Play Book Tag discussion
Welcome to Play Book Tag!
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Frequently Asked Questions
OK, that's what I thought, just wanted to make sure. Thanks for clarifying!
Does anyone ever write a review for a DNF? I'm about 130 pages into a 450 page mystery and unless something changes soon, I'm going to have to drop it.
NancyJ wrote: "Does anyone ever write a review for a DNF? I'm about 130 pages into a 450 page mystery and unless something changes soon, I'm going to have to drop it."I do ... explain why I DNF'd it
For example ...
NancyJ wrote: "Does anyone ever write a review for a DNF? I'm about 130 pages into a 450 page mystery and unless something changes soon, I'm going to have to drop it."I do write a review if I DNF it because I really didn't like it and I make it a decent way through. People should know that! lol
I do not write a review if I DNF it because I set it aside after just a few chapters simply due to the fact that it wasn't holding my attention at the moment.
Hello, apologies if this question is already covered above but: if I read a book last month (April) but only just got around to reviewing it, can I add it to this month's 'other' board, or have I missed my moment to report it here? The one I'm thinking of is one I'd particularly like to share here because I read it with the Horizons challenge in mind (it's set in Iraq). (I'm not sure if any of the others in my review pile are also overdue...)
You can review it in the “May: Other Books” folder for sure! Many members get behind on reviews in that is a great catch up location, especially for those books that also fit another challenge!
Nicole R wrote: "You can review it in the “May: Other Books” folder for sure! Many members get behind on reviews in that is a great catch up location, especially for those books that also fit another challenge!"Thank you! I love how welcoming and positive this group is :-)
I have always given books I didn't finish one star just to get them off my currently reading. Is there a way to remove them without giving them a star.
Robin wrote: "I have always given books I didn't finish one star just to get them off my currently reading. Is there a way to remove them without giving them a star."You can add a shelf to your profile-I call mine DNF(Did not Finish)-then just move them to that shelf-make that shelf "exclusive" -meaning it can appear on no other shelf.
OjKafter typing this I figured out you may not know how to do that:
Go to MY BOOKS
The first line of your shelf says Bookshelves(Edit) click on Edit
Click on ADD-Name your shelf
Then scroll to that shelf and click the box for exclusive. GR will give you a warning that no other books can be shelved there. click OK.
Hope this helps
Joanne wrote: "Robin wrote: "I have always given books I didn't finish one star just to get them off my currently reading. Is there a way to remove them without giving them a star."You can add a shelf to your p..."
Thank you that worked and helped.
Robin wrote: "I have always given books I didn't finish one star just to get them off my currently reading. Is there a way to remove them without giving them a star."You can delete them entirely from your shelf. Or you can mark them as finished and don't give them any stars at all.
Let me know if either of these options appeals to you, and I'm happy to provide further instructions!
Anita - I know this was meant for Robin but I've been struggling with figuring out how to remove books as well, especially trying to remove books from my tbr shelf to no avail. Instructions would be much appreciated!
Magdalena wrote: "Anita - I know this was meant for Robin but I've been struggling with figuring out how to remove books as well, especially trying to remove books from my tbr shelf to no avail. Instructions would..."
If you look at your tbr or want to read shelf at the top which lists cover, title , author etc, then scroll down to the book you want to remove on the very far right there is an x, if you click on that you will remove the book from the shelf.
Is that clear?
Booknblues wrote: "Magdalena wrote: "Anita - I know this was meant for Robin but I've been struggling with figuring out how to remove books as well, especially trying to remove books from my tbr shelf to no avail. ..."
Make sure you are viewing "MY BOOKS" in table view
At the top of you list where it states MY BOOKS ... on the far right of that line you'll have two symbols. The second from the right is frequently referred to as "the hamburger" .... that's the "table view". Be sure that is clicked to find that little 'x' you can use to delete a book.
Thank you both so much for the help, it was a success! I had never noticed the "my books" icon before.
Thank you so much Book Concierge and BooknBlues for providing very helpful explicit directions! I've been unusually busy, but after next week, I will be much more present. Grateful to our long time members who step up again and again to help.So sorry Magdalena that I am just seeing your note now! Very happy you got the guidance you needed.
Anita, I look forward to your return. We've missed you. I hope your son's issues have been resolved .
Anita wrote: "Thank you so much Book Concierge and BooknBlues for providing very helpful explicit directions! I've been unusually busy, but after next week, I will be much more present. Grateful to our long time..."I hope everything works out for you :)!!!
Booknblues wrote: "Anita, I look forward to your return. We've missed you. I hope your son's issues have been resolved ."Thank you! Wish I could say we've made a lot more headway, but correcting this administrative error apparently means hiring an attorney, paying a boatload of money, and still showing up for court which won't happen until August. So frustrating.
I hope that it all works out for you in the end.
Hi! New member here. I was wondering if this group ever makes the personal challenge option for the amount of books I want to read for the group this year? A couple of my other groups have a thing set up where members can pick a certain numbers of books (like the GR yearly challenge) they plan to read for the group and make a shelf for the challenge. I find it a fun and organized way to keep my groups straight.
