Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion
Tower Teams VI
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Team Tom Riddle
Vicky wrote: "Laura wrote: "My brother married a Canadian. Because of the length and cost of the process, they only ever worked on my brother's new citizenship."It's definitely a process! We chose not to file ..."
I always thought that if you married a US Citizen you become a US Citizen. I know they have people that check to make sure the marriages are legitimate, but I had no idea there was money involved. I mean the Constitution doesn't mention cost! :)
Vicky wrote: "Jen wrote: " I especially love Urban Fantasy books, and I have quite a collection of series here in my home. :-)"Ohhh, what are some of your favorite UFs? I love Jane Yellowrock (by Faith Hunter)..."
I'm eagerly awaiting the new Kate Daniels. And they're writing a book about Hugh. Apparently they wrote up a mock description of a book a few years ago and posted it on Facebook as an April Fools joke. It was so well received that they really wrote one!
Vicky wrote: "Ohhh, what are some of your favorite UFs? I love Jane Yellowrock (by Faith Hunter) and The Iron Druid Chronicles (by Kevin Hearne). They both had new releases the last few weeks and I need to read them soon! "I LOVE Ilona Andrews' books: especially Kate Daniels, Hidden Legacy, Innkeeper Chronicles. . . (These are the only ones I'm fully caught up in. Love them ALL!)
I also love the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton; the October Day and Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire; the Jane Yellowrock and Soulwood series by Faith Hunter. . . :-)
I am currently reading the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne, the Elemental Assassin series by Jennifer Estep, and the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. They're all fabulously wonderful, too. :-)
Jen wrote: "Vicky wrote: "Ohhh, what are some of your favorite UFs? I love Jane Yellowrock (by Faith Hunter) and The Iron Druid Chronicles (by Kevin Hearne). They both had new releases the last few weeks and I..."I just finished a re-read/listen to Dresden. James Marsters is magnificent! I hope he really puts the new one out this year. :)
I keep seeing people post about the Dresden Files. I guess I'm going to have to check them out one day!Can I also confess to never reading HP? And only seeing a couple of the movies?? I know, I know!
I've never been able to get into Dresden or Kate Daniels, I've read both first novels but it just didn't catch my attention. I'll have to check out some of these other series though! ;)
Both of those are series where they get better after the first book.And while we’re on the subject, is there any other group of fans that puts up with series they get better after the first book? If I had a nickel for every series where I said, “It gets better after the first book”, I’d be rich now.
So this is my first time with Tower Teams. Do we pick our own spell and spell it out ourselves or is it a combo deal? Just trying to figure it out....so i appreciate the help!
Alright, this image is going to be my official "pay attention to me I'm probably important" image. It's appropriately Tom Riddleish, in my opinion. ;)
First off, I just want to say that our ENTIRE team is already checked-in. I don't remember a challenge team EVER where I didn't have at least one person I was chasing down to check-in so I am ecstatic about this!
General Bookkeeping
Up in message 6 I've started to compile some important challenge related links. I'll be fussing with things up there for the next week or so while we start to get settled in and see what we need. My main goal is to use it as a table of contents so that we can all easily find whatever we might be looking for - so if there are any quick links you want to see there, let me know!
Shelves
I'd appreciate it if everyone could confirm their shelf names. Below are the ones that I found looking through people's profiles that were obviously for this challenge - if you're changing it or your name isn't listed here let me know!
Brandy tt-vi
Eternity tower-team-vi
Jennifer H 2018-tower-teams
Kristel tower-team-2018
Laura tower-team-2018
Michelle tt-vi
Vicky nbrc-tom-riddle
Spreadsheet
Most of you are new faces to me, so you may not know that I'm kind of a spreadsheet geek. Once we get our official spreadsheet I will likely spend the weekend adding bells and whistles of all kinds. ;) It will do tons of things automatically and give us tons of fun stats and information (I repeat, geek.)
Thoughts on Strategy
Claiming Tasks
This is my 9th or 10th captaining of one of these challenges and I always find that everyone is a lot happier when we start off with a blanket statement about not being offended if you claim a book for a task and someone finishes a relevant book first. Luckily for this challenge, it's relaxed and mostly spell-it-outs so it shouldn't be a huge issue. The Tri-Wizard tournament might get a little more intense though, so we'll have to say. Long story short - I will find a place for your book, have no fear!
