Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion
Wheelathon 5
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Team Don Quixote
I forgot to add some info about me!I live in central Indiana (outside of Indianapolis). I'm married (27 years) and have 2 grown boys (24 and 20 in August) and a dog named Kauri.
I work from home 100% now with the pandemic but was about 90% home before that anyway. I started a new position at work last fall (I am a Project Mgr in our Marketing Dept) and was just feeling like I had it under control when the pandemic hit. Then due to lay-offs and a redirection of our marketing strategy, my workload exploded. I barely have time to breath during the day and am pretty much brain dead after that - reading is about a far as I can go although there are a few who seem to think I can be the Clue master in the game Clue in another group. Ha. When we lose, they have themselves to blame for trusting me ;-) Anyway, today is an easy day for some reason and I'm taking advantage by being here on GR :-D
Looking forward to playing - I do love Wheelathon!!
@Alysa You should! Estonia's quite nice. I'm glad you managed to experience the snow, snow's been kinda sparse in recent years. Maybe try coming back during a warmer season too, we have a lot of nature to enjoy :)
@Geri I'm just generally excited to read some fantasy, I've been in a massive fantasy mood lately but haven't picked anything up yet because I still have things to finish first! I'm hopefully going to work on finishing some series as well
![[[ Frankie ]] (freedbyfiction) | 536 comments](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1578068372p1/79641107.jpg)
Melindam wrote: "Hello Team DQ!Greetings from Team Orient Express. 😉
You can find our collected recommendations here: Book recommendations by Team Orient Express
Please feel free to drop by and recommend books ..."
Oh, this is awesome! Thank you so much!
Britta wrote: "Hi everyone! Sorry I'm a few days late but I made it!I'm Britta, I'm from Estonia and I'm a software engineer and master's student. I have my last exam of the semester tomorrow so after that I'm ..."
Good luck on your exam tomorrow!! 🍀
Donna wrote: "Greetings from The Wonderful World of Oz! We are preparing some book recommendations for you. We still have some people on our team to add theirs but you can check them out here. Happy Reading Y'all!"Thanks, Donna!
LaurLa wrote: "I live in central Indiana (outside of Indianapolis). ..."That’s cool, LaurLa - you’re right by some of my favorite podcasters - “Crime Junkie”. I am obsessed with that podcast.
I dunno if any of you listen to podcasts, but I highly recommend that one if you’re into true crime. They’re great storytellers. I also recommend “To Live and Die in L.A.” & “Up and Vanished”.
So, maybe we should collect some recommendations, since there are so many recommendation tasks?I’ll start (I’m on the app, but I can collect and link the books later).
Anything by Mariana Zapata
David Weber’s Honor Harrington books. Several of the titles start with vowels. And no one writes a space battle quite like Weber.
Illuminae, Gemina, Obsidio. Audio if you can, physical copy if you can’t. This has some alternate formatting, and I’ve heard the digital copy is kind of funky to read.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series. It is sci-fi, which I know isn’t for everyone, but the science is minimal and the characters are exceptional.
Anne Bishop’s The Others series!!!!! I can’t recommend this highly enough. I re-read it about once a year.
I’ve been reading a lot of reverse harem over the last year and a half, so I have some pretty good racy reads in any genre if that’s ever what anyone is looking for.
Adding: Anything by Tamora Pierce
A Dead and Stormy Night - Reverse Harem Cozy Mystery
Excellent audio series (also Reverse Harem) (recommend the whole series) - Trickery
Yeah, I’ve been in a reverse harem and cozy mystery phase lately. Not sure why those two genres. But I am having fun reading them. 😃 I will be looking through all the recs.
LaurLa wrote: "I forgot to add some info about me!I live in central Indiana (outside of Indianapolis). I'm married (27 years) and have 2 grown boys (24 and 20 in August) and a dog named Kauri.
I work from ho..."
We are fellow Hoosiers. 😁 And I love playing Clue too. Lots of fun!
