Apoorv ’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2013)

Apoorv ’s comments from the The Perks Of Being A Book Addict group.

WELP! I FINISHED A BOOK.
WHAT DO I DO NOW?

YAAY! Well done, New Beijing-ites!
Now we make sure that we count that book.
Every book is precious and we do not want to miss tracking it.

So, three things:

1. Stop by here and make a quick post about the completed book with as much information you can provide.

Here is an example how:
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Completion Post

Book: This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! |
Author: Jonathan Evison
Pages: 296
Date: 01-Feb-2021
UNO Cards it fits:

0: Standalone
1: Character O - Osier, Terrance
2: Title T
3: Character H - Harriet Chance
4: Character F - Fitsimmons, Charlie
6: Character S - Skip
8: Author E
9: Character N - Nathan, Harriet
Skip: Character K - Kurt Pikins

Cover Color : Blue (73.3%) (https://labs.tineye.com/color/50aeebd...)


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2. Hop over to your profile and make sure you have logged in that book in your respective UNO folder as "read".

This is important because at the end of the month, only books logged into the respective shelves can be counted. And these mods are pesky (shhh!), they like to sneak, I tell you! Oh, you'll see! :P
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3. Take a minute to go to our planning/tracking spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...) and put in the relevant information of your next read.

I mean, we can't stop at 1, or 2, or errm 6!

OMG! I AM SOOOO EXCITED NOW!
I CAN'T WAIT!! LET'S GO ALREADY! :D

I know! I know! Your excitement is palpable. I totally get it! :D
So, let's get started, shall we?

A couple of things:

1. You can read absolutely ANYTHING you want! The only request is you track every little thing that the book offers you! Names, locations - the works!

The best way, of course, is New Beijing Planning/Tracking Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...). You can start filling in information as you come across it in the "February" (and later "March", and "April" folders). The reason for having all that information is that we can then move things around to complete our hands without waiting on someone to finish a certain book.

2. Color Cards: This is a fun one! We can have people claim certain color cards if they want, but irrespective of that, I would request you to note any cover color-related information from your book that would fit the bill.

Always better to have multiple books that may fit multiple options. Again, you don't have to read for a particular color, but you can if you so choose.

I HAVE EYES ON YOU! :P


Well, let's say you have eyes on yourself (I mean, duh!).
(But, I want to tell you that the cap and the co-cap see you. You are seen!
Uff, this is turning into therapy. Eh, well! :P Two at the price of one!)

Team Spreadsheet
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...)

You don't have to worry about this one!
I got this (till I haven't - but then we have an awesome co-cap, so we are totally fiiiiiiine!)

New Beijing Planning/Tracking Spreadsheet
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...)

Now, THIS is your playground! Bookmark this baby because you will be needing this one a lot over the next three months!

P.S. I am going on record and saying this new GoodReads update of blocking links to external websites is going to make me go bananas. Gah! Let me know if you have any issues accessing any links posted throughout.

LET'S BETTER READ THIS, OR I'VE HEARD THE MODS GET GASSY :P
Rules - UNO 2022
General Questions

➦ Only books STARTED after the challenge begins can count.
The challenge starts on Monday 1 Feb, 2022 at 9pm UTC

➦ Books must be more than 100 pages in length.
If it is a Children's book or a graphic novel, we need to verify it is more than 25,000 words on arbookfind.com (https://www.arbookfind.com/UserType.a...)

➦ Your finished books need to be on your Uno shelf
AND marked as "read" for them to count.

➦ Please make notes of how your book may count.
The more options we have the better!
(Letters used in UNO are Z, O, T, H, F, I, V, E, S, N, K, P and of course if another team member has read the book before. Please friend our team members!)

➦ For coloured cards, the cover needs to be 50% or more of the colour.
You can ask us in this thread for our opinion, or use xx to get an idea. If in doubt, ask me or a co-captain as we can check it and/or take to the captains group for another opinion.

