Laura’s Comments (group member since Nov 04, 2015)

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

@Benita - the edition of Murder and Meringue Cake that you have on your shelves is only 90 pages. I see that you put 160 pages, which is the paperback length on the spreadsheet. If that's the edition you read, can you please change it on your shelf?

Can you also add a read date to The Boot of Destiny?

And to Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald?

And to The Friend's Book of Lists? A date, and put it on your Tower shelf.

And 1 more - Dating is Us. Need date read and added to your Tower shelf.

Thanks!

ETA: The edition of Zelda Fitzgerald that you have on your Tower shelf does not have a read date, but I see that you have another edition on your read shelf that does have a read date. Can you put the one with a read date on your Tower shelf, or add a read date to the edition that is already there.

If anyone is searching for a book for the DEATH/Grim Reaper task, I read Croak a few years ago and enjoyed it. If no one else has anything, I'll read the second book in the series after I finish the book for the square.

Keely wrote: "This is good for me. I am hoping to get Tess done really soon. It's looking like the latest will be late on the 1st, possibly just into the 2nd (depending on where you are in the world). but if thi..."

Sounds wonderful! Have fun!

Tammie wrote: "Laura wrote: "Keely wrote: "I forgot the rules about audiobooks. I've listed Whisked Away at Christmas as a potential for book with a baker (or possibly any other task where food is..."

3 hours is the minimum.

It's included with my Audible membership, so I'm grabbing it for when we get the Winter holiday tasks.

Keely wrote: "I forgot the rules about audiobooks. I've listed Whisked Away at Christmas as a potential for book with a baker (or possibly any other task where food is mentioned in the text), but..."

I think if there is only audio editions of a book, it's put in for 100 pages, no matter the length. Let me check really quick.

Yes, from Post #2 in the All About Tower Teams X thread:

◈ For audio only books, the page count will be set as 100, no matter how long the audio is.

Or we could go:

The Man I Never Met
E
S
S

L
E
Seven Faceless Saints

And Lory's The Seven Sisters for the right side.

If we use Lory's The Seven Sisters instead of Two Old Broads:

The Seven SisterS
E
S
S

L
E
Silver in the Bone

And then, if no one else has a book that starts with S and ends with E, I can read Strong as a Horse. I can have both books nearly finished before the start of the month.

Keely wrote: "I'm probably going to fall behind on that BOM as I'm going to be working on finishing books I've already started.

I just finished the book for our China task.

And I added a few books onto the p..."

Are you still planning to read Red Sister? If not, we've got a few C titles we could substitute into the Winner's Tower.

Chales wrote: "Hey everyone. Last week we had a very sudden, shocking death in the family and it still has me reeling. I've enjoyed my time with this challenge but I think I need to step back right now. I finishe..."

I'm so sorry to hear that. Of course you need to take time to heal. Real life always comes before reading challenges! My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Tammie wrote: ".
.
TWO OLD BROADS
E
S
S

L
E
S

Several options with Laura
Silver and Bone...need start with S, end with E
Some Desperate Glory...need start with S, end with Y
Seven Faceless Saints...need Start ..."

I have Strong as a Horse in my KU that I need to read, if no one has anything else.

I need to catch up on my special editions reading. So I (hopefully) plan to read the following next month. Tammie, plug any of them into a square.

Seven Faceless Saints
Threads That Bind
Lies We Sing to the Sea
Midnight Strikes
Revelle
Witch King
Divine Rivals
Some Desperate Glory
The Curse of Saints
City of Nightmares
The Buried and the Bound
Silver in the Bone
Good Deeds

I was assuming top. Or bottom. I think I look at the squares differently than everybody else. I had the hardest time with them before.

The sides of the square each read top to bottom, so for Tammie’s book above, we either need a book that starts with a D and one that starts with an E, or, if we put the book on the bottom, we need books with titles that end with a D and end with an E.

Books for this mini have to be finished on/after July 1, so Big Little Lies will just go to the spell-out.