Recs, rec, let's see...I will list stuff that I really liked recently(ish), and that maybe hasn't been super widely read/rec'd yet, at least not on NBRC. Otherwise, I will end up going too far down a deep rabbit hole, lol.
by M.R. Carey, which also has the next book coming out in Sept (which I am excited about, but it'll be too late for Wheel, oh well!). Post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/coming of age. Dead serious and funny at the same time.
by family Mike Carey, Louise Carey, and Linda Carey. Mike is the same MR Carey as the the book above, who mostly now publishes under his variant name for some reason. This book is a sweeping feminist-inspired desert fantasy adventure.
by Bryan Stevenson. Nonfiction memoir, recently made into a movie (which I have not seen). This book made be super angry about injustice, which was its point!
by Tom Miller. I'm going back further for this one, because I don't want to just recommend its sequel which I read more recently. Really impressive debut historical fantasy work.
by Chandler J. Birch. Reminiscent of The Lies of Locke Lamora. Sadly, the publisher did not know how to market it and it fell through the cracks. Do read, and maybe they will let the author release the sequel someday!
by Linnea Hartsuyker. In the interest of full disclosure, the author is an old friend of mine in real life. But that is not why I'm rec'ing it. It's just great historical fiction, especially if you like vikings!
by Sue Rainsford. So, so bizarre, in a good way. Some call it magical realism, but to me it's more like literary meets weird fic. And...
by Megan E. O'Keefe. Highly entertaining space opera, and the next book comes out in July, which I am excited about!So, mostly fantasy/sci-fi stuff except for Just Mercy and The Half-Drowned King. That's not all I read, but those are just books that came to the top of my mind :D
Hello DQ!I'm drifting over from Watership Down to wish you safe travels as we embark on this voyage of book exploration. My shipmates are tossing out recommendations for each other to use during our trip and I wanted to invite you to come aboard and have a look in this post , if you so desire. We promise not to let the bunnies attack!
BUT, in the spirit of team interaction, I would also like to invite each of you to drop by anytime to ask for specific recommendations for your favorite type of book or when you want something totally random to read!
If you happen to read a book our team recommended, please come back and let us know what you thought of it - good or bad!
Happy Travels and Happier Reading!
Recs - Historical Romance: Anything by Julia Quinn or Lisa Kleypas
I have a thing for lawman mystery series: Walt Longmire, Joe Pickett, Harry Bosch, Cork O'Connor, Chief Inspector Gamache, Cormoran Strike, Commissario Brunetti.
Or anything by Dick Francis, combining my two big loves - horses and mysteries.
Does this planning sheet work better for you all? Taking LaurLa's advice I copied the official spreadsheet. Trying to make it easy to see what letters are needed, but added the column to the right for other letter options so we captains can move things around for maximum points. I also added all of our names to the task list tab so we could track there as well.Let me know if that works better / is more intuitive?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Looks great, Michelle! Thank you! I love the “Tasks” Tab for each of us track/plan our own tasks.
I’ll sit down here in a bit & get some recs together. :]
New planning sheet looks great, Michelle! I think it'll be easier to see what's going on, and what can be moved around.Funny --
Where you wrote "lawman mystery", for some reason I read it as "lawnmower mystery" and was like WHAT IS THAT, lol.
The spreadsheet looks good, Michelle! Thank you! I will check the spreadsheet a few days before each round ends to see what we may need to complete a word. I can usually sneak in a book or two if needed.
Hey Don Quixote!We've begun packing book recommendations in preparation for our Odyssey and will continue updating the list throughout the challenge.
Book Recommendations from Team Odyssey
Happy reading!
@Frankie Thank you! The exam went fine and I'm ready to read now! :) I might see if I can read something quickly before the challenge starts because I'm definitely in the reading mood.
Hey team! Let’s do a little planning, since we’re limited to 10 of the book tags per round. For this first round, our tags are INSECTS, CREEPY, RACISM, WINGS, or TWILIGHT.
I have the Guild Hunter series, which are all tagged Wings. I can’t guarantee I can do more than 2 because I have them on audio and hubby working from home severely affects my listening time. But if I need to push myself, knowing sooner is always better.
So, who is planning a book that works for a tag?
I am hoping to read Blameless, which works for spell-out due to a bunch of character names, plus P series title. But I'm still waiting for my library hold on ebook to come in.I am crazy and searched through all its 70+ pages of tags, and found 1 person has tagged it TWILIGHT.
