Moderators of NBRC’s Comments (group member since Jan 22, 2011)

Moderators of NBRC’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Come relax, have a drink and chat with fellow travelers before our journey begins!

The challenge starts on 17 May 2025, 9am UTC.

Only books STARTED after the challenge begins can count.

Countdown is here:
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Time in main cities FYI:
Saturday 17 May
San Francisco 2am
New York 5am
London 10am
Brussels 11am
Mumbai 2.30pm
Tokyo 6pm
Sydney 7pm
Check other cities here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc...

◈ We need people to volunteer to be Team Captain(s) whose duties include:

- Keeping a Google Spreadsheet that all members can view (we will provide you with a template)
- checking team members books read and page counts
- communicating with a NBRC Moderator
- communicating with all Team Members
- making sure Team Members are staying active
- notifying the NBRC Mod if someone drops out
- have effective and kind (this is a game, remember) on-line communication skills to help members having trouble
- making sure Team Members belong on your team
- posting weekly status updates/reminders
- dealing with minor issues that arise
- post little challenges within challenges, if desired.

    You may rotate/share these duties. We would suggest you have at least one Co-Captain.
    You may have as many Captains and Co-Captains as you like.

◈ Captains and Co-captains will need to have access to Goodreads daily and be posting to the team thread and updating the team spreadsheet at least every 2 days.

◈ Please let us know, when you make a request to sign-up, if you are interesting in being a Team Captain.




Challenge requirements

IMPORTANT: To be a part of this challenge you need to be able to:
◈ Read at least one book per WEEK
◈ Create a special shelf for the challenge for the books you are reading (for ease of captains' lives)
◈ Check-in on your team's discussion thread at least once per week
◈ Have fun!

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

To join, we are using a Google Form to collect the below data.
Follow this link to complete the form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...

★Name
★Goodreads User ID Information (see under spoiler for how to find this)
(view spoiler)[ To find your Goodreads User ID, click on your name (or go to your profile page). In the URL bar you will see something like https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5.... In this example, your User Name is 5674827-kelly) (hide spoiler)]
★Approximate number of books read per MONTH! Be accurate - look at your Goodreads stats to work it out!)
★Your continent (so we can try and match time zones)
★Your shelf name (for books read during the challenge)
★How often you'll be checking in on the team thread (note that you are required to check-in at least ONCE a week
★If you are willing to be a team captain or co-captain (note that you are required to be active on your team thread)

Individual Reading Caps
There has been some grumbling in recent team challenges about how many books people read in a given month. The moderators believe people are honest and would not misrepresent themselves. That being said, we do endeavour to create balanced teams to keep the challenge fun and fair for all participants whether they are a book a day or a book a month reader.

While a person's individual reading may differ from their sign up in either direction, drastically different reading can throw off the balance. The mods are trying out a different type of reading cap for this game. Each player will be capped at 5 additional books over their sign up number. Books per month will be capped at 60 books, including for the 5 book overage. Meaning if you sign up with 57 books per month your cap will still be 60. Note we are not accepting ranges for sign ups, please pick a single whole number when filling out the form.

Books read by team members over their cap can be kept in reserve in case of players ghosting. To use any of these however, a discussion needs to be had with the NBRC Mods about the number of reserved books that can be used in a given month.

◈ Those people who want to keep their Profiles Private, must be willing to "Friend"
    their Team Captain(s), the NBRC Mod account, or one of the Moderators, to allow
    page count verification and to assist you if you are having difficulty with your
    bookshelves.

◈ Teams will be similar in size to other Tower Teams or Wheelathon challenges. We haven't decided on the exact number, as we are going by books read, but we are shooting for 10-20 members.

◈ Books must be started after the start date of the challenge to count towards the challenge

◈ Books must be />100 pages. NOTE: This number is lower than our other team challenges!
    For page number questions, please check with your captain who can ask in the Captains group for verification.

