Apoorv ’s Comments (group member since Mar 26, 2014)

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

MN Lisa wrote: "If the spreadsheet works for you its a beautiful thing. I've shared my tracking spreadsheet before and people get overwhelmed. I like it and it works for me. :)"

Fantastic spreadsheet, Lisa. Thank you for sharing.
I'm so delighted to see that you capture such detailed meta data about a book (it certainly made me feel relieved to see I am not a nut to do it with my spreadsheets and there is someone else who does it too, haha!).

It makes even more sense for you to have it laid out so immaculately given the sheer quantity of books and the amount of challenges you participate in.

I'm particularly intrigued by the "Word Find" challenge and the way you set it up. Also, which font are you using? I am very interested to know that because the way it makes the words sit within a cell, looks fantastic!

MN Lisa wrote: "I love spreadsheets. It's my obsession. If you want to see how obsessive I can get, let me know I have a few examples. :)."

I LOVE spreadsheets! And I love that you are obsessed with them, Lisa! :)

I have a spreadsheet for all the books I've read and each books metadata, all movies I've watched, all the flights I have taken, etc. etc. - so I am thrilled to see there is another spreadsheet nut in the mix. Haha! :)

Can't wait to see what you do with this challenges' spreadsheet! :)

Hey! Hey! Hey! Good humans!
I am so darn excited to be part of this humongously awesome team and for once I am not the captain or the co-cap, so this is definitely a different (albeit somewhat chill) feeling. Hehe! I can't wait to get another TT underway.

I am Apoorv (he/him), currently in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and I am practically the old crone with these challenges now. :P Every year TT gets more exciting and different and this year seems particularly interesting. Also, Ashara is a beautiful team name to have (I think it means auspicious in Arabic, so great start already! :=)).

I see a bunch of familiar faces and a few new friends on the list - can't wait to read your stories and interact with all of you. Thank you to all the cappies for getting us all set up and ready to go. Much appreciated! :)

LET'S GOOOOOOOO! :D



My Shelf: Challenge-NBRC-TTX

Sonia wrote: "Hey team. So, I have this thing happening this weekend with no internet access. I'll be back on monday, with tim e to spare to do the rounds last call.

Happy readings"

Got you covered. No worries!
Hope the thing on the weekend is something fun! :)

COMPLETION POST
Week #2

Small Game | Blair Braverman | 24Nov2022

Pages: 288
Cover Color: No
Tag: No

Spell-out
✔ A - Character A (Ashley)
✔ B - Author B
✔ E - Character E (Ethan)
✔ S - Title S
✔ T - Character T (Tom)

COMPLETION POST
Week #2

Beautiful World, Where Are You | Sally Rooney | 22Nov2022

Pages: 356
Cover Color: No
Tag: No

Spell-out
✔ A - Character A (Alice Kelleher)
✔ B - Title B
✔ D - Character D (Danielle)
✔ E - Character E (Eileen Lydon)
✔ L - Character L (Lydon, Eileen)
✔ R - Author R (Rooney, Sally)
✔ S - Author S (Sally Rooney)

Sonia wrote: "Info for next round:

ROUND 2 : from 21 Nov to 28 Nov
Spell out Phrase: RAZORBLADE TEARS
Colour: PINK
Shelf/Tag: Mythology (min 10 tags)"

On a side note, if anyone has not read Razorblade Tears, consider this as my earnest request to please read it. It is a powerful story (with a lot of trigger warnings!), worth reading!

COMPLETION POST
Week #1

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet | Becky Chambers | 17Nov2022
Wayfarers #1

Pages: 518
Cover Color: No
Tag: Space Opera (723 users)

Spell-out
✔ A - Character A (Ashby Santoso)
✔ L - Title L
✔ O - Character O (Ohan)
✔ R - Character R (Rosemary Harper)
✔ S - Character S (Santoso, Ashby)

What is funny is that in the "Rules" for the Awards, it says the for eligibility in the first round, "Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher at the time of launch. "

At the time of launch? So that explains all the 5-stars a book gets BEFORE it is officially published! Hmmm!

Let's gooooooooooooooooooo! :D

Make that 30!!!