So, that's something. ;D
[eta: cut last sentence for atrocious writing... I am clearly still tired]
Hello I am Cindee and I love all kinds of YA books.
Hi! My names is Robyn and this will be my first Wheel-A-Thon. I am excited to play although I will admit maybe just a bit slightly confused lol. I am sure I will figure it out though.I read just about every genre, but my faves are thrillers, romance, historical fiction and women's fiction. Sci-fi and fantasy I am super picky with but will read some books if they catch my eye.
I am a kitty mom of 12 and usually when I am reading one of my cats is sitting on my chest taking a nap. They are lucky they are so darn cute!
I can't wait to begin!
I did a little calculating:So, based on everyone’s bpm/2, I think we can spell our phrase at least 6 times, and most of a 7th!
That’s 6-7 Is, Es, Zs, Rs, Ps, Hs
18-21 Ts, Os
That would be awesome if we can pull it off! I guess it will depend a lot on whether more people prefer to read longer or shorter books. More books = more spell-outs, and the new point system doesn’t reward for length anymore so lots of short books would be fine, but if we get many people who happen to be reading long books, it will impact the spell-outs. Just so long as we don’t end up with more than 1 partial word, it’s all good :D
Hi everyone - sorry for the late postI'm Sallie - I live in Southern Illinois just across the Wabash River from Vincennes Indiana. I'm married & mommy to 3 beautiful kitties - Hootie, Dottie Kat & our newest edition (as of yesterday) Loki and a beautiful Basenji dog, Hailie.
I'm looking forward to playing Wheel again. I read a lot of cozy mysteries, mysteries, historical fiction, paranormal romance, fantasy and historical romance.
Laura wrote: "Hey team! Let’s do a little planning, since we’re limited to 10 of the book tags per round. For this first round, our tags are INSECTS, CREEPY, RACISM, WINGS, or TWILIGHT.
I have the Guild Hunte..."
If anybody feels like they might be interested in reading Just Mercy for one of the “Read a book recommended by someone on you own team” tasks, it is tagged RACISM.
I can do the tag -Creepy with
. It also covers the letter H and is a thriller
I love Basenji dogs, Sallie! Feel free to post some pics of your furry family. :)
Hello Team Don Quixote,I'm flying around from Harry Potter to wish you all a safe, fun voyage through reading land. My witches and wizards are sharing recommendations for everyone to use during our voyage wanted to invite you all to take a look here and we would love it if you would come over and share your thoughts with us. No matter what if its good or bad we would like to hear your thoughts on the book you picked.
Happy Travels!
Let me search my shelves for some tags.
Mod
I've ventured out from Middle Earth to invite you all round whenever you would like. It's never more than 5 minutes from a meal (speaking of which is it time for lunch yet...).
We've got a lovely selection of recommendations here to tempt you all and would love it if you stick around to tell us what you thought.
Laura wrote: "I did a little calculating:So, based on everyone’s bpm/2, I think we can spell our phrase at least 6 times, and most of a 7th!
That’s 6-7 Is, Es, Zs, Rs, Ps, Hs
18-21 Ts, Os"
Thanks for doing that! I will keep an eye out for Os. I usually find a book works for more letters once I start reading. T shouldn’t be too hard since a lot of books begin with “The”. We can use it instead of ignore.
One question. If I read one or two more books than I committed to, we won’t be penalized, right? I think for last towers we had to stay close to our average number. Just want to check. Because I will likely be able to help complete a word if needed. And it might be more like 7 or 8 books per fortnight.
Sophie wrote: "Hi everyone!I've ventured out from Middle Earth to invite you all round whenever you would like. It's never more than 5 minutes from a meal (speaking of which is it time for lunch yet...).
We've..."
LOL Snacks and meals all day! Almost as good as reading all day.😁
Geri, I don’t see any penalties in the rules.
Nope, no penalties -- and people who read more than sign-up number can help cover for people who read less, when life gets in the way.I think that the only thing Mods would really care about is if someone reads next to nothing after signing up for a high #, or reads a billion books after signing up for a very low #.
