The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion
SPRING CHALLENGE 2013
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25.8 Janet F's task: Springy Ideas!
Useful hint for GR searching: On the 'search results' page the "next" page doesn't work reliably but selecting the next page number does.
APPROVED BOOKS:
Option 3:
Option 5:
The Dog Stars (from starting book The Snow Child)
Moloka'i (from starting book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan)
Books used for the taskOption 1 March April May in title
Isa & May
March Violets
Murder, Mayhem And Mama
The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott
May We Be Forgiven
Bryant & May Off the Rails
Hunting April
Between Here and April
The Fifth of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre
April & Oliver
The Enchanted April
March
The March
Option 2: a Friend rated 4 or 5
A Vision of Murder
A Storm of Swords
The Baby Bargain
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
Stay With Me
Love Irresistibly
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Touch & Geaux
Eve and Adam
Play Dirty
The Orchardist
The Best of All Possible Worlds
The Last Lecture
Memory in Death
The Phantom of the Opera
Maybe This Time
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Out of The Easy
Song of Scarabaeus
White Tiger: A Hero's Compulsion
Option 3: Mechanism of Communication
Option 4: Audiobooks
The Name of the Wind
The Moor
Hot Six
22 Britannia Road
A Tale of Two Cities
The Chemistry of Tears
Vanishing Acts
The House on Tradd Street
Rising Darkness
Calling Me Home
Back Spin
Astray
Salvation in Death
A Cup of Friendship
Starters
Linger
Wyrd Sisters
Scandalous
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Calling Me Home
Our Man in Havana
The Lost Gate
Finnikin of the Rock
Gunmetal Magic
To Darkness and to Death
One Corpse Too Many
Don't Cry for Me
That Summer
Crossed
The Eyre Affair
Touch & Go
The Poisonwood Bible
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Cold Days
Three Day Road
Portobello
Northanger Abbey
For One More Day
Option 5: Book Garden
Winter SRC (seed) to Spring SRC (flower)
-----------------------------------
The Snow Child to Tell the Wolves I'm Home
Tatiana and Alexander to The Jewel of St. Petersburg
Zugzwang to The Mao Case
The Snow Child to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
The Snow Child to The Orphan Master's Son
The Lotus Eaters to 22 Britannia Road
Christmas Eve at Friday HarbortoA Virgin River Christmas
The Christmas Knight to A Countess by Christmas
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar: A NoveltoJasmine Nights
Winter Garden to The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners
Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You to The Sense of Wonder
The Snow Child to The Dog Stars
For option 6, will sunshine/sunrise/sunlight/sunset in the quote work? Great task! :)Edit: Never mind, I'll use option 5. May I have The Dog Stars approved? It's on Page 4 of Readers Enjoyed of starting book The Snow Child. I didn't read that book for the task, but it's enough that it's on the list in the help thread, right?
You can select 'title' to narrow it. I can't find a way to narrow the search. I see where you can sort by title but it doesn't search the title field. Obviously I'm missing something. How do you search for title when searching "my books"?
I don't know if you can do it searching my books - but if you do a general goodreads search and it comes up with the list - right below the text box, there is a selection for title author
For searching 'my books' I don't think you can search specifically by title. But if you don't have too many books :-) in your collection it's easier to scroll through the options that come up when you search a word.For a general GR search (on a computer, not the app) type the word in the search bar and click the magnify glass icon. The page that comes up should have buttons/bubbles you can select. Click on 'title' and click search again.
on iphone GR app- put word in search bar, click search and then you should have an option to click both/title or author
I will be allowing Sunshine, Sunrise, sunlight etc. in the quotes. I was more restrictive/specific with 'snow' in the winter...but I think we would all love the sun in any form we can get!!
REChaitra wrote: "For option 6, will sunshine/sunrise/sunlight/sunset in the quote work? Great task! :)Edit: Never mind, I'll use option 5. May I have The Dog Stars approved? It's on Page 4 of Readers Enjoyed of s..."