*breathes heavily*
*starts dancing in excitement*

AAAAAAHHHH! Can't wait! :D

Yoohoo! :D

I'm Apoorv and I'm excited!
Wheelathon is bae and I love doing this every time it comes around - this year looks like an adrenaline rush of 5 weeks (which coincided perfectly with a mad rush at work, so yaay me :/ :P). But, we have such an awesome team assembled here and Sonia and Lisa are absolute masterful captains, so we are in super safe hands. I'll be around to answer all the easy questions, of course! :P

I currently live in Boston, Massachusetts in The United States and I try and read across genres but specifically queer-themed literature along with Thrillers, Horror, Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction always make me take notice.

Space Opera is going to be an interest genre to delve into - so the search for finding the best book in the genre commences! Best part of this challenge! Apart from being in the same team as all of you, of course! :P

I can't wait to get started. As I mentioned, work is going to kick my butt, but I know this challenge and this team will keep me going - so thank you in advance and let's gooooooo! :D

What an eventful three months this has been!
We read 656 books and raked up 28962 points. Those are huge numbers, if you ask me! Thank you to every single one of you for being such outstanding team players, for always bringing in the enthusiasm, and the will be read beyond your comfort zones at times. Appreciate it all.

I am sure in the aisles of GoodReads, we will bump into each other fairly often - but thank you for making the last three months a joy! I am taking home waaaay too many book recommendations based on all your reads. :P

Just a little over 3 hours to go for the end of the challenge.
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

If you have any last minute books that you complete, between now and then - please mark them on the spreadsheet so we can capture those points. We are very close to the teams before and after us and may easily bump the one on top.

Excellent job so far!

Both the tragedy and comedy stories are concocted. LOL!
Let me know if they make any sense whatsoever - I totally had fun with it. :P

Jhmingos wrote: "Do we still get points for any book titles that are under Thalia and
Melpomene even if they are not used in the actual stories? Since there are a lot of spots left for those sections, we can still..."

I am working on creating stories out of the pending titles, hence those slots are empty. Will start putting books in as the titles gets used.

We have a lot of unused books, so hopefully some story can be concocted. :)

We are in the very last stretch of the competition! Exciiiiting!
Here is the countdown: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

LaurLa wrote: "My last finished book isn't worth many points and I know we're getting close to the end and have to think about the Challenge Cap - Are we getting close? Should I only think about posting books now..."

We are doing fine with the Challenge Gap. I would suggest posting whatever books you have read and if we do overshoot where it starts affecting our score, we can always select the bigger books so we cash in more points.

Diane ~Firefly~ wrote: "Captains - I'm starting a book 9 in series that will work for Urania if you change ordering and have the first group go through 9 and the second through 7."

Awesome! Moved things around - we now have a series of 9 and a series of 7!

Team Helen - Discussion Questions
DQs Day 3

10) What did you think of Pasiphae’s response to the death of her son, the Minotaur?
I think it made absolute sense given how inexorably shackled she was emotionally up until that point. She may sob over the death of her child, but she wept over the all that happened to her to get to that point - it seemed like an amalgamation of all her emotions, mistakes, victories, pains that broke it over all those years. Kinda glad she got that moment.

11) Dionysus makes quite the entrance, doesn’t he? What are your thoughts on him and the interaction between him and Ariadne?
He certainly did and in my interpretative visions he definitely seemed to be quite the "Greek God" :P
Ariadne, on the other hand, is at that stage where after just doesn't trust anyone - so her guarded attitude does make sense even when it is a little sad.

12) Phaedra comes into her own in Athens. What do you think of her in her new life?
I do think her calculatedness is a perfect foil to Ariadne's naivete - so maybe she would sustain Theseus' dounchey behaviour in a much better way and manage to make her mark in Athens - though it probably won't be as easy as it may seam and something will give before it takes a turn for the better (if it ever does, no idea about her future from the myths).

13) We see many examples of the gods playing with mortals in this story; Pasiphae with the bull. King Midas and his golden touch, Hera causing Semele to burn. what do you think it would be like to live in a world where gods existed and interacted with humans?
As an agnostic person, my opinions on this might not hold too much water. But, it would be interesting none the less to see how someone with a slightly elevated sense of power can work with mere mortals who would care about getting their daily bread and butter, especially if the Gods are not going to make surviving any better than it is presently.

14) Do you think the sisters will find out the truth about one another? If so, any predictions on what will happen?
I do hope that they do because it did seem like they missed each others' presence, and Athens seems to be the right place for that interaction as they see Theseus go down.