Hi Storm,Welcome to PBT! To this point, we have not done a personal challenge option for number of books read that uses the individualized shelf/tracking within the group that you mentioned--I am not even sure the official name of that! But I know what you are talking about as I am in some groups that use it as well.
In general, we do not usually do a straight-forward number of books read because GoodReads has their elaborate tracker that you can use on your homepage. Do you participate in that? It is a great way to keep track of your books and I personally love to see the progress bar move along!
Even though we do not do an official challenge that is the number of books read, we welcome members to start their own Member Challenge Tracking threads where you can keep track of any challenge you like, whether they are PBT challenges, other group challenges, or your own personal challenges.
For this year, PBT has two official challenges: Expanding our PBT Horizons and Trim The TBR. If you are interested, you can jump into either of those at any point!
And, as always, we are interested in seeing your reviews for any books you read. Reviews for books that fit the monthly tag of London go in the monthly tag folder, and everything else goes in the Other Books folder.
I know it can seem overwhelming and that PBT has a lot going on, but if you have any questions please ask away! The admins are always checking in and we have wonderful members who are very on top of things around here!
So, whether you dip a toe in and wade slowly into the PBT pool or you decide to dive into the deep end, welcome! And we look forward to seeing you around more.
Welcome Storm! This is such a fun group with lots of unique challenges and friendly people. Have fun!
Thanks guys! I'm already reading a London book, so off to a good start
Welcome, Storm! Looking forward to your reviews.
Storm, welcome! We’re a fun bunch and I think you’re gonna like it here.
Storm wrote: "Thanks guys! I'm already reading a London book, so off to a good start"In my opinion, the monthly tags are the best place to start! It's how PBT started off and was it's main purpose way back when!
Adding in additional challenges came along later.
Welcome!
Welcome, Storm! I only joined a year ago and I started off very slowly - just the monthly themes at first. Added a couple of buddy reads which were terrific. I found it too daunting to figure out the annual challenges when I would only have a few months to participate. But I was fully ready to join in the voting on them and participating for 2019!It's a great group, with stimulating discussions and conversations.
Storm wrote: "Hi! New member here. I was wondering if this group ever makes the personal challenge option for the amount of books I want to read for the group this year? A couple of my other groups have a thin..."
I just wanted to extend a welcome to you as well! I hope you enjoy reading with us and can't wait to get to know you better.
Do we have a thread that people go to suggest/request buddy reads that fit the tag? I see some buddy reads labeled in the footnotes as their own topics, do I just post a book that I want to read as a new topic and see if anyone bites or is there a place we should go to request before posting a topic?Specifically for BWF, I want to read a book that fits the tag and the challenge, but I may struggle to get through it on time without a buddy reader. Just wanted to see if you guys had an answer.
MelanieJoy wrote: "Do we have a thread that people go to suggest/request buddy reads that fit the tag? I see some buddy reads labeled in the footnotes as their own topics, do I just post a book that I want to read as..."Basically we discuss and organize in the threads related to the challenges.
For BWF it is here in BWF CHAT where you can send out feelers. There are 2 up already - The Alchemist and On the Come Up
You can also just start a buddy read in Footnotes and see who bites - I have done that too.
More in next message.
More on buddy reads. Anyone can set one up.
Amy has a list of buddy reads for books being read as part of Unofficial Trim in Footnotes. There is usually at least one of those each month - this month includes one for The Silence of the Girls
We have a buddy read happening triggered by the Edgars - originally discussed in that thread then set up in a buddy read of The Peacock and the Sparrow this month. Last month was All the Sinners Bleed.
There's an ongoing Presidential Biographies buddy read and an historical fiction one, currently quiet but not for long.
Sometimes they start in a discussion of a review - like my Grumpy Monkey books buddy read with Lyn.
Do rereads count towards participation points for the monthly tag and/or yearly challenges? For example, next month’s tag is ‘sad’, and the novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is on the list. I read it a few years ago, but have been meaning to read it again. Not sure if this has been asked before, and was just curious!
Morgan, You may want to private message one of the admins here with your question.To the best of my knowledge, I think it's okay for you to re-read a book and write a review. Definitely, it's okay for the monthly tag. I think it's okay for the challenges, but am not 100% positive.
I was going to ask a question about how some of the members here manage to include special symbols and emojis in their reviews and comments, basically stuff that doesn't appear in the (some html is ok) list. I've been on the site many years and never bothered to learn the language beyond posting an image or a link.So, I tried to teach myself with a little online searching, and I came up with these examples (I added & and # before the code without any blank space] and I want to test them in an actual post:
green checkbox: ✅ [code 9989]
blue checkbox: ☑ [code 9745]
shamrock: ☘ [code 9752]
peace symbol: ☮ [code 9774]
frowning face: ☹ [code 9785]
writing hand: ✍ [code 9997]
heavy check mark: ✔ [code 10004]
sparkle: ❇ [code 10055]
heavy black heart: ❤ [code 10084]
arrowhead: ➤ [code 10148]
white arrowhead: ➯ [code 10159]
emoji example: 🙄 [code 128580]
Other advice about how to improve the formatting of reviews and comments on Goodreads is welcome
There are a number of ways to get unusual marks and fancy characters to appear in your post or review. I wanted to reflect the correct form of Fermat's last theorem, but couldn't locate the superscript n, but eventually figured it out. Here's the site I was using in case anyone is interested:
https://www.quackit.com/character_set...
x to the nth power is what I was trying to figure out:
xⁿ
which is coded as hexadecimal:
x & # x 2 0 7 f ; (eliminate all spaces)
There are a lot of codes in the link above that can be used to create unusual formatting or characters.