Yes, you can use as your starting book any book mentioned in my msg 43 of my Winter task thread. I think I've got all of the 'read' books added plus others that I had inquiries on.
You are approved for
The Dog Stars found from 'starting book' The Snow Child!
Yes, you can search by title.Once you search for something, it will take you to the search results. Underneath the search bar, you'll see this:
all title author genre
If you select 'title' and search again, you'll get only the words in the title.
on the bright side, I can put the sharon sala book I was trying to fit in here in the audiobook number
Sorry for the confusion, I should have put the title search instructions after general search sentence instead of after the 'my books' sentence. I can edit it in a few days.And now the task wording has been edited!
REDee wrote: "on the bright side, I can put the sharon sala book I was trying to fit in here in the audiobook number"Yes, the audiobook option 4 is kind of easy for a choice (if you like audiobooks) but hopefully you'll be challenged to find your second book :-)
RESheila wrote: "Great task Janet!I was wondering about
for option 3 letter/envelope?"Thanks, Sheila!
works for 3
Janet F wrote: "You are approved for The Dog Stars found from 'starting book' The Snow Child! "
Thank you!
And on the topic of searches, one of the things that bugs me to no end is when you do General search on GR, only exact word matches show up. For example, if you search for March, Middlemarch doesn't show up. It does work while searching within "my books" though.
Dee wrote: "I don't know if you can do it searching my books - but if you do a general goodreads search and it comes up with the list - right below the text box, there is a selection for title author"Thanks Dee. I knew about that one just not the possibly of searching "my books" by title. It's a pain when you're searching for a specific word and it pulls up every title/author with that imbedded in their name. For example, searching for May is impossible.
I was able to find a book for this task so I'm happy.
Janet F wrote: "Sorry for the confusion, I should have put the title search instructions after general search sentence instead of after the 'my books' sentence. I can edit it in a few days."It's no problem. I was just hoping for a new way to search the 10,000 books on my TBR. lol
Barbara ★ wrote: "Dee wrote: "I don't know if you can do it searching my books - but if you do a general goodreads search and it comes up with the list - right below the text box, there is a selection for title auth..."I really wish that GR would improve the search function so that you could resrict to a singular word, or a within word - typically done wiht astericks like *may* would search for any word that has may in it - may* would only search for words that start with may etc
Hi Janet, being an audio book lover I adore this task!.Just wondered if the following book dwas okay for Option 3. Its a book called Enigma - The Battle for the Code and its about the typewriter like machine they built for creating encrypted messages to communicate during WW2. The picture on the front is of the machine (and a boat).
Thank you
RE Barbara ★ wrote: It's ..."
Wow, that's an ambitious TBR list! I hope you make a dent in it during this Spring challenge :-)
RE Nikki wrote: "Hi Janet, being an audio book lover I adore this task!.Just wondered if the following book dwas okay for Option 3. Its a book called Enigma - The Battle for the Code and its about the typewriter l..."
Yes Nikki,
looks like a good choice for option 3. I wasn't familiar with the Enigma machine but seeing that bookcover & more pics of the machine online, I've now added to my history knowledge! Thanks!!
Yes, the search here in GR is really stupid.When I'm looking for a particular word on it brings me stupid results, I just use the 'find' feature. It still finds the stupid choices but at least it highlights them so you don't have to go by eye.
Great task, Janet!I'm not an audiobook listener usually - the few times I've tried (other than HP), it didn't work. I'm going to give it a try again this time for this task. I have, on hand -
which I will try.For Option 5 - from
, I found
. No idea if I'll end with these two books though!
RE Robin wrote: "For opt 3 does the whole typewriter have to show or are the keys enough?
"That is enough to see it's a typewriter- so it's approved!
Peebee wrote: "Is a lighthouse a mechanism for communication?
