Laura Z’s Comments (group member since Apr 24, 2025)

Laura Z’s comments from the The Lost Challenges group.

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December 2025 The Listener (30 new)

10 hours, 57 min ago

Ends of the Earth Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and Our Future by Neil Shubin

Dark Renaissance The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival by Stephen Greenblatt

A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever The Story of Spinal Tap by Rob Reiner

A Return to Common Sense How to Fix America Before We Really Blow It by Leigh McGowan

The Great Contradiction The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis

Patriarchy Inc. What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality—and Why Men Still Win at Work by Cordelia Fine

2026 A-Z Titles Challenge (12 new)

11 hours, 22 min ago

2026 A-Z Titles Challenge: 0/26
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

Goal: Read 26 books, each one with a title that begins with a different letter of the alphabet. Disregard A, AN and THE.
*For Q, X, Y and Z, the title only needs to have that letter somewhere in it.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q*
R
S
T
U
V
W
X*
Y*
Z*

2026 A-Z Series Challenge (9 new)

11 hours, 25 min ago

2026 A-Z Series Challenge: 0/26
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

*For Q, U, X, Y and Z, the series only needs to have that letter somewhere in its name.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q*
R
S
T
U*
V
W
X*
Y*
Z*

2026 Purge That Pile (19 new)

11 hours, 28 min ago

Purge That Pile 2026: 0/12
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

Object: Read 12 books - one each month. 📚

January - Read a book that is a first in a series.

February - Read a book with a red cover.

March - Read a book with a title that starts with an M.

April - Read a book tagged humor.

May - Read a book with a MC who is a mother.

June - Read a book with a title that ends in an E.

July - Read a book with a beach on the cover.

August - Read a book by a FAVORITE author.

September - Read a book where the first letter of each title word can be found in LABOUR DAY.

October - Read a book with a pumpkin on the cover.

November - Read a book whose author's first name begins with a vowel and last name begins with a consonant.

December - Read a book tagged holiday.

2026 50 States (11 new)

11 hours, 38 min ago

The 50 States Challenge 2026: 0/50
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

1. Alabama
2. Alaska
3. Arizona
4. Arkansas
5. California
6. Colorado
7. Connecticut
8. Delaware
9. Florida
10. Georgia
11. Hawaii
12. Idaho
13. Illinois
14. Indiana
15. Iowa
16. Kansas
17. Kentucky
18. Louisiana
19. Maine
20. Maryland
21. Massachusetts
22. Michigan
23. Minnesota
24. Mississippi
25. Missouri
26. Montana
27. Nebraska
28. Nevada
29. New Hampshire
30. New Jersey
31. New Mexico
32. New York
33. North Carolina
34. North Dakota
35. Ohio
36. Oklahoma
37. Oregon
38. Pennsylvania
39. Rhode Island
40. South Carolina
41. South Dakota
42. Tennessee
43. Texas
44. Utah
45. Vermont
46. Virginia
47. Washington
48. West Virginia
49. Wisconsin
50. Wyoming

December 2025 Clean It Out (36 new)

Dec 18, 2025 03:19PM

Genevieve wrote: "Well done Laura Z sorry I will get it straightened"

Thanks, Genevieve!

2026 A-Z Male Characters Challenge (20 new)

Dec 18, 2025 01:11PM

2026 A-Z Male Characters Challenge: 0/26
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

Read 26 books, each one with a male main character whose first or last name begins with a different letter of the alphabet. For Q, U, X, Y and Z, the character only needs to have that letter somewhere in their name.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q*
R
S
T
U*
V
W
X*
Y*
Z*

2026 A-Z Locations Challenge (21 new)

Dec 18, 2025 01:08PM

2026 A-Z Locations Challenge: 0/26
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

Read 26 books, each one with a location/setting that begins with a different letter of the alphabet. For Q, X, Y and Z, the location only needs to have that letter somewhere in its name.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q*
R
S
T
U
V
W
X*
Y*
Z*

Reading The Seasons - Winter 2025/26 (30 new)

Dec 18, 2025 01:00PM

Reading The Seasons - Winter: 0/31+
Duration: December 21, 2025 - March 20, 2026

❄️Fantastically Frosty: 31+ points❄️

1. Winter Fun - Read a book with the word WINTER in the title -->BONUS: Winter on the cover:

2. Enjoy the Snow Falling - Read a book where you find the letters SNOW in any order in the author's name:

3. Build a snowman - Read a book where characters build a snowman -->BONUS: Snowman on the cover:

4. Sit By the Fireplace - Read a book with a fireplace on the cover:

5. Hit the Slopes - Read a book where a character goes skiing or enjoys another outdoor winter sport:

6. Decorate Your Home - Read a book where a home is decorated for the holidays:

7. Christmas - Read a book with the word CHRISTMAS in the title -->BONUS: A Christmas tree or wreath on the cover:

8. Have a Wrapping Party - Read a book where characters wrap gifts -->BONUS: With a gift box on the cover:

9. New Year's Day - Read a book that is first in a series -->BONUS: Also by an author you have not read before:

10. Go to a Hockey Game - Read a book where a character goes to a hockey game -->BONUS: The title begins with a letter in HOCKEY:

11. Martin Luther King Jr. Day - Read a book by a black author or from the Christian genre:

12. Make Snow Ice Cream - Read a book where a character eats ice cream:

13. Chinese New Year - Read a book set in China OR by a Chinese author OR with a horse on the cover or in the story:

14. Groundhog's Day - Read a book set in Pennsylvania:

15. Host an Oscar Viewing Party - Read a book where a character watches movies -->BONUS: The title begins with a letter in OSCAR:

16. Valentine's Day - Read a Romance:

17. Winter Genres Read a book with a genre or tag that begins with a letter in WINTER:

18. Winter Titles - Read a book whose title begins with a letter in WINTER:

19. Winter Books - Read a book published between December 21st and March 20th of any year -->BONUS: Published between 12/21/25 and 3/20/26:

20. Read Across America Day - Read a book you borrowed from the library:

December 2025 Clean It Out (36 new)

Dec 18, 2025 06:03AM

COMPLETED 12.18.25

Clean It Out: 5/5
Duration: December 1, 2025 - December 31, 2025

🎄1. Read one book from your TBR or from the pile you have at home: Good Spirits | B.K. Borison | 12.04.25

🎄2. Read one book from a series you have started and not finished: My Imaginary Mary | Cynthia Hand | 12.18.25 | Mary, #2

🎄3. Read one book that you bought or borrowed but have not yet read: L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 41: The Best New SF & Fantasy of the Year | Jodi Lynn Nye (editor) | 12.05.25

🎄4. Read one book that will help with a difficult challenge: Wild, Beautiful, and Free | Sophfronia Scott | 12.06.25 | author's first and last initials are the same

🎄5. Read one free book from your e-reader: Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies | Laura Thompson | 12.04.25

Good Spirits (Ghosted, #1) by B.K. Borison

My Imaginary Mary (Mary, #2) by Cynthia Hand

L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 41 The Best New SF & Fantasy of the Year by L. Ron Hubbard

Wild, Beautiful, and Free by Sophfronia Scott

Heiresses The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura Thompson

2026 A-Z Genres Challenge (16 new)

Dec 15, 2025 07:34PM

2026 A-Z Genres Challenge: 0/25
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

You may use main genres or sub-genres. For the harder letters - Q, U, X and Z - you may use any genre with that letter in its name. You will also be allowed FIVE 'wildcards' for this challenge. Wildcards can be used in place of any letter that you're struggling with, allowing you to substitute a genre beginning with any other letter. However, the substituted genre must be different from any other genre that you have already used, so that you still end up with 26 different genres.

A
B
C
D
E
F
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H
I
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X*
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Z*

December 2025 Word Search (49 new)

Dec 14, 2025 06:53AM

COMPLETED 12.14.25

December 2025 Word Search: 46/41+
Duration: December 1, 2025 - December 31, 2025

All of the words can be found in A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss.