◈ Audio books are allowed. (For page numbers, use the "default" GR book page numbers. If the "default" is a Large Print version, use the next most popular edition for page numbers.
If there is no print / ebook, then the audio book must be longer than 3 hours, and page numbers will be set at 100 pages, no matter how long the audio is)

◈ Books with MPGs Childrens / Kids / Poetry / Play / Graphic Novel / Illustrated / Photography / Art / Cookbook / Guidebook (or which have "Illustrated" in the title or an "Illustrator" contributor in the metadata) must have at least 30,000 words (must be a verified count. sites that provide estimated word counts are not valid sources for verifying word count). ArBookFind is a great site to double check (there are also .co.uk and .com.au versions). If in doubt, ask your captain. A good rule of thumb is that if the audio is over 3 hours, the book will be long enough.

◈ Anything with the word" boxed set" in the title on Goodreads can not be used as "one book". They need to be shelved as separate books to count for this challenge.

◈ Any book in any language will count, as long as it meets the criteria.

◈ Spell-it-Out Rules: Use the first letter in the book’s title, series name, author’s first/last name, character’s first/last name, narrator’s first/last name (if listening to an audiobook), or translator’s first/last name (if reading a translation). You may ignore (or not) “A,” “An,” or “The” at the start of titles.

◈ "Re-reads" will be allowed, if it has been six months since you have read the book. This includes listening to the audio version, if you've already read the book.

◈ This challenge involves adding a special bookshelf to your personal
    GRs bookshelves other than "read." You may choose a preexisting one.

◈ Please wait to be told to which Team you are assigned. It might take awhile; however,
    you will be able to count the books you have started from the START date of the challenge.

◈ Once you actually join, please check-in with your team discussion thread by posting the name of your bookshelf.
    Remember to add a HYPHEN between words for your bookshelf.

◈ Helpful Tip: Knowing about Sticky Shelves may help you put your assigned
    bookshelf near the top of your dropdown box.

◈ With MOBILE DEVICES there have been major problems when trying to
    add books. If that is all you have to access the Internet, or you don't know how to Cut & Paste
    on it, then this challenge probably is NOT the right fit for you.

◈ Discussion threads will be in the regular NBRC group. (No secret groups allowed)

◈ You do NOT have to join the discussion, if you don't want to; communicating via posting a book is good enough. Nevertheless, Your Team wants to know if you are still participating. We understand Real Life gets in the way. However, please plan to "check-in" in some manner at least once every week. If we don't hear from you for two weeks, you may be replaced with another team member

◈ For reading books
◈ Books less than 100 pages = 0 points
◈ Books between 100 and 1000 pages = 0.1 points/page
◈ Books over 1000 pages = 100 points

◈ Points will be rounded up/down from 0.5 as per standard maths
◈ For audio only books, the page count will be set as 100, no matter how long the audio is.


◈ For current BOM (Book of the Month) discussions
Writing a day's worth of discussion questions = 40 points
Participating in a current BOM (participating in discussion) = 20 points

NOTE: We will accept one team member per book per team for writing a days DQs. If, by three days prior to the BOM starting, we don't have enough volunteers to write all DQs, then we will let more than one team member per team write questions. If we have more people than days sign up (prior to 3 days before start date) we will randomise the volunteers to determine those who can write DQs.

Remember that you can collect your participation points from previous BOM (from January 2022) for an extra entry in the randomiser, on a basis of 3 participation points to 1 extra entry. Your team will be allowed a maximum of 6 entries for each BOM.

Restrictions:
- you must link posts to your participation if you want to claim them
- only one set of writing DQs will be allocated to each team (unless there aren't enough volunteers)
- must be from the main group, Backroom BOM participation doesn't count
- you must finish the book after the start of Tower Teams, and within one month of the BOM starting

Example:
The first challenge BOM is the June 2022 Adult BOM.

Cat participated in the January and February, plus the May Themed BOMs (5 participation points in total). She can therefore claim ONE extra entry for the June Adult, and still has two participation points. She participates in the June Adult, and thus gains an additional participation point (to a total of three). She can turn these three in for an extra entry in the June Themed BOM. She now has no participation points remaining.

Team Mods have three volunteers for the June Adult BOM: Cat (could claim two entries), Judith (could claim three entries) and Sophie (could claim two entries). They are only permitted a maximum of 6 entries, and so Judith only turns in enough participation points to claim two entries. Judith still has participation points to claim another entry in the June Themed BOM.

Note: We are starting the May 2025 Themed BOM on May 18th (2 days later than normal) allowing for its inclusion in Tower Teams.

