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

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

For Tree we still need:

-- Title "Now": I've got "The Way Home Looks Now" on my TBR list. Shall I start that?

--Skull & Crossbones: I know we have many murder mysteries in the banked books -- grab one with a high body count and put it in!

-- Leafy Seadragons -- books involving fishing? underwater? sushi? Fathers raising children like sea horses?

-- 8th in the series: Anyone? Ready for the next Mary Russell, Moonlight?

Sheila, we've got Tree Grows in Brooklyn banked, so if That Darkness fits anywhere else we can do both. I don't remember Tree Grows well enough to find anywhere else to put it.

And remember if your banked book is a high pointer (300+ pages) put it in even if it doesn't fit the pattern. In the last week we want to make sure we don't leave points on the table. In the spreadsheet. Whatever the appropriate wobble idiom is.

How do you see previous BOM's, Carmen?

I'm looking at our official spreadsheet to find unused books:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/....

Does anybody have a nice long murder mystery for Skull & Crossbones?

I'm looking through unused books for ones with high page counts :-)

Books with a lot of death should also work for Skull & Crossbones, right?

Sure. I also found Moonlight's Mayhem, where the killer collects the heads of his victims. I thought that would work since he's collecting the eyes.

If someone wants the sailboat slot my book would also work in the knife slot (victim has her throat slit) or in the Earth slot since it takes place in space where the earth looks like that.

If your book is 300+ pages then definitely move mine out, since mine is only 200+ pages.

Sheila wrote: "I think we used the feed the shark already"

Oh right, I forgot. Good catch!

The Giver and Gathering Blue show up on the NBRC's bookshelf. Does that mean they were BOM's?

Eyeballs is a bowl of fake eyeballs, they look kinda like golf balls with decorations. I thought they were olives at first. So a book with people under surveillance (eyes on them) or a book with a grisly dismemberment? Or a book where somebody collects things, especially unusual things?

The bottom right is an animal from the team names: Markhor. From wikipedia: The markhor is a large species of wild goat that is found in northeastern Afghanistan, northern and central Pakistan, Kashmir State in northern India, southern Tajikistan, southern Uzbekistan and in the Himalayas. So a book with a goat, a book from that area, a book with antlers?

Our bonuses:
Airplane Change one square to a "free" square where you can read any book

Railroad Tracks Replace one of your squares with another square on the board. (Request via Mod)

Field Goal Add an additional power square to your board, Must be a new board (Request via Mod) (Argh -- we should do this now so we get it on the next square, unless we can get it on this one since we haven't touched it yet)

Love Letter Increase all undiscovered x2 powersquares to x3 power squares (Request via Mod) (We should do this now too)

Lucky 7 Pre-Feed the Bingoshark on your current board (Request via Mod)

We don't (yet) have:
Pyramid Use a book from the Travel Agent Account
Tree Request a new card (Request via Mod)

I colored in Tree and Pyramid on the sheet so we can see if we can get either one from either banked books or books finished today.

Pyramid bonus is "Use Travel Agent Book" and I have no idea what that is. Remember we have bonuses to use -- both these and the ones from the last challenge.

If you have any books 500+ pages or more, fit them in even if they aren't in the pattern. Maybe also 300+ books? We don't want to lose those. Also, if we try to fit lots of stuff in, I suggest we put in to use our "Increase power squares to 3X" because we definitely want to hit with that!

Nancy, would it work for the clock? Is Grace racing against time? I'm thinking Tree or pyramid for this one.

Woot -- double points for Outlander!

Sallie's Tripwire is about an ex-cop (Jack Reacher), and he's trying to stop a killer. I think that's perfect for the STOP square, and it's 500+ pages !

Miranda's Desires of the Dead would also work for the hot dog square. It's about a girl who can see dead people -- she sees murdered people and can tell how they died and who did it.

Quick -- everyone look at your banked books and see if you have anything that fits STOP!

My book, In the Black, at 244 pages, has a space cop as a main character. He doesn't do traffic, but he does stop crime. Is that good enough? Anyone got anything better?

It's a risk. With more banked books and a little luck, we can probably do two more patterns (maybe three, using the bonuses), but we run the risk of wasted books that we can't use.

If we use them now, it will mean that we lock in at least some points, but may not be able to get as many patterns.

It's a risk -- if we get bad luck on the squares, we may end up with a lot of left over books and not even be able to finish the patterns. But if we get lucky on the squares, then we get more patterns and the extra points that goes with it.

So, do we feel lucky? Or do we want to make sure we get credit for all our reading no matter what the bingo odds give us?

Maybe put in anything over 500 pages that can fit on this square, but save anything smaller for the next pattern. Then next pattern put in anything over 300 pages but save any small books for a try at a last pattern. So that's a third option between going big or playing it safe.

Six days -- we can do at least one more!

Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs
Paperback: 450 pages
Finished: 9/3/16
Rating: 4 stars

Shadows