You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

Sharpen your pencils because we're going to play Scrabble. Here's how it works.

Read a book with two or more words in the title where the words connect at one letter, or more - just like in Scrabble!

Example 1 Black Beauty:



Example 2 Little Lord Fauntleroy:



Example 3 The Help:



Specific rules to this challenge:

1. Each consecutive word in the title must connect to the word immediately preceding it. Note in the second example - Little Lord Fauntleroy - the third word connects with the second. Say the title was Little Lord Tom. This title wouldn't count because Tom does not connect with Lord, even though it connects with Little.

2. All words in the title must connect. If you have a title with the words a, an, if, the, but, and, etc they also need to connect according to rule 1 above.

3. All letters touching each other must connect in the title. