Play Book Tag discussion
2023 Activities and Challenges
>
Announcing the Two Challenge Winners for 2023
date
newest »
newest »
Anita wrote: "Robin P wrote: "I only have my list for Subdue the Shelf on GR, not in a list anywhere else, and I don't think they're easy to copy from there.. I like the idea of assigning numbers but I can't fig..."Thank you very much, Anita, for such a detailed explanation! It's really useful
Anita wrote: "Robin P wrote: "I only have my list for Subdue the Shelf on GR, not in a list anywhere else, and I don't think they're easy to copy from there.. I like the idea of assigning numbers but I can't fig..."This will save a lot of time. Thanks!
You are all so welcome! Let me know if you need any additional help with it.
I managed to put a list with extra columns, into both excel and word, but I’ll have to try a few different ways to get it to use fewer rows in excel. My spreadsheet skills have seriously declined. When will we need to complete our lists?
I might include some of the Tob list and put them in the first third of the list.
NancyJ wrote: "I managed to put a list with extra columns, into both excel and word, but I’ll have to try a few different ways to get it to use fewer rows in excel. My spreadsheet skills have seriously declined. ..."My Excel skills are nearly non-existant due to having staff for many years who did whatever I needed. So I had the same problem with too many rows for some titles 1when transferred direct. What I did is copy it first to a word document as plain text, edit as needed, then copied that list into Excel. That gave me the perfect list in Excel and I was able to work with it. Took far less time than my trying to fixit in Excel.
Well, I think typing out 100 titles would have been quicker but after messing around for some time with Word and Excel I think I finally have a list. GR insisted on copying a column marked edit/view that wasn't showing up as an actual column. And I had to look up how to remove hyperlinks. But at least I have a list!
Robin P wrote: "I am trying to do this as described but when I remove everything but title GR gives me a column next to each book marked edit/view. When I try to copy that to Excel or Word it messes up the numberi..."Robin,
Do you have your shelf set up on your page as described? I'll copy it and fix it for you in Excel. I would need an email address to send it to you . . .
Robin P wrote: "I am trying to do this as described but when I remove everything but title GR gives me a column next to each book marked edit/view. When I try to copy that to Excel or Word it messes up the numberi..."In word you can use ‘find and replace’ to eliminate the junk, and you can make it a list with numbers.
Robin P wrote: "I am trying to do this as described but when I remove everything but title GR gives me a column next to each book marked edit/view. When I try to copy that to Excel or Word it messes up the numberi..."Okay, I did it. It took me literally a minute. I just need you to PM me with an email address, and I'll send it to you.
You had over 100 titles on your Subdue shelf, but I just included all of them, and you can delete the ones you don't want. They are alphabetized right now.
Are we supposed to be submitting our Subdue the Shelf entries anytime soon? I was waiting for the thread to figure that out. Has this one become it?
LIke can I just email you or goodreads mail you the 100?
Amy wrote: "Are we supposed to be submitting our Subdue the Shelf entries anytime soon? I was waiting for the thread to figure that out. Has this one become it?"No, this is not it.
I will be setting up special threads around mid month after I post the final rules (also mid month).
This thread is just Q&A/help for now, lol.
Amy wrote: "LIke can I just email you or goodreads mail you the 100?"Please don't. You can set it up under Member Challenge Tracking for now, and then post it mid month after I've provided the directions/final rules for Subdue the Shelf.
I don't need to see it before that.
I am just helping people who are having trouble compiling their lists.
Excel Tip:When you go to paste what you have copied from Goodreads, there are choices for how to paste.
The choice you need to select is: select source formatting
Then, all of the hyperlinks go away, and there will be columns. You can just delete the columns other than the column entitled Title.
And that's all you need to do!
I did mention this in the directions, but maybe I didn't state it clearly/emphatically enough, lol.
Anita wrote: "Excel Tip:When you go to paste what you have copied from Goodreads, there are choices for how to paste.
The choice you need to select is: select source formatting
Then, all of the hyperlinks go..."
Or maybe some of us are really really really weak on Excel skills.
🙋♀️
I hope the tournament of book shortlist will come out soon. I want to put a couple of them on my list - within the first 20 spots.I’m curious what you’re all thinking re page length. Are you putting the long books you own on the list to push yourself to read them? Or are you focusing on shorter books? I have some longish books that I keep skipping past. I’m not sure if I’m avoiding them due to the length, topics, or just because I’m tempted by fresh shiny things. Maybe I’ll put them all at the beginning of my list, so I’ll read a couple at least.
I'm sure everyone has a different way of selecting what to put on their list. I did not consider page length except to make sure none were novellas. I did try to list a kindle book every few titles so if I was on vacation when I got a roll I'd have a shot at getting one I could start reading.
For the physical books part of the list I am using another list. I regularly loan books out to my sister-in-law. She hasn't a close library and we have similar taste in books. She lives about 400 miles away and visits family here about 4 times a year. When I get books back I note them so I don't send repeats inadvertently. I am using that list to pick a majority of this list from. Then I can pass these on to my local library's ongoing book sale and clear my shelves a bit.
I'd be interested in hearing how others are making their decisions.
For page length I made sure everything was at least 150 pages, but then tried to keep the books on the list below 400 pages each.I sorted my list by average star rating, with the lower rated books near the beginning. I think that should help me stay motivated through the year to keep reading.
My TBR is almost entirely virtual, but I do have a small handful of Kindle books that have sat unread on my device - so I made sure to include all of those.
And also since my TBR is mostly virtual, I double checked that each book is available to get - mostly from the library or from Kindle. I found a good handful of books that are out of print and going for ridiculous amounts of money used on Amazon. I took the opportunity to take those right off my TBR since I will likely never go through any effort to get them and read them.
Anita wrote: "Robin P wrote: "I am trying to do this as described but when I remove everything but title GR gives me a column next to each book marked edit/view. When I try to copy that to Excel or Word it messe..."I'm so impressed! I never was actually trained in Excel, just sort of figured out the most basic parts when I needed to. Thanks, I did send you my email.
NancyJ wrote: "I hope the tournament of book shortlist will come out soon. I want to put a couple of them on my list - within the first 20 spots.I’m curious what you’re all thinking re page length. Are you putt..."
For those that are talking about what order to have the books in, I thought that won't matter because the Mods would choose a number from 1-100 to start with. But looking at it, I now see they will use dice, so you will start with one of 1st 12 books. I actually think it would be more interesting if they started everybody off with random numbers, like you could get 47 or 99. Then after the first book, the Mods would roll for you. If I know the starting place, I'll probably overthink the order I put the books in. (Not that it will necessarily help!)
I'm pretty good with Excel, so anyone who needs help can PM me.
I never put long, big or slow reads into challenges where there is a random draw. I have learned that if the long books or heavier more serious books are drawn at the wrong time, when I really can't handle reading them, it derails my challenge. I generally stick to lighter shorter reading fare for challenges like this. Nothing on my list is over 500 pages with most running 300 to 450 pages. I have TBR Towers, not just lists on GR. What I did was pick from different groups of fiction books, most randomly:
All the 2022 Edgar Nominees I never got to
All the library impulse borrows I returned unread since 2020
Next in series or by author
First in new series
Bookshelves and TBR Towers
Ebook libraries
Feminerdy reads from year before I joined
Longest books on my GR TBR
Favorite light reading genres
Then I added 3 or 4 NF, one's I've had on the TBR for a long time.
If you look at my list, there is diversity but a lot of crime fiction, my passion, that has been neglected recently.
My list is almost set. Still tweaking.
I do three annual challenges with prompts (Popsugar, Read Harder, and Around the Year). I found books that fit the prompts from each challenge that were relatively short (but over 150 pages) so that no matter what number comes up, it will fulfill one of the yearly challenge prompts too. I alternated the three challenges so book 1 fits Popsugar prompt 1, book 2 fits Around the Year prompt 1 and book 3 fits Read Harder prompt 1. There were some prompts I skipped (otherwise it would have been over 100 books) and there is a chance that I will have already read another book that fit the prompt before I got there, but overall it will make it easier for me to keep up with everything.
