Suzanne’s Comments (group member since Aug 13, 2015)

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

A is fine - I'll move the one on A to something else.

Well done Janine - I swear with the number of books you read (which is amazing) - the amount of "bookkeeping" you have to do is also amazing. We sure appreciate you.

Leslie I had no idea that was possible - what a great discovery!

And Amanda - THANK YOU so very very much for your help! You have made a huge difference!

Here is the countdown timer, for any last minute books. I finished my last two for this round - need to update my shelves & will get them in.

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

Yeah this was a hard word!
Amanda I think that new one works for Orange. In fact, with that one, tineye also pulls the 50% orange, so we don't have to measure (which my math brain gets tempted to do). Ha that would have been a good story problem for my students.

Here's the information about "musicians" for the other bonus:
Read books written by or about musicians. This could be non-fiction about a musician or band; or it could be fiction - in which case the main character(s) should be a professional musician (or aspiring). Someone who plays an instrument for personal pleasure only doesn't count.

Oh boy...color covers. They always make me feel like I should go back to kindergarten because I can't identify colors!

Nanci, I'd agree the first two you listed are plenty orange and the third isn't quite enough.

Just using MY eye, I feel like #1, 8 and 9 look orange to me. #4 and 5 look orange to me too, especially when I look at the bigger covers. Tineye says they are pink, but tineye can be crazy.

For color covers we can just use team consensus and we are supposed to use common sense - i.e. looking at a book and thinking "yes, that cover is mostly orange." So feel free to chime in with opinions and books!

And hooray for needing only 5.

Way to handle the slump Cordelia! Thanks for checking in :)

Yes it looks like next round it'll be bonus points for if the main character or author is a musician (we can do 10 of those) and then 5 orange covers.

I stuck Round 5 in our planning sheet - I think we can rock this last round! I haven't seen an announcement, but per the sheet the bonus task is MC or Author musician. And our cover color is Orange!

Although - let's finish strong with our Vuvuzela for this round!

Oh just logged in - that is good news! Trumpet has WAY easier letters.

Thanks Janine about the "Checking it Twice" heads up :)

Nanci - given it's finished and marked as read and the situation, we can use the book. Thanks! Adding it tonight is fine.

Have a safe trip Nanci!

I'm ALMOST done with my V book listen. Going to try to finish the rest while i put lights on the tree. So far the tree has been winning handily

Ha yeah- I can't wait to see what we get next round - excited and scared here!

Here is our Countdown timer for Round 4 (and the start of Round 5 - the FINAL round):
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Janine - I don't know how in the world you keep track of the challenges! I admire that (and you) tremendously!

I'd say one week into this round, things are going great. Especially given it's a holiday week for many.

Hello my sweet team! I'm feeling quite a lot better - my kidney stone has passed. Now instead of not sleeping, I've slept 10 hours a night for the past few. BUT, I expect to be feeling normal very, very soon. Well as "normal" as I ever am. So - I'm thankful for that.

I'm very thankful for all of you - for your positive attitudes and great teamwork. And I'm so grateful for your kindness to me and just moving forward, even when we had a lot of books not counted (the last day's reads).

The mods saw my note to them and got back to me today - I'm also thankful to them and the large amount of time they put in. They opened the spreadsheet and let me put in those last days books - isn't that awesome!? But I love that we were moving forward with grace, and would have been happy either way.

For those of you in the US - have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Because of the last week, we are just having me and my husband and his sister - and he has done most of the cooking! For those of you not celebrating Thanksgiving, I hope your day is also fantastic :)

Oh and Amanda, they said you should have access to the spreadsheet now and an invite to the captains group :)

DQs Day 3
Chapters 13-19

9. I don't know how I feel about the school basically milking Ray owning a Stradivarius and him having to do an interview without even getting asked to do so. I personally would have preferred to keep it private, at least for a while. What are your thoughts on the situation? I would have preferred to keep it private too - but I suppose I can see the side of the school - the more publicity Ray gets the more potential money/contacts.

10. I can see where Ray's family is coming from wanting to sell the Stradivarius and divide the money, but they never showed any interest in the violin even though it had been in the family for a century, and Ray's grandmother gave Ray the fiddle for Christmas. He had to take care of everything surrounding it and his school/education himself, and he never even had much money to begin with. Would you be selling whatever in your life might turn out be worth this much money, and would you feel like your family was entitled to fair shares? I think I would feel like my family was entitled to shares if it was this situation - but I also 100% see why Ray wants to keep the violin - he has such good reasons!

11. Another family claiming ownership of the violin - it was bound to happen. On one hand I'm surprised they're suing Ray for the Stradivarius since I doubt they can prove the fiddle was stolen in any way, but on the other hand the odds clearly are against Ray. And now his family is suing him for the violin as well?! Who do you think is the rightful owner of the Stradivarius? I do feel like Ray is the rightful owner, but I can see why people feel entitled to it.

12. We've been introduced to a lot of different people (whose names I don't even all remember) and they all (most of them anyway) seem to have different reasons to possibly want to steal Ray's Stradivarius - greed, jealousy, racism,... it's all there. Do you have any more guesses of who's behind it all? I am guessing Nicole, but I have no real reason other than how she kind of showed up and was right there. We'll see!

Side note: I laughed out loud when [don't remember who] described the Tchaikovsky competition as a cross between the Olympics and American idol; what does that even mean?!

DQs Day 2
Chapters 7 - 12

5.His mother and Aunt Joyce had gone to the store - ostensibly because they needed more collard greens, but in reality because one of the biggest family traditions was to keep Aunt Joyce out of the kitchen
Do you have any unusual family traditions, Thanksgiving if it applies, or Christmas, if it's not too early, or any other significant cultural event that revolves around a convoluted family meal?
I certainly have a lot of memories and ideas of "must have" things for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. But lately, I've just tried to enjoy what comes. However, we haven't really done a huge extended family thing in a long time.

6. When Grandma gifts PopPop's fiddle to Ray, his mother's immediate reaction is that he can't keep it and she even scolds her own mother,
Mama .... what are you thinking?
What do you think motivates Ray's mother's resistance to his pursuit of music?
Is it purely because she wants his focus to be on earning money for the family, or does she anticipate the racism and resistance he could face and is trying to protect him from heartbreak?
I think she just feels like his music is a waste of time and won't hear anything to the contrary. She's awful!

7. Ray's meeting with Dr. Janice Stevens seems a pivotal moment, giving him access to the connections that sustain the close-knit classical music world
Do you feel there is a message here that hard work and talent may not be enough to overcome barriers to success, or is Ray's progress and recognition simply a result of his dedication? I suspect talented artists in many areas have never been discovered, no matter how hard they work. It does seem to take connections and lucky breaks, as well as really hard work.

8. So... PopPop's old fiddle might be a Stradivarius, but before the appraisal Rowland offers to buy it for $25,000 dollars. Ray refuses, declaring
I'm not selling it. Ever
What do you think is behind Ray's attachment to the instrument at this point, the rarity of it and the legitimacy it will give him in pursuing his dreams, or the link to his family's history, back to slavery, or something else?
I think it is precious to Ray because his beloved grandmother gave it to him, no matter if it's a valuable instrument or not.