Level Three: 41-50 words

🎄Romancing Christmas | Kate Aster | 12.03.25 | 2 words

36. salty – p. 10: I’m about to let out a salty curse, but a kid…
42. snide – p. 171: “Thanks for the support, titwad. You’re a real friend,” I reply, my tone snide.

🎄 Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies | Laura Thompson | 12.04.25 | 28 words

2. alive – p. 204: The art was as jagged and alive as a crack of lightning…
3. angry – p. 106: …he became, as narcissists do, uncontrollably angry.
10. double – p. 128: It confronted the sexual double standards that still, in fact, exist…
11. drink – p. 339: …over the years she became addicted to drink, then drugs…
12. envelope – p. 186: …generally include a letter for his current girlfriend in the envelope.
14. fingers – p. 115: …dashing off to Gretna Green and sticking two fingers to the established order.
16. glamorous – p. 339: …her father, that glamorous, difficult, semi-absentee man.
20. hurt – p. 188: Again, the hurt seems absolutely sincere…
22. lips – p. 243: …she wore, for instance, a black suit with a motif of pink lips…
23. loser – p. 278: …where sex was a game whose rules required one to be a good loser…
24. luck – p. 91: Wakefield had, in fact, already tried his luck with an heiress.
25. magic – p. 134: Those outside the magic circle had to be invited in…
27. nephew – p. 200: She had in her care a nephew and niece…
28. north – p. 38: In 1680 Mary was sent up north to this house, where she spent twenty years…
29. notice – p. 242: …gave Dorothy a day’s notice to remove her entire string…
30. occasion – p. 201: …yet what interested her on this occasion was not the music…
31. reading – p. 301: …spent much of the proceedings reading a newspaper…
32. reasons – p. 110: It was a decadent joke played for deadly serious reasons…
33. rice – p. 355: …five hundred pounds of rice, two hundred fifty pounds of arrowroot…
35. sale – p. 77: The sale was a wildly popular sightseeing event…
37. seven – p. 33: From the age of seven Mary was paraded in a coach-and-six in Hyde Park…
39. shouting – p. 213: …the gondoliers shouting Hoih! Hoih! as you approach a corner.
41. small – p. 175: Its small, continual movements usually happen out of sight…
44. star – p. 17: …the film star Cary Grant, whom she married in 1942.
46. sweet – p. 63: She was pretty, sweet, and immensely popular: a Regency It girl.
47. village – p. 53: …soon taking up positions at the little village just across the border…
49. welcome – p. 235: …there is nothing more welcome than simple appreciation…
50. winter – p. 264: …he locked her out of the house all night in the middle of winter.

🎄 Behind Every Good Man | Sara Goodman Confino | 12.05.25 | 1 word

34. rude – p. 216: Which, at a party especially, was quite rude.

🎄 Wild, Beautiful, and Free | Sophfronia Scott | 12.06.25 | 7 words

6. bench – p. 80: …all I could do to sit up straight on the bench outside.
7. biscuits – p. 340: Annie was serving them biscuits and coffee.
8. buttons – p. 173: Even the smallest child could sort buttons or sweep a floor.
9. crushed – p. 29: Calista crushed me in an embrace, and I kissed her forehead.
15. freckles – p. 157: Nothing obscured the freckles dotting the sides of my face…
18. gracious – p. 165: …attractive, beautiful, handsome, gracious, imposing.
45. sweat – p. 49: He stank of whiskey and sweat and the mustiness of a cellar.

🎄 Grace of the Empire State | Gemma Tizzard | 12.10.25 | 1 word

48. walnut – p. 5: Her hair was the color of polished walnut and had a natural shine.

🎄 Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service | Gary Sinise | 12.11.25 | 1 word

13. festival – p. 97: The pressure was on to get the film ready for the festival.