I do it the lazy way - I just go to someone else's post (or somewhere else online) and copy and paste the symbol!That's what I did below from Algernon's post after he did all the work. I didn't use any code.
It is easy if I am on my desktop computer or tablet, I don't know how it would work on a phone.
green checkbox: ✅
shamrock: ☘
peace symbol: ☮
frowning face: ☹
etc.
Personally, I never use emojis in posts unless it relates to some kind of game, where I need to provide them. If I want to mark something as complete, I just put an X.
I also never use emojis on my phone. I know I am in the minority, but my thought is, "Hey, we have words, people!"
Every font has emojis whether a computer with physical keyboard or a device like a phone or tablet with a virtual one. You just need to know how to access them - on laptop, I right click and at top of drop window click on emojis. On the devices, look for smiley face somewhere on keyboard, probably at top - click on arrow on left.However they are not consistent meaning they are not the same set of emojis with every font. Since I switch between devices, some picked on one don't appear on another. That means you might not see them either.
I like using them for tracking reading and such. They are eye-catching, fun, and make it easy when looking through a list to spot what I have read vs. not.
Joy D wrote: "There are a number of ways to get unusual marks and fancy characters to appear in your post or review. I wanted to reflect the correct form of Fermat's last theorem, but couldn't locate the super..."
thank you for the link to that site, this is what was looking for.
I'm writing most of my stuff from my home PC, I don't really like the android app when I'm away, so I usually also take a vacation from Goodreads when I'm on holiday. I have an original Microsoft keyboard, and I probably need to read the manual to see if it has any list of symbols and emojis included.
The copy/paste trick might be easier
Copy and paste works with most emojis, but to get the superscript you have to use the code - copy & paste won't work. There are other rarely needed symbols that cannot be copied but it's mostly mathematical and scientific notations and formulas, not the commonly used icons.
Joy D wrote: "There are a number of ways to get unusual marks and fancy characters to appear in your post or review. I wanted to reflect the correct form of Fermat's last theorem, but couldn't locate the super..."
Great sight, Joy! Thank you for the link!
Algernon (Darth Anyan) wrote: "I was going to ask a question about how some of the members here manage to include special symbols and emojis in their reviews and comments, basically stuff that doesn't appear in the (some html is..."As to formatting:
If you mean when your review ends up looking like this:
It was a wonderful
book, that had me wanting more. The characters were
well built.
Sometimes, all you have to do is delete the spaces. However, sometimes, you need to play around with it, starting where the spaces begin, either by deleting a word and re-adding it then by deleting the spaces. It can get very annoying
Robin P wrote: "I do it the lazy way - I just go to someone else's post (or somewhere else online) and copy and paste the symbol!That's what I did below from Algernon's post after he did all the work. I didn't us..."
I usually use words, but when my son was in grad school, we had a 3 emoji code to see if the other one was able to talk on the phone (or text, but we preferred to talk). It was quick and easy. I do use them sometimes in other places, but often just cut and paste ones others use.
My old desktop was a Dell and there was a little "keyboard" icon in the lower tool bar. I clicked on that and a selection of emojis was one of my options. NOW ... I have a brand new HP desk top and I miss that little icon on my toolbar. I DO have an "emoji" key on the keyboard (it's F6) and if I tap that an emoji pop-up appears where I can (presumably ... haven't tried it yet) select an emoji to enter. I'll have to play with it, to see if I like it better or even equally with what I had in the past.
Have I mentioned that I DISLIKE change?
I also hate changes like that! About 10 years ago when I was still working, Microsoft upgraded Outlook so that the place where the Reply button used to be became the Delete button! I don't relearn habits that fast.
I'm not sure there is a way via my PC or keyboard to get emojis, but that's ok. On the rare occasion I want to use one, I'll just find it some where and copy/paste.Robin P wrote: "I also hate changes like that! About 10 years ago when I was still working, Microsoft upgraded Outlook so that the place where the Reply button used to be became the Delete button! I don't relearn ..."
Oh, yikes! That's bad design, I think. A lot of people will automatically go to that same place only to have the message disappear and people likely wondering what happened to the message they wanted to reply to!
Play Book Tag
Books mentioned in this topic
All the Light We Cannot See (other topics)The Silence of the Girls (other topics)
The Peacock and the Sparrow (other topics)
All the Sinners Bleed (other topics)
The Alchemist (other topics)
More...
To participate in the PBT challenges, you need to post your reviews in the designated Trim or Horizon thread—I do not check individual member tracking threads for the official PBT challenges.
So, your individual tracking thread can be whatever you want it to be!