NBRC: Tower Teams Read 2013, Round II discussion
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Pewter Blue August Challenge Discussion
message 1:
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Mary X
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May 25, 2013 02:41PM
Just thought I'd start a separate thread for people to post their ideas for this. I don't plan on doing much with this until the 7% Challenge is underway. But this way if people have an idea they can list it here.
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I haven't read the rules yet but this is what pops into mind: Books set in popular Summer Vacation places.
Books with green covers for peridot birthstone
Spell out August in various languages.
8-Ball: books with 8 words in title, 8th in series, 8 letters in author name etc...,
Mod
I wish we could incorporate counting the "chunkters" we read, somehow. Something along the lines of if two people each read a book >400 pages and make 800 pages, they can count it as three books. If five "chunsters" are read, they can use one of the "chunsters" read since April 12 to make six, giving them eight books total.
Good ideas, Mary! Summer vacation places could be fun. I'm always fantasizing about where to go for the summer, hehe.Naturally, other August-related elements come to my mind for this: books that are the color of sun or fire (for Leo's ruling element and planetary ruler), so yellow/orange/reds; books with the sun or fire on the cover; books with titles that are yellow/orange/red in color or have those words in the title; characters named August/Augustus; book about a cat or with a cat on the cover.
Or characters named Leo. Not many out there but might be some.
Read oldest books on your goodreads to read shelf. Read only books you own.
Books you've owned more than a year.
Finish a neglected series.
Summer Fling, short reads. Books under 300 pages.
Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh my or It's a Jungle Out There: animal related books: shifters, prominent pet, veterinarians etc..,
I like the neglected series idea. I have tons of books on my FictFact that I read at least half of a series or almost all of them but I haven't finished them off. I was thinking about trying to tackle that next. Books with water, swimming, beaches, theme park or other vacation places could be good.
Shorter reads would be good, to get some more numbers up.
Since we finished the June/July one early, will there be any challenges for July? In two weeks I have two of my favorite series coming out with books but after that I will be back to not being sure what I want to read. :)
I was toying with the idea of a moon related challenge. I know we just had moon covers as an option in the 7% challenge. But July 20th is the anniversary of the first manned moon landing. I thought maybe, totaly for fun and optional, people could choose to spell out MOON or Lunar or read werewolf themed books, moon on the cover or in the title. That kind of thing. But I don't have my heart set on it and if someone has a better idea, bring it on.
I put the series related idea on there because I have so many started myself. I recently went through my fict-fact next books and made myself a Next In Series shelf here. I'm really trying to look at that first when I want to pick a new book to read.
Do the ones that you like the best! You're the captain. :) I could probably do a spell it out of Moon. I'm not a werewolf reading type of person, but spell it out works for me. :) Rebecca York had that Moon series, I read 2 or 3 of those years ago. :DI have my FictFact in order, after my To Be Released top ones, the rest of my list goes from the amount of books in the series I've read, down to ones I want to read but I haven't started yet.
I'm going to put up something easy and simple after this 7% one.
Around the world in Based on the novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
As it is a holiday period and people travel all over the world.
What I found on Wikipedia:
The itinerary
London, United Kingdom to Suez, Egypt
rail and steamer across the Mediterranean Sea
7 days
Suez to Bombay, India
steamer across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean
13 days
Bombay to Calcutta, India
rail 3 days
Calcutta to Victoria, Hong Kong
steamer across the South China Sea
13 days
Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan
steamer across the South China Sea, East China Sea, and the Pacific Ocean
6 days
Yokohama to San Francisco, United States
steamer across the Pacific Ocean 22 days
San Francisco to New York City, United States rail 7 days
New York to London steamer across the Atlantic Ocean and rail
9 days
Total 80 days
For more information
We could read for several different kinds of challenges:
*books that are set in a country/city Phileas Fogg visits during his travels.
*books in which transportation plays a large role.
*do a spell out of the characters:
-Phileas Fogg
-Jean Passepartout
-Aouda
I'd be up for doing another challenge in July and August. I like Imke's idea and the neglected series idea. I have lots of series that I've started and have yet to finish. The moon idea seems pretty interesting too... Maybe we can do a different challenge each month?
It was my plan to do little mini-challenges each month but then the mods did group-wide challenges. People seem to really be interested in trying to do another round of the 7% challenge. So we can see if we can complete it again just for fun.