➦ This is a social challenge, not a competitive one.
We'd love to get points, but the main aim of the game is to have fun, read lots and get to know each other :)
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Team Information (alphabetical)

✔ Anna | 2022 Uno
✔ Anne | Uno 2022
✔ Apoorv | Challenge-PBBA-UNO2022
✔ Carrie | Uno 2022
✔ Gwen | Uno Game 2022
✔ Robynne | Uno 2022
✔ Val | Uno Challenge Reads 2022
✔ Vicki | UNO 2022

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COUNTDOWN!
(https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...)

We start February 1, 2022 at 9AM UTC.

OMG! UNO-time = happy-time! And I cannot wait! :D

I am Apoorv, currently live in Boston, MA and this will be my 6th time playing, starting in 2015! Feels ancient now! :O (It is one of the few team challenges that I have been on the winning team, so it certainly holds a special place. Haha! :P)

Last year, I had an absolute ball captaining the coolest team there was. We had so much fun reading so many different books. Can't wait to see the wonderful folks I get paired with this year! :)

I don't have any specific books that I want to read per say in 2022, but I do hope to finish up and continue on some of the series that I have ongoing, and what better challenge than this to do so. :)

I am already excited, and we haven't even entered 2022.
Thank you for bringing back UNO again this year, UNO Pixie. Let's do this! :D

Elisabeth wrote: "I'm doing some non team alphabet challenges which are fun and make me read more widely."

I LOVE alphabet challenges. Been a while since I did one here on GoodReads, but I have a massive spreadsheet for all my read books, and its always fun when it automatically ticks my Author Last Name and Book Title alphabets after each read. Haha!

The last two years I have managed to get through atleast 1 book for each alphabet for both these lists. The pesky X is always a pain.

Paris wrote: ".I'd also love to know - is anyone else moving on to any other challenges?"

I am doing the Tower Teams next. Love that challenge and it is always fun. Next 3 months are set! :P

WE ARE DONE!!!!



YOU GUYS ARE LEGITIMATELY THE BEST!!
We completed ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING there was to complete.
All cards! All tasks! All months!

The total points and our position on the leaderboard really is now on luck and the cards that the other teams got - but we couldn't have anything more.
This is absolutely commendable and you guys really stepped up and hit it out of the park.

I am beyond thrilled to be part of this team, it was such an absolute joy to play UNO with all of you!

THANK YOU for being the awesomest team around.
THANK YOU for letting me be part of the cool gang. Haha! :)

As we come close to the end of the challenge, how about we talk about the books we read through the challenge?

Name your 5 favorite books that you read through the course of this challenge in the last 3 months?

Did you find a new favorite author whose work you would continue to explore

Would you like to play UNO again next year?

Update

The only two tasks left now are

26*: read a book with 251-300 pages - Elisabeth
B7*: L - Paris

And we already have these books underway.
So, Elisabeth and Paris, if you foresee not getting to these for any reason, please drop in a word.

We are soooooo close. YAAAY! :D

Elisabeth wrote: "You should get hold of this book. It's very readable. My husband read it first and kept telling me to read it .."

Oh. I absolutely intend to! I plan on reading all autobiographies/memoirs by these tennis legends. This would be a very interesting book, given John's personality. I'm already intrigued.

I play off and on. Haven't been consistent with it and it does make me go arrrgh at times for not devoting more time to it. But I LOVE that you play so regularly. Rather your entire family loves playing. It is a wonderful sport with its spirit in just the right place.

If I find myself in Australia anytime, I am going to get coaching from you. Haha! :) Love that you coach though. Is that for specific ages or is it is folks in the league apart from the competition part of it?