🎄 Dungeon Crawler Carl | Matt Dinniman | 12.14.25 | 6 words

1. addicts – p. 199: I shrugged. “They’re both drug addicts?”
4. banana – p. 232: I took a banana from the fruit basket, peeled it, and took a bite.
17. glitter – p. 64: The cat-sized crown glittered with smoky, dark gems.
26. menu – p. 39: That mollified me while Mordecai moved me to the next menu.
38. shelf – p. 26: Donut jumped up on a high shelf and knocked a vase over.
40. shrink – p. 108: …before the dungeon shrinks enough for us to find her.

5. barista
19. heater
21. jukebox
43. solstice

In Memory (44 new)

Dec 13, 2025 03:57PM

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

In Memory (44 new)

Dec 13, 2025 03:55PM

The Haves and Have-Yachts Dispatches on the Ultrarich by Evan Osnos

Vote With Your Phone Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy by Bradley Tusk

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

Five Broken Blades (The Broken Blades, #1) by Mai Corland

Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder by Kerryn Mayne

The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong

December 2025 Scattergories (60 new)

Dec 13, 2025 06:55AM

COMPLETED 12.13.25

December Scattergories - M: 12/12
Duration: December 1, 2025 - December 31, 2025

🎄 1. Book Title - My Other Heart: My Other Heart | Emma Nanami Strenner | 12.11.25
🎄 2. Author - Yamile Saied Mendez: Furia | Yamile Saied Méndez | 12.13.25
🎄 3. Main Character - Christopher Marlowe: Dark Renaissance | Stephen Greenblatt | 12.12.25
🎄 4. Secondary Character - Michael Landau: Behind Every Good Man | Sara Goodman Confino | 12.05.25
🎄 5. Place/Setting - Missouri: All the Colors of the Dark | Chris Whitaker | 12.12.25
🎄 6. Item on cover - mustache: A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap | Rob Reiner | 12.13.25

Behind Every Good Man by Sara Goodman Confino

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

🎄 7. Something on a face - mouth: Wild, Beautiful, and Free | Sophfronia Scott | 12.06.25 | p. 37: But I nodded and covered my mouth with my hands.
🎄 8. A word that ends with -E - mistake: Grace of the Empire State | Gemma Tizzard | 12.10.25 | 74: …Joe would delight in calling her out on every mistake she made…
🎄 9. Something you can hold in your hand - microphone: Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service | Gary Sinise | 12.11.25 | p. 176: I took the microphone and said a few words.
🎄10. Items that can be lost - mittens: Good Spirits | B.K. Borison | 12.04.25 | p. 75: They’re comically huge. More like oven mitts than mittens.
🎄11. I am 5280 feet long - mile: Romancing Christmas | Kate Aster | 12.03.25 | p. 49: That seventh mile I ran must have been too much for a lazy Saturday afternoon.
🎄12. A union between two people - marriage: Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies | Laura Thompson | 12.04.25 | p. 33: …their stupendous wealth was acquired through that marriage to Mary.

Grace of the Empire State by Gemma Tizzard

Grateful American A Journey from Self to Service by Gary Sinise

Romancing Christmas (Brothers in Arms, #5) by Kate Aster

2026 A-Z Female Characters Challenge (25 new)

Dec 12, 2025 07:50AM

2026 A-Z Female Characters Challenge: 0/26
Duration: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026

Goal: Read 26 books, each one with a female main character whose first or last name begins with a different letter of the alphabet. For Q, U, X, Y and Z, the character only needs to have that letter somewhere in their name.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
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U
V
W
X
Y
Z

December 2025 Goodness Gracious Great Genres (21 new)

Dec 12, 2025 07:12AM

December 2025 Stand Alone (37 new)

Dec 12, 2025 06:41AM

Hall of Fame Chat (68 new)

Dec 11, 2025 08:37AM

TLC Mods wrote: "Laura Z wrote: "Sorry, Laura, Goodreads has been extremely glitchy this week. We post things and sometimes it doesn't stick."

The glitches have been driving me crazy too! Goodreads has been a struggle this week. Thanks again. 🙂

Hall of Fame Chat (68 new)

Dec 11, 2025 07:54AM

I'm missing my badge for Worst Movie Sequels (completed 12.07.25). Thanks!

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