I am still on my phone so I am hoping folks are using Excel because that is what they have. Before my computer got drunk and aquired a permanent hangover I had started my list on Google sheets. It doesn't matter does it? I don't use or have Excel. I basically looked at my go-to TBR shelves, and pulled books that I have or books I can get easily at the local library. Also tried choosing books that have been on my TBR the longest. My next step was going to be to check page numbers and try to stay short to mid-range in length. I may move a few books from where they were originally put, but randomizing was not something I thought about. I could do it if I have time, but it is not a priority right now.
NancyJ wrote: "I hope the tournament of book shortlist will come out soon. I want to put a couple of them on my list - within the first 20 spots.I’m curious what you’re all thinking re page length. Are you putt..."
I have gone for a mix of the longest books in terms of page length as well as the books that have been on my TBR the longest, with a few extras thrown in that I might need a push to get to. I've just looked at my initial list, and nearly half of them are over 400 pages, with 9 books over 750 pages. I'm going to put the shortest book on my list as number 1, as I will only read that if I get moved back in the game. For the rest, I'm going to put them in order from longest to shortest and hope I end up reading lots of them.
I've tried to compose a list of books which I most want to read and mix in dtb, that I want to get back to reading more of. After I randomized my list, I went through and put the ones I want to read most at the bottom, so as I pass them by I can read them.
I'm not doing this for points as I can't earn any but as a way to take books off my tbr and real life bookshelves.
Looking forward to both but especially Happy Birthday. Can’t wait to see those candles … how about mid December rather than late 🤣
Typically for me, I threw books for Subdue the Shelf onto the list mostly on a whim. I imagine I'll get to some where I think "why did I put this here?" The only year-long challenge I do is Around the Year, which is 52 books, but I do monthly or quarterly games in several other groups, plus the Seasonal Reading Challenge, which I think of as the Ironman of challenges. I will probably never complete it, as it takes about 60 books per quarter. But I enjoy being in a group where some people actually read MORE than I do.
With all these challenges, I have read quite a bit from my TBR the last couple years, but it has the magical property of never getting smaller!
And I sometimes wonder how much more I could read if I spent less time on GR threads, and making and changing plans for my reading!
KateNZ wrote: "Looking forward to both but especially Happy Birthday. Can’t wait to see those candles … how about mid December rather than late 🤣"Lol, your wish is my command. Planning on next Monday to post more information about both challenges.
Thanks everyone. It’s interesting to hear the different approaches. For the first time ever, I am focusing on ebooks and e-audios I already own. There are some great books that I forgot I have. I want to include some books I won. I might clump similar books together on the list, since the odds of landing on sequential positions is low. If I own books with the January tag, I’ll put them in spaces 6, 7 or 8 on my board.……
I still have too many long books, and some novellas that might not qualify. I’m glad I have a good head start. I’ll look at it fresh in a week or two. I think it could end up being a low pressure game once the planning is done.
I'm awed by those who put long books on random draw lists. I already have 2 long books to read for Popsugar Challenge in 2023. The single day book will be Ulysses which I recall as being over 600 pages. I never managed to read it in 2022, but can in 2023. I'm also reading Les Miz for PS -- because they have a longest book on TBR prompt. My book this time is the 1,400+ Les Miz. I'm going for it. In English.
I'm also reading in January The Empire of Gold
for Feminerdy Book Club - it's over 700 pages I recall.
AND I'm starting my reread of A Clash of Kings, no where close to the longest of that series but still 969 pages.
I decided I did not need to put any really long books on Subdue the Shelf.
Theresa wrote: "I'm awed by those who put long books on random draw lists. I already have 2 long books to read for Popsugar Challenge in 2023. The single day book will be Ulysses which I recall as be..."Lol. I agree. I just read something about Ulysses being one of the least read (and perhaps least admired) of all the so-called admired books. For books set in one day, I liked A Single Man and Mrs Dalloway.
