Beth’s Comments (group member since Aug 12, 2014)

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

OK, so we can make a ladder if anyone reads a book with a page count that ends in 3 or starts with 6!

OK, the spreadsheet is updated -- We are GO for Safe Zone!

I think the next objective is to spell out ACID (Safe Zone Group 1). I've got a book read by another team for A. It also works for I but Maritza had something in mind for that -- do you still have that book?

We still need C and D, and ideally we'd finish these in the next three days.

Then we can spell out other words from the countdown. We can start reading books for this now, but we can't FINISH them until after we spell out ACID. Any ideas for what words to go for?

Meanwhile if you finish books >250 pages you can try to fit them into a ladder on the REGENERATION page.

We can't use it for the usual stuff, but if it has more than 250 pages we could try to make a ladder of books to win back some of the points we lost in Round 1. We need a chain of books where the pages numbers match up, like:

354 pages ==> 455 pp ==> 542 pp ==>> 247 pp .

So far we have:
Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files 433 pp ==> Our Kind of Traitor: 306 pp

So if your book's page count ends with 4 we could add it at the front, and if it had six hundred pages we could add it at the back.

Assuming that the links are to the correct edition of the book, we have these pages counts. If you've read other books besides the ones for this challenge that fit (in that you started and finished them in Round 2) we can add them.

Side Jobs: 433
Our Kind of Traitor : 306

Voices of the Fall: 336
Last Scene Alive: 256

This is not very ladder-like -- everything ends in 6!

Last Chance
The Desperate Mission
The Little Prince
Texas
The Durango Affair
My Sister the Serial Killer


(Books have to be at least 250 pages for a ladder rung)

Wait, I can stop panicking. The Countdown for acid burns has been announced, and we have until Wednesday:

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Chafic, I did finish my book club book, so if you want to swap tasks you still can, but I'm not all frazzled about it! Sorry.

So do we want to try to get some points using Regeneration? Does anyone participate in BOM discussions? Should we look at our page numbers to see if we can build a ladder?

Yeah, so if Chafic can finish any of the ten books he can swap himself in for that spot. This week the rest of us have it covered. If It is dragging (and I remember that I thought the middle went in circles for a bit) he can swap out for something short.

The 1001 list has some short books and some kids books that would be a super fast read! I saw:

There are some short books on the 1001 list!
- The Pit and the Pendulum (about 100 pages)
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (about 100 pages and illustrated)
- Call of the Wild
- Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Agatha Christie mystery, which are fast)
- Little Prince (short and also good)
- Thank You Jeeves
- Pippi Longstocking (short kids book)
- Animal Farm
- Thirteen Clocks.
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a fast read if you like Douglas Adams)

Chafic -- are you going to be able to finish your book? If not, can you swap out for something else that you can finish before the deadline on Sunday? There are some short books in the 1001 Books option; that one doesn't have a minimum page count or anything.

Do we need to have something from each team member in the countdown? I have a book club book that I will finish tomorrow that is 433 pages. If I haven't heard back from Chafic by the time I wake up tomorrow (I'm on PST on the American west coast) I could swap that in.

In general for the team I would say that there is no problem if something comes up and we can't read what we planned, but it would be much easier if we can talk about it.

As soon as the ten tasks are done, we can start working on ACID and then other spell it outs. But we can't start reading for them until the Countdown 10 are done, and we can't finish one group ahead of the other.

Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "Isn’t the task to read a book that starts with the letter O? Not the number zero?"

One of the regeneration tasks is to link books together by page count -- Book one has 354 pages, book two has 402 pages. If a book's page count ends with 0 it won't work in the chain.

I'm changing my proposed read for ACID spell it out -- I found that Lavalicious Ladies had read Iron and Magic so I'll grab that for A. It's an Ilona Andrews book so I should be able to read it in a few days. Now all the other letters are completely open!

But I won't start until I hear that the 400+ page book is done.

We are still waiting on the 400+ book. Are we going to do ACID next? Does anyone have a book that is either a BOM or was used by another team? We can't start reading the books until we finish the Countdown but we should be poised.

Looking at it right now, I'd read my next Aurora Teagarden for A, and Maritza has an I ready, but neither of those are BOM picks. We still need a C and a D, and they should be books we'll finish fairly quickly. Then we can start spelling things out.

Finished and updated ss.

No pressure Chafic! :-)

I will finish my Black book tomorrow.

We have the Countdown 10 covered, so let's look to what to read next. Shall we try to spell out ACID? One of the letters has to be a former BOM or something another team used for the challenge.

I'm still on my Aurora Teagarden audio kick so I should be able to cover A.

Ha! I just found The Desperate Mission on my shelves. I got the black book!

It doesn't seem to have any tags, so I guess technically it isn't a children's book. Can you show that it has more than 25000 words? Is the audio book long enough? I think they are supposed to be 3 or maybe 4 hours long.

It looks legit -- I mean, in the letter of the law it isn't tagged as CHILDRENS and in the spirit of the law it looks long enough to qualify anyway.

Does anyone have a shot at a black book? The only one on my shelves is about 500 pages. I'd rather find something else fun and let Chafic's chunkster be the black book.

Finished Canada book.

I guess I was sensitive because it was my book that raised the mod's eyebrows last round. So I went back to reread all the rules so I wouldn't screw up again.

I should finish my C-A-T book soon (an audio). I have a Canadian book that should be quick, and a longer Black Cover so I'm hoping someone else does that one.

Chafic, I'm pretty sure we aren't allowed to start books for Round two until the countdown ended. Are you sure you started your books at the right time?

From the Lava rules:

"Books for each round need to be started AFTER the round begins. So, for example, in round one if you start a book, it is a good idea to find the short words in safezone group 3 you can assign it to before the deadline for round one as you won't be able to use it for round two!"

Finished SF, started Canadian book and updated spreadsheet.

Maritza, is this the book you started for last group's spell it out? In that case we can't use it, sorry! We can only use books started after the switch over to Round 2. And it's too late for all the books we tried to use to spell out FOUR in Round one.

I was confused because there is a task in Round 2 Countdown that is Book Starts With O, but if you started that one on Sunday then it's not eligible there either.