There are no penalties within the challenge per se, but I think they pay attention if someone does these things repeatedly across multiple challenges. They'd probably get a strongly worded PM.
I think there was a penalty back in The Floor is Lava. We had to stay within 80% to 120% of our books
Britta wrote: "@Frankie Thank you! The exam went fine and I'm ready to read now! :) I might see if I can read something quickly before the challenge starts because I'm definitely in the reading mood."Yay! I’m glad to hear your exams went well! Time to celebrate, huh? 😏😉
Yeah, certain challenges have a direct point penalty.But on a meta level, it's more like an honor code. Like, of course people go into "challenge mode" sometimes, but the Mods obviously would not be happy with anybody intentionally signing up for (example) 10 books/month, and then proceeding to read 40 books/month. Because that would significantly skew the team assignments.
I signed up for 15 books/month, but I'll probably end up reading more like 12 unless I force myself into challenge mode and/or pick shorter books. It's been harder for me to read as much as usual, what with working from home and losing my usual train commute plus having my kid at home (she is 9). Plus I recently got a sort-of promotion at work due to other people leaving, so I have a bit more/different stuff to do. *grumble not getting a raise grumble*
@Captains -- if you would like some help putting together our team's Rec list, let me know.I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but I do love organize stuff. I'm not captaining but perhaps I can be like a "First Mate", lol.
Robyn wrote: "Hi! My names is Robyn and this will be my first Wheel-A-Thon. I am excited to play although I will admit maybe just a bit slightly confused lol. I am sure I will figure it out though ..."Robyn wrote: "I can do the tag -Creepy with
. It also covers the letter H and is a thriller"Hey, Robyn - welcome! It sounds like you got the hang of it already! So don’t worry - if you have any questions at all, I know any one of us would be more than happy to help you. :]
I have also been wanting to read that book for a while! Curious to see what you think about it if you do end up reading it.
Alysa wrote: "@Captains -- if you would like some help putting together our team's Rec list, let me know.I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but I do love organize stuff. I'm not captaining but perhaps I ca..."
Michelle has linked to each of our posts in post #7, so we can go around to the other teams and link to that post.
[[ Frankie ]] wrote: "Robyn wrote: "Hi! My names is Robyn and this will be my first Wheel-A-Thon. I am excited to play although I will admit maybe just a bit slightly confused lol. I am sure I will figure it out though ..."I think this will be my first read for the challenge.
for the Creepy Tag, Letter H, and Thriller or wherever it fits. Ive had this book in my TBR for a while, so now is a good time to start it lol
Laura wrote: "Alysa wrote: "@Captains -- if you would like some help putting together our team's Rec list, let me know.I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but I do love organize stuff. I'm not captaining bu..."
Oh, great! I hadn't seen that she'd updated that sticky.
I hope more Dons give some recs :)
Some recommendations - -
Laura wrote: "Geri, I don’t see any penalties in the rules."Thanks Laura and Alysa. I’m not likely to go way over my limit. One reason I am planning to tackle longer books. Yikes! I definitely don’t want a chastising from a Mod! 😁
Robyn wrote: "I think this will be my first read for the challenge. The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1) by Dot Hutchison for the Creepy Tag, Letter H, and Thriller or wherever it fits. Ive had this book in my TBR for a while, so now is a good time to start it lol"That book does deserve the creepy tag. It does have a butterfly on the cover too, so it could work for insect on cover. I think I have almost memorized that darn task list! LOL
Nothing But Reading Challenges
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fearfulfearless co-captains. I hope to be a help rather than hinderance to Michelle, but we shall see ;-)This is my 3rd (or 4th) (I think) Wheelathon and maybe 2nd (or 3rd) time being a co-captain. I'm not much of a 'chatterer' on team threads but I read like crazy and will do whatever our leader asks of me!!!
As for SS, Michelle - I think whatever makes it easier for you! In past teams I've had captains that have simply copied the official SS to use for planning and have had them set up something similar to what you have. The advantage of what copying the official SS is that as people place books in the spell out, it makes it easier for you to see completed words/what letters are needed. In planning, additional columns were definitely included for other letters that work and why. But you need to make it work for you and how you like to organize things :-) We will all just follow along!