Spells
I did some math. To spell out all the spells listed we will need to read 191 books. I did some more math and based on the average books per week we all read in 2017 and so far this year, we're probably going to read about 425 books during this challenge. Unless we get stumped on a weird letter, there's really no way we won't be able to find all the letters.
That said, I think our first focus should be on the hard to find letters. I don't even think we necessarily need to focus on any specific word at first - we're going to have readers who will want the challenge of finding uncommon letters and the sooner we can knock them out, the better. If you just want to read whatever that's fine too, we'll figure out where to slot it in.
There are no Z, Q or J's in any of the spells - but we will need 4 V, 3 X, 1 Y and 14 U. We also need 17 I, which isn't as uncommon but that's a lot of them.
Ok, I feel like I had a lot more to say than that, but I've already worked 40 hours this week and I don't have a day off until next Saturday - so my brain is fried. Let me know what questions and comments you have and stay tuned for more updates throughout the weekend as we get our footing! :D
OH! The countdown to the beginning of the challenge is up in post #6 if you haven't seen it yet. The challenge starts in 19.5 hours from right now - 12 AM Lisbon Time, 1 AM in Austria, 7 PM US EDT, 4 PM US PDT. Remember that only books started after the challenge start time will count!
Laura wrote: "Both of those are series where they get better after the first book.And while we’re on the subject, is there any other group of fans that puts up with series they get better after the first book?..."
I've heard that, but there are so many other series that demand my attention that it's hard to justify going back to them.
Lory wrote: "So this is my first time with Tower Teams. Do we pick our own spell and spell it out ourselves or is it a combo deal? Just trying to figure it out....so i appreciate the help!"Lory - everything in Tower Teams is a team event! So for example, if we're spelling NOX:
N - Nevernight, read by Vicky
O - Outlander, read by Jen
X - X Marks the Scot, read by Daniela
I put some other information about it in a big post I just posted, let me know if you have any other questions! :D
Vicky wrote: "Alright, this image is going to be my official "pay attention to me I'm probably important" image. It's appropriately Tom Riddleish, in my opinion. ;)
First off, I just want to say that our ENTI..."
Thanks for getting all of this together for us, Vicky! I'm excited about your geeky SS. LOL. ;-)
My shelf name is correct and will stay the same.
Jen wrote: "Vicky- I have been reading some new adult lately too. I didn't even know it existed before a few months ago. It's really fun, and feels a little more relatable than a YA book but sometimes slightly..."Thanks! luck is needed:) I'm basically studying 2(3) different biomarkers(antibodies) in different groups of MS patients vs healthy people. I hope that makes sense
My shelf is correct and I love it when there's a spreadsheet geek on the team :)
A little bit about myself:I'm Kristel, 22, live in Estonia, witch i think makes me one of two Europeans here. So, i'm gonna be awake when all of you are asleep and vice versa. I read mostly YA. Trying to expand my reading, but not been super successful at it. Favourite Books: Harry Potter series and Black Magician trilogy. I've also starting to read V.E. Schwab and the Shades of Magic series is probably one of my new favourites.
Ps! Currently super excited about Eurovoision and saw that Daniela is Austrian, so watch out in the finals:)
Hi Vicky,Thanks for the update. My shelf didn't appear to be listed. It is tt-teams. i am on my phone so can't post a link, but let me know if you need it.
Vicky wrote: "Alright, this image is going to be my official "pay attention to me I'm probably important" image. It's appropriately Tom Riddleish, in my opinion. ;)
First off, I just want to say that our ENTI..."
That's right for mine.
I do remember your spreadsheet skills, from way back in Wobble. Not on the same team, but I was a captain back then and was in awe of your spreadsheet! :)
What are the spell-out parameters? Title, author. Anything else? Series, characters?
How do you want us to report books read? Just on our shelf, in here, another thread? Also, I put books on my shelf when I start them. It has been my habit for so long, that if I don't do that I forget all the time. For the most part a book will only be on there for a day or two before I finish it. But since we're going to the end of July, I will probably finish the books I'm reading with my kids and start new ones. So those would be on the shelf for several weeks. Will this be a problem? I know some captains don't like it when unread books are sitting on the challenge shelf.