Here's our first tasks:

1. Tower Teams 3: Save Christmas
Read 4 books with title start and end letters that connect to make a square (well, quadrilateral)

2. Tower Teams 6: Quidditch
Read a book with the letters SEEKER in the title and/or author name
Read a book with the letters KEEPER in the title and/or author name
Read a book with the letters BEATER in the title and/or author name
Read a book with the letters CHASER in the title and/or author name

3. Tower Teams 8: Discworld Tasks
Read a book featuring a witch or wizard
Read a book with MPG Crime
Read a book with the letters MOIST in the title
Read a book featuring DEATH or the Grim Reaper or equivalent

Q&A so far:

Q: does it have to be four different winter seasonal holidays?
A: No

Q: Is Thanksgiving really winter?
A: It's in November, which is the month when people start legit asking about winter plans etc etc and driving me potty about Christmas, so I've included it. Hallowe'en and Bonfire/Guy Fawkes night are not winter holidays. Let's say, if it the holiday is between 15 Nov and 15 Feb it counts as winter. don't @me!

Q: Location / setting / cover tasks - is the minimum requirement 50% as per normal
A: Yup! Also, I'm totally fine with Murder on the Orient Express counting - yes, the train doesn't move, but they're on the train...

Q: Seals: can we use other pinnipeds [every day's a learning day, thanks Lexi!] or only seals?
A: Following consultation with our resident zoologist, yes, we'll accept walrus, sea lions, fur seals and true seals as none of us have the bandwidth to be pedantic about this. long live the fun!

Q: For word in text, does it have to be in context (e.g. "she looks like a chipmunk when she eats" isn't an actual animal sighting)?
A: Just the word is fine. Word does have to match, plurals and possessives allowed ("the zebra's knees" and "platypuses" ("platypii"?) both work)

Q: Whose winter? Northern or Southern hemisphere?
A: See above. I've arbitrarily imposed British Empire colonial rules here. sorrynotsorry

Q: But really, is Thanksgiving winter?
A: It is for the purposes of this challenge! Also: don't @me about this!

Q: Are verb conjugations OK (e.g "he speared her with his throbbing weapon")?
A: No. But if the word is used as specified then you can use it (e.g. "are you going to spear me with that terrifying member? she quavered" is fine) [note: no, I have no shame about the absolutely horrible writing of the examples. enjoy!]

Q: Maths?! in a reading challenge? What is this adding page numbers task all about?
A: Simplicity, do not worry! Take your page count for a book - let's say it's 216 pages long. Add the digits together (2 + 1 + 6), and that gives you your page count sum (9 in this instance). You just do one round of addition, even if you end with a two digit number.
For this particular task, with the target of 5, page counts that work will include 140 pages, 302 pages, 500 pages (there are others too, but I've not the time or inclination to be exhaustive)

Wheel of Time-Traveling Tasks



We have a new mini-challenge!

I know it looks intimidating, but the main thing to keep in mind is that as long as every book has a spot in a mini-challenge, we are maximizing our points! The spell-out gives us a bonus for each word completed, so books are worth only slightly more in here than in there.

As with the Chipmunk mini, books used for this mini must be marked as Free Choice and don't count toward our page towers.

That being said, we still want to have the mini-challenge fun! We just don't want to stress about the tasks. Our stellar performance to date has placed us in the first group, so no banking books. All books used for a mini task must be finished after that mini task is assigned to us. So, when we get a new task, let us know what you're currently reading. If it's one of the crazy co-ordinating tasks (ladders, squares, pairs), we'll be able to see what we have to work with. If it's the slightly more reasonable tasks, we'll be able to see what we have that works, and what we need to search for.

I want to stress that we don't want to stress about these tasks! They're fun, but we have 250-ish more spots available in the spell-out, so we will be able to use every book somewhere!

@Benita - can you please add a read date to The Ladies Man? Thanks!

Some years it’s a struggle being an Angels fan. No team can throw away a lead the way my Angels can!

Team Ti!

As Tammie said earlier, we are currently #1. All captains are suppose to have the spreadsheets updated by the end of the weekend, so we'll see what happens with that.

Challenge Status Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...


June update:

For the Page Towers, we need to complete one more 400-499, one more 500-599, and one more 600+ book.

For the Minis:
Mod Tower - two more to be read - Vian & Benita
Winners Tower - three more to be read - Keely, Laura, Benita
Crayola Tower - three more to be read - Tammie, Meghna, Dawn
Chipmunk - five more - Chales, Rachel, Stacey, Lindsay, Talent Competition (Lory's Geekerella?)

Team Towers is ongoing. We have completed 47 of 304 letters, with 1 word also being completed!

Rainbow Towers is ongoing. We have completed the 18 book Rainbow for the extra bonus points, as well as 15 Rainbows of 10 books each! We can continue to do rainbows, but the spell-out gives us a bonus for each completed word, so we only want to put a book in a rainbow if it doesn't work for the spell-out.