Challenges will definitely be a ton of fun!! I liked all the ideas in message 9, those could definitely go beyond August and instead just be mini challenges that continue until this whole thing ends. Yeah, I definitely think it's more motivational to do challenges- and we don't have to be limited to one. We could always make a few and participate in as many as we want- that way if someone's more interested in one or it fits their style better they're more likely to participate.
One of the ideas I mentioned to Mary today was to structure our August challenge similarly to the 7% challenge and have 8 different categories so we can incorporate everyone's ideas - we could have an Around the World category, a category for finishing series, a category for August related stuff, a category for summery/vacation places, etc.
That would be really cool!!! I noticed that there is a second 7% challenge thing- rather than doing that, why don't we modify some of the categories to fit our small ideas (like the series, summer, August stuff, etc). There's no harm in doing that along with having other mini challenges on the side.
We have an "assignment" from the mods to create our team challenge for August (they did a Read-a-Thon in May and the 7% Challenge for June/July and are taking the month off), so that's what we're really working on here.Mary is working on the Moon challenge as a mini-challenge and I'm working on putting together a scavenger hunt type challenge, so we'll have those as mini-challenges outside of the main August challenge.
Awesome!!! If you need any help with any challenges, I would love to get more involved. I think this will definitely get a lot of us more involved in the reading- challenges are pretty awesome!
If you have an idea for a mini-challenge, feel free to post in the mini-challenge thread I posted. I know I don't mind if you want to run one for the team. The more active participants the better. Riya, I like the idea you suggested in the other thread about doing a Pewter Blue spell out. I think that would make a good one to do as a category in August.
I'm glad!!! I just thought that if we were going to do any spell it outs we should personalize it!
I like doing group challenges but I also really like doing a challenge on my own. I like pushing myself to read that way. It would be nice to do some kind of a mini-challenge before the group one in August. And I like all of the ideas submitted so far! They're quite creative.
Mod
Imke - I also really like this idea. My thing is I already have my books mapped out for the rest of the year. But I try to make things work where they can. I think I have a book for India I want to read in August already. And in August I am not finishing series but was going to start two series. That is when I am gonna start The Dark Tower series and Divergent series.
I may also have a book for Egypt/sailing in the Mediterranean and one set in New York as well and I think my book for India might be Bombay.
Now we just have to decide which ones to do when. I think the simpler, easier ones like the Pewter Blue Spell out, Moon theme type ones should maybe be grouped under the August one we're supposed to come up with.
Then the more detailed ones like Imke's Around The World in 31 Days & Vicky's scavenger hunt ideas that she PM'd me about should maybe get their own month.
We can do Imke's or Vicky's in July, then do the smaller ones as the August challenge and then whichever "bigger" challenge we didn't hit in July can be for September if it's still going.
What if we actually did Imke's challenge starting July 1st and made it for 80 days and ending Sept. 19th? For July we'll keep it simple and do a Moon Themed Challenge.
For the August one that we have to submit, still working out ideas on this one. Was thinking 8 x 8 theme: 8 books for 8 categories as a team. But 64 books might be too much. Also 8 might not work well for a spell out unless we don't complete the words.
August is for (Book) Lovers Challenge
Need to hit 75.
1: Spell out Pewter Blue (10)
2: Spell out August (6)
3: 8th in a series, 8 words, 8 letters etc., (8)
4: 8 Green Covers for Peridot birth stone. (8)
5: Leo/Zodiac: books w/cover, plot, title, character etc.., Leo, sun, orange, red, fire, cats (big & small) (8)
6: Summer Fling: books under 300 pages (8)
7: 19th Amendment: books from female authors in honor of women in the US getting the vote on August 18, 1920. (8)
8: Water, Water Everywhere: books set near water, water in title, water on cover etc.., (8)
9: Spell Out: End Of Summer (11)
Total: 75
Word from the mods is that we need 75 books which messes up my 8 x 8 theme. Back to the drawing board.
Darn! Was such a good idea too. What about a 10x8 theme? Two more categories, goal of 80. 5 more shouldn't be a problem!
A year or two ago I did a challenge where we made chains of books connected by words. Like if you read a book called Murder Game then the next book would be a book with either Murder or GAme in the title. Example
to
to
etcc.., to see how long a chain you could make. Another one was where we used the Readers Also Enjoyed section on books to create a chain.
Mary: Harry Dresden's Love Slave wrote: "Word from the mods is that we need 75 books which messes up my 8 x 8 theme. Back to the drawing board."