I am from central Indiana. I have been married 15 years to my high school sweetheart. We have 3 children together, and they already have my summer mornings pretty well booked! I read mostly fantasy and YA. I love a good door stopper and am working my way through The Wheel of Time series. I also read a lot of historical fiction and cultural books, and over the last year have discovered I like nonfiction, especially science. I do a lot of books on audio so that helps me get through them pretty quickly.
This is my second Tower Team challenge. I also participated in Cutthroat challenge at the beginning of the year.
@lory - thanks, I will ad your shelf to the list!@laura - spell it out parameters are title, author, series, characters. We can ignore or use articles (A, An and The). They've also added a caveat that translators or narrators can be used ONLY for the letters X, Y and V so long as you're reading in that format (you can't use the narrators name if you don't read the audio book, etc).
My preference the last few challenges has been to post books read in the main thread - it's one less place to check and I'm pretty obsessive about double checking everything against your shelves so nothing gets missed. Plus then we can respond and chat about the books were reading all in the same place. And don't worry about unread books on your shelves, I have a set of links in the captains group that takes me straight to everyone's shelves already filtered by date read so they'll just be at the bottom and won't bother me!
Kristel, that sounds like great work! My mom has MS, and I really appreciate your efforts to studying it!!
I just realised the first book I want to read for this challenge starts with an Y :)
I'm really excited about Quidditch! Anyone in here who could see themselves playing? p.s I play quidditch in real life :p
Jen wrote: "Eternity wrote: "Hey team! I'm Eternity, and I'm a Canadian University Student. I'm 22 (soon to be 23), and my absolute favourite genre is fantasy (adult or ya or middle grade as long as it's good ..."
English and psychology! :)
My shelf is correct! Also, 3 Xs is harsh I can't think of a single book that would work.
English and psychology! :)
My shelf is correct! Also, 3 Xs is harsh I can't think of a single book that would work.
Three X's IS harsh, but definitely manageable. I think I have a list somewhere of options, I'll take a look tonight and see what I have.
Vicky wrote: "I've never been able to get into Dresden or Kate Daniels, I've read both first novels but it just didn't catch my attention. I'll have to check out some of these other series though! ;)"Laura wrote: "Both of those are series where they get better after the first book. ..."
Vicky, I really second Laura on this. When I first read Kate Daniels, I enjoyed it but I did NOT LOVE-love it. My rabid love for book one only came after I'd read through maybe book three or five and reread book one. So Kate Daniels DEFINITELY gets better! (So, so, soooo, much better!) :-)
The Dresden Files, I'm pretty sure the first book in that series was also just "very good; really enjoyable" for me. It was a later book that I gave the first full five star rating to. And now I just love it. :-)
If Character Names count for X, I read four books in the last week that would work, but unfortunately, I can't reread them for this challenge. Xander is a character in the Tapper Twins series by Geoff Rodkey. He's not a main character, but he is a VERY important secondary character.If anyone else would like to give this middle-grade series a try (it's excellent, I recommend it for kids and adults), the books are:
1: The Tapper Twins Go to War (with each other)
2: The Tapper Twins Tear Up New York
3: The Tapper Twins Run for President
4: The Tapper Twins Go Viral
Oh! And my shelf for this challenge is 2018-nbrc-tower-teams-vi. :-)Less than two hours to go now! :-)
@Jen - that's awesome! We need to double check them for word counts since they are tagged as children's, but if they pass that is awesome!
I have 2 books I need to finish by the end of Sunday, as well as my audiobook. I read about 3 pages of one this morning, realized it was 515 pages, so I decided to wait and restart it after 4. Went to pick up the other one and realized it was 465 pages. Can't justify reading them before the countdown hits zero, since they are over 350 pages. So I finished my audiobook and now I'm just updated challenges and twiddling my thumbs for another 45 minutes. :)
FYI, Michelle & I are both in several challenges that include spell-outs. So we've been finding some of the harder letters a lot lately. I've already read 3 U books this week! And that 515 page book is another one. :)
Vicky wrote: "@laura - spell it out parameters are title, author, series, characters. We can ignore or use articles (A, An and The). They've also added a caveat that translators or narrators can be used ONLY for the letters X, Y and V so long as you're reading in that format (you can't use the narrators name if you don't read the audio book, etc). My preference the last few challenges has been to post books read in the main thread - it's one less place to check and I'm pretty obsessive about double checking everything against your shelves so nothing gets missed. Plus then we can respond and chat about the books were reading all in the same place."