                        

What are Tower Teams?
Essentially it is small groups of members in a team who read and discuss books, record them for "points" in order to compete against other teams.
It doesn't matter if your yearly goal is to read five (5) books, fifty (50) books or five-hundred (500) books. Anyone can join! We balance the Tower Teams Reading Challenge by Total Books read.



To celebrate Tower Teams XI we are going to take a trip around the world to go with the general theme of the group in 2025!

It is no secret that a lot of people like to travel, the more remote and exotic, the better! Others prefer remaining closer to home in a cosier, maybe less adventurous environment. There are so many ways of travelling and so many places to explore that it will be difficult to fit everything in. Yet, NBRC is going to try to take you on some crazy itineraries around the world, travelling via the wonderful world of books into unknown lands and beyond.

IMPORTANT
This is NOT a read-a-thon and WILL go for a weeks, so please only sign-up if you are a consistent Goodreads user and are willing to discuss books with your team mates over a period of a few months. Unlike our other team challenges, the Tower Teams Challenge is a marathon, not a sprint!

Goal: Read! Read! Read!

When: Starts Saturday 17 May, 9am UTC time and goes for 3 months, ending on Sunday 17 August, 9am UTC.

How: We will take all the people who sign-up and divide them equally - by book goal - into teams, taking into account the number of books they read per week.

Challenge requirements
To be a part of this challenge you need to be able to:

◈ Create a special shelf for the challenge for the books you are reading

◈ Check-in on your team's discussion thread at least once per week

◈ Have fun!

Breakdown posted!

Feel free to horse-trade days

r

Challenge has been refreshed here

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

r

This challenge was originally created by Lisarenee and the prior challenge thread is here

Monthly Challenges ~ Spessartite Coin

To Earn a Spessartite Coin:
One Coin upon reaching "Teatotaler" level.

Learn about Gem coins here

Exactly who discovered Tea is unknown, but "according to legend, tea was first discovered by the Chinese emperor and inventor Shennong in 2737 BCE. It is said that the emperor liked his drinking water boiled before he drank it so it would be clean, so that is what his servants did. One day, on a trip to a distant region, he and his army stopped to rest. A servant began boiling water for him to drink, and a dead leaf from the wild tea bush fell into the water. It turned a brownish color, but it was unnoticed and presented to the emperor anyway. The emperor drank it and found it very refreshing, and cha (tea) came into being."**

What is known, is that tea was discovered, or at least how to create the beverage which is now so widely loved around the world, in China. It wasn't introduced to the West until about 400 years ago. Since its humble beginnings, tea has had a huge impact on prominent modern day life and societies throughout the world. With unique ceremonies becoming part of the culture of some of the modern societies in the world. Tea even has its own social etiquettes regarding its preparation and consumption. There are even specific customs associated with how, when, and where to drink it.

The term High Tea is frequently used incorrectly (especially in the US) to refer to afternoon tea because it sounds royal and regal. High tea tends to be on the heavier side and is also referred to as 'meat tea' because it is served at dinner time and usually involved some form of meat. "Traditionally, high tea was a working class meal served on a high table at the end of the workday, shortly after five PM. It was a heavy meal of meat dishes (such as steak and kidney pie), fish dishes (such as pickled salmon), baked goods (such as crumpets or, in Ireland, barm brack), vegetables (such as potatoes or onion cakes), and other heavy foods (such as baked beans and cheesy casseroles)." Many hotels and tea rooms in the United States mistakenly offer only finger sandwiches and light desserts such as cookies, cakes and pastries on fine china when they say they offer 'high tea'.

Afternoon tea, also known as 'low tea,' is what most Americans think of when they hear the term 'high tea.' "It is typically served in the mid-afternoon and it was traditionally served on low tables, hence its two names."* Afternoon tea typically includes an assortment of pastries and cake served on tables set with fancy linen and lace tablecloths and served on fine china.

"Legend has it that afternoon tea was started in the mid-1800s by the Duchess of Bedford. Around this time, kerosene lamps were introduced in wealthier homes, and eating a late dinner (around eight or nine PM) became fashionable. At the time, there were only two meals each day -- a mid-morning, breakfast-like meal and the other was an increasingly late dinner-like meal.