"Peebee, I'll say yes. At first I said no but after reviewing the definition of communication I realize I should allow it. The beacon of a lighthouse 'communicates' that land is nearby... It is a 'one-way' & unvaried form of communication but lighthouses were built as the mechanism to send the consistent message/signal to watercraft of their location.
You'll probably want to mention it was approved when you post.
I am listening to:
which has a letter on the cover. None of the written copies have that cover. Can I claim it for the cover option(#3) for a letter and include a link for page verification that is for a book with a different cover?
Karen GHHS wrote: "I am listening to:
which has a letter on the cover. None of the written copies have that cover. Can I claim it for the cover option(#3) for a letter and include..."It's okay with me, unless it goes against a SRC rule. So I'll say yes unless the mods say otherwise.
Books mentioned in this topic
The Snow Child (other topics)The Jewel of St. Petersburg (other topics)
The Dog Stars (other topics)
Zugzwang (other topics)
Tell the Wolves I'm Home (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
David Weber (other topics)Jojo Moyes (other topics)
Nicole Krauss (other topics)











I'm so grateful to Goodreads and SRC for getting me motivated and diligently reading these past two challenges. My book task options incorporate some of the helpful hints that I've used.
Pick 2 different options and read a book for each.
Option 1: Word Search- To find books for some tasks I search by word on my library search engine and the GR webpage or app. On GR I type a word into the search bar in 'my books' and try to find a 'to-read'. You can also search using the general GR search bar and peruse all the choices; you can select 'title' to narrow it. Try typing March, April or May and see what you get.
+ For this option read a book where one of the words "March", "April" or "May" is found intact in the title or subtitle. For example: Middlemarch, Mayberry, Dismay, Devil May Care.
Option 2: Words with Friends- My GR friends motivate me when they finish or rate a book.
+ Read a book that one of your GR friends recently (using your subjective interpretation of 'recent' ) read and/or rated & gave a 4 or 5 star to.
Required: Please identify the GR friend
Option 3: Audiobooks killed the radio star- I sincerely apologize to my favorite FM channel for my absence. Since I started the SRC I always have an audiobook playing in my car. I watch a lot less TV too but the dish satellite company is still paid so they need no apology from me.
+ Read a book that shows a mechanism for communication other than a book- like a pen/pencil, artist's brush, musical notes/sheet music, radio, telephone, television, newspaper/magazine, letter/envelope, computer, walkie-talkie/2-way radio
Required: include the cover when you post and identify the object..
Option 4: Siri, tell me a story - I've listened to some audiobook readers I really enjoy. Karen Savage did nice readings for Librivox.org including Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden. She has a website and a blog so you can track her 'read aloud' productivity!
+ Read (rather, listen to) an audiobook
Required:You must link to the audiobook when you post AND the link to the Mass Market Paperback or other edition used to establish length. There are specific audiobook rules. See Book Formats and Page Numbers Explained in Rules of the Challenge
Option 5: A Book Garden- Plant one book and watch it grow! Each book I read seems to make my 'to-read' list grow like a Spring garden. Especially now that a SRC Winter task taught me how to use the GR "Readers also enjoyed similar books" area (lower right side) of the main page of many books on GR.
+ Use a book from my Rookie help thread msg 43 or that you read for my Winter Rookie 20.2 task as your starting point. Pick one of these books and see what books are listed as "Readers also enjoyed similar books" and read one of them for this task option. Record the date you found your book as the 'similar books' change.
Required: Include the starting book title when you post and state whether you used it yourself for Winter task 20.2 or whether you found it in post 43.
Option 6: Searching for the Sun- My winter 'snow' task paid off in good karma for the local mountain snow.
+ This time find an author who has a quote on GR with the word 'sun' in the text of their quote Goodreads Quote Search Make sure 'sun' is in the actual quote and not a 'tag' or book title listed underneath the quote. Read a book written by the author whose quote you choose.
Required: Post the quote or relevant "sun" phrase from the quote and the author. ex. "Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs." ~ Nicole Krauss
Required: Please identify the option when you post.