Series & characters make the spell-outs so much more do-able!
Posting them here. I love talking about books, too! :)
So just to double-check -- We won't be using the Books Read thread to post completions. You want us to just do that here, right, Vicky?
~Michelle~ wrote: "So just to double-check -- We won't be using the Books Read thread to post completions. You want us to just do that here, right, Vicky?"
Correct! :)
I did some looking at some odd lettered books, here's some options:U
Unveiled, Unclaimed, Unraveled all by Courtney Milan (she's one of my fave historical romance authors, I highly recommend her!
Unhooked by Unhooked - haven't read this, but it's a captain hook retelling.
Underground Airlines which I read earlier this year and found to be pretty intriguing.
Ursula K. Le Guin's books
Uprooted
X
Xian Li-lin Series
Xenowealth Series
Xenogenesis Series by Octavia Butler
Xinran (author)
Zhang Xianliang (author)
Rickshaw Boy - mc is name Xiangzi
X Marks the Scot
Now it's bedtime. Sonia says spreadsheets will be up tomorrow so I'll definitely be around tomorrow afternoon playing. Happy Reading!
I just need to clarify somethig as it has been confusing me: we can use a book for both spell-it-out and page count points? or can we only use it for either of them? this is my second tt challenge, so I'm not as familiar with the rules as others
Daniela wrote: "I just need to clarify somethig as it has been confusing me: we can use a book for both spell-it-out and page count points? or can we only use it for either of them? this is my second tt challeng..."
Yes, we can use it for both!
Everything we read (that also fits the challenge rules) will net us page points.
BUT a single book can only be applied to one task - for this challenge tasks include the spells, any books read for quidditch or the tri-wizard tournament and I'm assuming there will be tasks associated with classes when those start.
Vicky, do you have a format you want us to report our books in?
Vicky wrote: "I did some looking at some odd lettered books, here's some options:"For X there's also the Xanth series by Piers Anthony
For U, I recently read a bunch of them. My favorites:
An Uncertain Choice (this is the series name, so the whole series works)
Until the End - I don't do zombie books, but I actually liked this one. And if you need a book with a mental illness for a task, this one works
The Unexpected Everything - this one really exceeded my expectations
Laura wrote: "Vicky, do you have a format you want us to report our books in?"Good question!
The spreadsheets won't have the automatic pull of books that they have in a lot of the recent challenges, so we'll be entering everything into the spreadsheet by hand. That said, bare minimum - title, author, page number, date read and the task you read it for - please.
I always appreciate as much added information about alternative tasks for books as possible, just in case we need to shift things around, but I know not everyone loves that part so it's not strictly necessary. ;)
Completion PostBook: The Unexpected Everything
Author: Morgan Matson
Series: None
Characters: Andie Walker, Clark McCallister, Palmer, Bri, Tom
Pages: 519
Date Read: 5/12
Rating: 4 stars
For characters in the spell-out, do we use nicknames? In the above book, Bri's name is Sabrina, but they never call her that.
Completion PostBook: Unspoken
Author: Lisa Jackson
Narrator: Alyssa Bresnahan
Characters: Shelby Cole, Nevada Smith, Lydia, Red
369 pages
5-12-2018
3*
Completion PostBook: The Hypnotist's Love Story
Author: Liane Moriarty
Characters: Ellen, Patrick, Jack, Saskia
Pages: 429 pages
Date: 5-12-2018
Rating: 3 Stars
Laura wrote: "For characters in the spell-out, do we use nicknames? In the above book, Bri's name is Sabrina, but they never call her that."We can use nicknames as long as they are used in the story (so a passing mention like "my childhood nickname was Scout" wouldn't work). In this case, we could use either Sabrina or Bri, depending on which was more useful to us. :)
Wooo we finally have a spreadsheet. Link is here if you want to peruse. It's late and I work early tomorrow but I'm going to be on in the afternoon to play with it! :D
Yay! I love the spreadsheet! I didn't realize how the classes all worked. That's neat!
Nothing But Reading Challenges
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Ohhh, what are some of your favorite UFs? I love Jane Yellowrock (by Faith Hunter) and The Iron Druid Chronicles (by Kevin Hearne). They both had new releases the last few weeks and I need to read them soon!