Not so fast! I love Sarah's END OF SUMMER (11 books) idea to just tack onto your 8x8=64. I think your 8x8 idea is too good to pass on, haha.
Ok did some tweaking. Dropped the long book category since we need to hit a higher goal. Added the woman's suffrage category and Sarah's spell out idea. August is for (Book) Lovers Challenge
Need to hit 75.
1: Spell out Pewter Blue (10)
2: Spell out August (6)
3: 8th in a series, 8 words, 8 letters etc., (8)
4: 8 Green Covers for Peridot birth stone. (8)
5: Leo/Zodiac: books w/cover, plot, title, character etc.., Leo, sun, orange, red, fire, cats (big & small) (8)
6: Summer Fling: books under 300 pages (8)
7: 19th Amendment: books from female authors in honor of women in the US getting the vote on August 18, 1920. (8)
8: Water, Water Everywhere: books set near water, water in title, water on cover etc.., (8)
9: Spell Out: End Of Summer (11)
Total: 75
If we have to replace a spell-it-out, how about we spell out Augustus instead of August. It's 8 letters and it's the name of the founder of the Roman Empire, which is who August is named for. Then, replace #1 (spell out Pewter Blue) with another category that has 8 books required. I'll think of ideas on that...
How about we read 8 books that have been published in August of any year as a category to replace a spell-it-out?
I was thinking of replacing August with something based on one of these. But it's nothing I have my heart set on: Some ideas: Hawaii became a state on 8/21/59 set in Hawaii.
Woodstock ran from 8/15-8/17 in 1969.-Music themed? published/set in 60's?
Mt. Vesuvius erupted Aug 24, 79 -books set in Italy or other famous Volcano location
Atlanta falls to Union forces-Sep 01, 1864-Civil War setting?
Geronimo Surrenders Sep 04, 1886 -Westerns?
Regarding specifics for #5, for clarification, my thoughts:I would say sun colors (Leo's sign ruler) could be red/yellow/orange, OR a picture of the sun on the cover. Then fire (Leo's element) could be red, orange, gray/black (color of the smoke surrounding the fire), OR a picture of fire on the cover?
Characters named Leo, Leonard, Leonardo, Leopold.
Cat (any species) in story or on cover? (Could include shape shifter?)
Is that too many specifics for one category? Is it too many cover colors represented? I'm not sure how picky the mods are being for things like that and I don't know if it gives too many options. Of course, the way you have the categories set up, it's very limiting. Only 8 books can be read per number, right? Do we have to stick to that or can you read one category multiple times?
I'm making this seem harder than it should be. I thought August was going to be a simple challenge but now I'm starting to wonder, LOL.
Anyway... just a bunch of thoughts that came to me as I pondered...
Okay, so maybe we replace two spell-it-outs (#1 and #2) and keep the "END OF SUMMER" one because that's 11 books that just makes the whole reaching 75 easier, if we stick with a 8x8 theme? I'm okay with doing just one spell-it-out, personally. I like your "music theme" idea, Mary. Just making it "music theme" (as opposed to 60s era, etc) gives a lot of options. Record stores, books about someone in a band, band camp, musician biographies/memoirs, groupie memoirs, etc.
Well I put #'s for each so it wouldn't seem too easy to the mods. I was going to clarify a little more on the Leo thing. At the same time, not to make it too strict.
Just an idea, if we did away with two spell-it-outs, we could go:(totally abbreviated)
1. music
2. (??)(westerns? hawaii? italy? random beach reads?)
3. 8th in series, etc
4. 8 green covers
5. zodiac/leo
6. summer fling
7. women
8. water
9. end of summer spell out
It just occurred to me that the Hawaii idea is a little too similar to the set by water one.
Good point. How about random beach reads? Whatever YOU think YOU would enjoy on the beach counts? Easy, breezy... chicklit... paranormal cheese or sleeze, lol... cozy mystery... edge-of-seat thriller, etc! Many options. What would you put in your beach bag to read?Could even call the category "In My Beach Bag" hehe.
Mod
Good idea. Well I guess I am asking questions about this too early in the captains discussion thread for this. I saw others posting their ideas and I had time to work on it.
Anyway, I think we have time to stew on it and I can put up the mini-challenges knowing we don't need any of them for this.
NBRC: Tower Teams Read 2013, Round II
Books mentioned in this topic
The Passage (other topics)Insurgent (other topics)
Divergent (other topics)
The Gunslinger (other topics)
The Light Between Oceans (other topics)
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