I haven't made my list yet, but knowing me, I'm going to start by looking at what's been on my tbr the longest and see what's easily available. And go from there. I am not going to stress too much about where I put which books. I will, of course, need to be sure I don't put anything shorter than 150 pages, but otherwise, I don't usually notice how long a book is when I add it to these kinds of challenges (which can bite me in the butt!). Of course, as an admin, I am not competing, either, so less strategy involved, I think.
I have a tendency to accidentally erase things when editing directly on goodreads. A finger slip might erase a whole section that I can't simple undo. Especially when I'm on a smaller device than my laptop. Does anyone else have this problem?I'll need to make multiple copies of my Subdue the Shelf gameboard in Word and/or my own activities thread - before and after each move in the game.
After reading this thread, I completely changed my tune. I realized that I had put the books that I had the most easy access to, and they were therefore a lot older, so they could even come in for the library super quick or I could Amazon them, and I had paid no attention to the length. I also had picked books that would help me with my secret phone, TBR and the order of things. Because I had really wanted to get to, but then realizing the length issue, I then went through my TBR and pretty much replaced anything that was long, and there were some chunkier ones, with reeds on my TV are that were between 250 and 320 pages. There may be an exception or two in there that I missed but now all 100 books should be under 340. And all 100 books are on my TBR. So no matter what gets picked it will help me subdue the shelf. I’m curious to see what will come.
NancyJ wrote: "I have a tendency to accidentally erase things when editing directly on goodreads. A finger slip might erase a whole section that I can't simple undo. Especially when I'm on a smaller device than m..."I track all my challenges in excel spreadsheets ... and copy/paste to the relevant post on Goodreads.
I write all my reviews in Word, save, edit, save, etc ... and when I'm satisfied, copy/paste to Goodreads.
Book Concierge wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "I have a tendency to accidentally erase things when editing directly on goodreads. A finger slip might erase a whole section that I can't simple undo. Especially when I'm on a smalle..."Thanks, those are good habits. For this game, I will definitely use Word to make a copy of each board edit. Or I can also copy it to my own activities page. I want my list to have hyperlinks, and that’s easier for me to do in word than excel.
I should get into the habit of using Word for all posts. I always think, oh this will be quick so I don’t need to bother, but …often it’s not. I switch between two ( or even 3) devices depending on where I am, and I don’t use word or excel on the smaller devices.
If I had just one TBR, I would use Excel more, but I’m constantly adding more books and shelves. Most planning tasks require me to constantly look at different Goodreads pages, and adding another program just gets tedious. I did use excel for Fly the Skies and it was very helpful in comparing alternate routes.
On Subdue the Shelf, it's possible I may read some of the books yet this year or for other groups during next year. I assume I would just move back in the same way I would if I had read them for this challenge. Many of you are super-organized and know exactly what you put in the game and what you plan to read when. Not me - I couldn't tell you right now what any of the 100 are without looking at the list.
Robin P wrote: "On Subdue the Shelf, it's possible I may read some of the books yet this year or for other groups during next year. I assume I would just move back in the same way I would if I had read them for th..."I’m going to try to make sure I pick a lot of books that will work for ATY as well as Subdue the shelf.
Play Book Tag
Books mentioned in this topic
Ulysses (other topics)Ulysses (other topics)
The Empire of Gold (other topics)
A Clash of Kings (other topics)
If you know Excel at all, you don't need to retype the titles.
Basically, set up the titles on one shelf.
Click on the shelf.
At the bottom of the page, set the number of titles to display on one page to be 100.
Then, go into settings and unclick every options except Title.
Also in Settings, choose List in the upper right hand corner of the settings under Column Sets.
Now, you have just a list of the titles. You can copy and paste these into a spreadsheet (do not retain the formatting; select source formatting). If you sort on the title column you can eliminate any extra rows that may have resulted when you did the copying.
Now, you have a list you can copy elsewhere, into a randomizer, etc.
P.S. I tested this so let me know if you need help/have questions.