The story goes that the Duchess found herself with a "sinking feeling" (likely fatigue from hunger during the long wait between meals) and decided to have some friends over for assorted snacks and tea (a very fashionable drink at the time). The idea of an afternoon tea gathering spread across high society and became a favorite pastime of ladies of leisure. Later, it spread beyond the highest echelons of society and became more accessible for some other socioeconomic groups."*

Some more reading:
https://www.thespruceeats.com/high-te...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea
https://whatscookingamerica.net/histo...



Tea Challenge
Duration:
The Month of May.

Levels of Play:
Spot of Tea - Read 1 - 8 books
Cup of Tea - Read 9 - 16 books
Pot of Tea - Read 17 - 24 books
Teatotaler - Read 25 or more books

How to Play:
Option 1:
Read books that:
- Have a cup or tray of tea, a tea or garden party, etc displayed on the cover.
- Are set in country or city with high tea consumption or history that has to do with tea such as China, Japan, England, Boston, etc.
- Have the words tea, high, low in the title or series name

Option 2:
Do one of our classic spell-it-out challenges using one of the below tea names or the name of a traditional food item that would be served at high or low tea.

Option 3:
Combine option 1 and 2 together!

Different kinds of tea:
Earl Gray
Oolong
Herbal
Jasmine
Peppermint
Green
Black
White
Yellow
Rooibos
Mate
Blooming
Lemon and Ginger
Honeybush
Spearmint
Chamomile
Assam
Nilgiri
Oolong
masala
badam
Keemun
Yunnan
Genmaicha
Pu-erh
Chai

Re-reads allowed (If it has been more than 6-months since you last read it)
No Minimum pages

(*) **Spell-it-Out Rules**
Use the first letter in the book’s title, series name, author’s first/last name, character’s name, narrator’s name, or translator’s name (if reading a translation). Ignore “A,” “An,” or “The” at the start of titles.

March Update

Name	% Progress to goal
Gabby	76%
Toni	70%
Sammy	53%
Carmen	47%
Jessica 45%
Charlie	43%
Melindam42%
Cindy	42%
Cheryl	37%
KelB	37%
MelanieJoy 37%
Elena	34%
Marty	33%
The other Sandy	33%
Wendy	33%
Cordelia32%
Keely	32%
Cat	32%
Jim	30%
Karen ⊰✿30%
Trisha	30%
Angie ☯29%
Elizabeth28%
Janis	27%
Karen ♐26%
Lexi	26%
Vicki Willis26%
Linda C	25%
Marla	25%
Sophie (mod)	25%
Jenny	24%

+++++++++++++++++++
Yasmine	23%
Melanie	23%
Patty	22%
Chrissie20%
Rocsana	20%
Sophie	20%
Jenner	18%
Jillypenny15%
Eldarwen13%
Judy	12%
Annalisa10%
Sonja	10%
Roe	8%
Jamie	6%
✿Danielle✿5%
Christina4%
Denise	3%
Jenn 	3%
Gwen|| Bookish Blondie	1%

Book 5 thread is now open with a nominal start date of 14 April
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

r

r

Catching up?

Book 1 discussion thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Book 2 discussion thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Book 2.5 discussion thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Book 3 Discussion thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Book 3.5 Discussion thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Book 4 Discussion thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

This thread is open to discuss Wind and Truthby Brandon Sanderson.



The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive―the iconic epic fantasy masterpiece that has sold more than 10 million copies, from acclaimed bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare―and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.

Desperate fighting continues simultaneously worldwide―Adolin in Azimir, Sigzil and Venli at the Shattered Plains, and Jasnah at Thaylen City. The former assassin, Szeth, must cleanse his homeland of Shinovar from the dark influence of the Unmade. He is accompanied by Kaladin, who faces a new battle helping Szeth fight his own demons . . . and who must do the same for the insane Herald of the Almighty, Ishar.

At the same time, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain work to unravel the mystery behind the Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and her involvement in the enslavement of the singer race and in the ancient Knights Radiants killing their spren. And Dalinar and Navani seek an edge against Odium’s champion that can be found only in the Spiritual Realm, where memory and possibility combine in chaos. The fate of the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.

r