This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society - 12/10
2)
3)

• Reference:
1)
2)
3)

• Relationship & Dating:
1)
2)
3)

• Religion & Spirituality:
✔ In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir - 12/6
2)
3)

• Science & Technology:
✔ To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History - 12/22
2)
3)

• Self-Help:
1)
2)
3)

• Sports:
1)
2)
3)

• Travel:
1)
2)
3)

• True Adventure:
1)
2)
3)

• True Crime:
1)
2)
3)

• Women’s Issues:
1)
2)
3)

That's awesome, Laura! That reminds me to check my library as well :)

NPR's Best Books of 2019
January 1, 2020-December 31, 2020

Level: Reading Superhero
Progress: 18/25

My TBR Shelf

✔1.Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child 1/4
✔2.The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier 1/16
✔3.One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America 1/15
✔4.Recursion 2/2
✔5.All Systems Red 2/4
✔6.How We Fight For Our Lives 2/6
✔7.Gods of Jade and Shadow 2/25
✔8.Permanent Record 3/4
✔9.The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company 3/14
✔10.Queenie 3/24
✔11.The Dutch House 3/29
✔12.The Right Swipe 4/4
✔13.The Deep 4/9
✔14.Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed 5/25
✔15.What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays 8/26
✔16.The Raven Tower 09/03
✔17.Wanderers 09/16
✔18.In the Dream House 10/19
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25..

Laura wrote: "Yes, someone usually shouts out once the NPR list is released and a new thread will be created shortly after."

The list is up!

Will there be a 2019 version of this challenge set up? I'd like to give it a try again! :)

Time's 100 Must Read Books of 2019
Duration December 1, 2019- December 1, 2020

Level: Book Addict - 25 books+

My TBR Shelf

8/25 read

1.Recursion 2/2
2.How We Fight For Our Lives 2/6
3.Queenie 3/24
4.The Dutch House 3/29
5.Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed 5/25
6.Bunny 6/5
7.Girl, Woman, Other 6/8
8.The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After 6/24
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.

Finished Hollywood's Dark History - 4 stars!

Guilty pleasure read about Old Hollywood!

Finished The Royal Art of Poison - 4 stars!

Highly entertaining read about the role that poison played in the lives of historical royal figures

Thanks Tari and Kristie! I’m going to aim for a 15% FR next month. 🤞🏽

Kirby wrote: "I had a pretty successful November so I'm feeling really good going into December :D

Last Month's Feedback Ratio: 36%
This Month's Feedback Ratio: 41% (heck yea!)"

Nicely done, Kirby!

My FR went up from 6% to 8%! Slow and steady LOL

GOAL: SCROOGE
December 1, 2019 - January 31, 2020

✔C - Crabtree, James - The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age 1/3
✔H - Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals 12/3
✔R - Renaissance Woman: The Life of Vittoria Colonna 12/21
✔I - In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir - 12/6
✔S - Sanderson, Brandon The Hero of Ages 1/25
✔T - This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society - 12/10
✔M - A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and Its Relevance Today - 12/20
✔A - American Wolf 12/16
✔S - Solitary 12/27

✔C - Christopher McDougall - Running with Sherman 1/6
✔H - Dane Huckelbridge, No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Man-Eater in History 12/19
✔E - Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It 12/10
✔C - Cumming, Laura - Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child 1/4
✔K - Kamkwamba, William - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope 1/6
✔L - Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock 12/5
✔I - Ian Urbina The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier 1/16
✔S - Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire - 1/1
✔T - To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History 12/22

SAVE CHRISTMAS QUEST

Find the Missing Elf

Read 3 books with direction words in the title (in, out, up, down, north, south, around, etc.) Earn 50 Golden Coins when complete.

✔In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir - 12/6
✔This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society - 12/10
✔ American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West - 12/16

Find More Paint

Read a book that has each of the following colors as the main color (over 50%) of the cover. (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, White, Black, Pink) Earn 10 Golden Coins per color and an additional 40 if all colors are found.

✔Red: - 12/5

Check the List

Read 4 books where the title contains the words good, bad or similar words or where the main character is a bad boy/girl or a good boy/girl. Earn 50 Golden Coins when complete.

Bad
✔Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals 12/3 - all about the bad things actors/actresses did during the old Hollywood days


Fix the Chimney

Read 4 books that make 4 corners each match up with a letter.

Completing the chimney repair will earn you 80 Golden Coins.

Fix Santa's Sleigh

New Harnesses - Read 2 skinny (100-125 pages) books to create beautiful new streamline harnesses.
New Stuffing and Fabric - Stuff your mind with new popular books. Read a book from GoodReads Choice Awards (winner or nominee is acceptable).
New Rails - Read a 800+ page book to get thick new rails.
Paint Remover - Participate in a BOM discussion and uncover hidden depths.
Each item found will net 20 Golden Coins. Completing all will grant an additional 30 Golden Coins.

I’m done for this week!

Progress: 1/15

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Silent Spring
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
Steve Jobs
Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga
Daisy Turner's Kin: An African American Family Saga
Congo: The Epic History of a People
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History
✔Bettyville
H is for Hawk

Beginning of the Month
Total Books on Shelf: 167

FR: 8%

Books Added:



End of the Month

Books Read (reviews linked):

The Royal Art of Poison
Hollywood's Dark History
Lust on Trial
In Praise of the Useless Life
House of Nutter

Shelf Count: 180
FR: 10

Finished Canine Confidential - 4 stars!

Donna wrote: "Navi, I am so sorry. I don't think anyone saw this and claimed those spots on the SS already. I just noticed them myself going back thru the thread since everyone is posting on our thread the books they want to read. Do you want to try another spot or see if someone wants to switch you? Or read them to fit a sin. "


No worries at all, Donna! I’ll focus on reading longer books this week:)

Hi team. Unfortunately I picked up a bug yesterday and don’t feel so well. I don’t know if I’ll be in the right head space to finish Casanova for the letter L :(

Cait S wrote: "Hey guys, so sorry I disappeared for half a week. I sprained my ankle last weekend which snowballed into a bad mental health dip where I literally couldn't pick up a book.

I'm hoping I'm on the ot..."

So sorry to hear that, Cait! I hope you are on the mend!!