I absolutely have been to the US Open a few times. I was even scheduled to go to the French Open in 2020, but then 2020 happened! Ugh! The first time I went to the US Open was in 2014 for the SemiFinal day when both Roger and Noval lost and I felt like such a jinx. Haha! :P

The Aus Open is one of my bucketlist items. I just need to buy a lot of sunscreen. :P

Elisabeth wrote: "Will do. It's by John McEnroe and as I play a lot of tennis I'm keen to read it."

OMG! Really?! How did we not talk about this for three months? Haha! :O

I am a HUGE fan of the game and I'm so glad that you play. :)

Paris, since you already have committed to two books, it probably would be easier for you to work through them also since Elisabeth has a 288 page book that can work for the last remaining task.

Elisabeth, if you have that bandwidth and can get that one done, we should be golden! Drop in a word if you can't, so that one of us can squeeze one in hopefully. :)

Books must be more than 100 pages in length and Children's books, Graphic Novels, Manga, Cook Books, Plays and Poetry books can not be used unless by word count they can be verified as more than 25,000 words using arbookfind.com or more than 3 hours of audio using a reputable website (e.g. audible, overdrive).

This is not a children's book, graphic novel, manga, cookbook, play or poetry, so it should satisfy the 100 page limit. And even it falls in any of these categories it is still 29000+ words long, so I think it should work.

Okay, so here is the latest update! :P
What a fun hour this has been moving things around. Hehe!

These are the open tasks and their statuses.
15*: read a book with "leg warmers" in the text or on the cover - Apoorv
25*: read a book with 201-250 pages - Elisabeth
36a*: read a book from the Listopia The Movie was Better than the Book (https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...) - Paris
B7*: L - Paris
B14*: read a book with a character who is a werewolf - Laura

The only task that needs a guardian now is this:
26*: read a book with 251-300 pages

Paris wrote: "Hey Apoorv - I've just been looking at the spreadsheet and had a realisation....

Can we use Elisabeths The Wolf's Hour for the letter U (P: Uganda)

We can replace it with [book:In Fi..."

Oh, I missed this message because it moved to the next page.
This is great, Paris. :D
Let's do that.

And thanks for catching the duplication of Vicki's book. I somehow spelled it differently as Main and Mane, so didn't catch my attention at all. You're awesome. Thanks!
Totally using your book for the L.

So, here is the tea!
I can move some books around because we have a couple of books that have a U reference.
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Scenario #1
Move Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man from #19 to B1
Move Open Water from #16 to #19
Move Cold Grave from #17 to #16.

That leaves read a book with a character who plays an instrument open to be covered.
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Scenario #2
Move The Wolf Hour from #21 to B1
Move The Silver Pigs from #2 to #21
Move Matilda from #14 to #2

That leaves read a book with a bright/neon pink cover (i.e. preferably not a pastel pink) open to be covered.
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Now, anyone has any book that we have somehow missed or covers any of this feel free to drop in a message here.

Our options are:
Letter U or
Character plays instrument or
Neon Pink Cover

Not sure which one is easier.
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EDIT: Our awesome teammate Paris came up with an even better solution, so now after a bunch of movement, we need a book between 250-300 pages

Sadly, the mods did not agree. :-(
Since the MPG said Graphic Novel, it gets categorized there, so unfortunately we can't use it.

So, we still need a werewolf book. :(

Laura wrote: "Completion Post

Book: Cycle of the Werewolf

However Apoorv I would check to be sure because the book is 128 pages, but there are some illustrations in it so the word count is only 15000 something."

Laura, I have asked the Mods (haven't heard anything yet) for clarification, but I think it should work because as I read the rule, the 25000 word limit is for Children's books, Manga, and Graphic Novels. Adult books should just be above 100 pages.

Let's see what the Mods say!

I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT!
OMG, I have never been this happy to trace a book down. LOL!
Of aaaaaalll places, there was an old paperback copy in the tiny library at my workplace. Who would have known?! Huh!

I can totally read it, Elisabeth, if you want to continue reading the 230 pager. Chances are we will need that.

Phew! Feels like I ran a marathon! Sheesh! :P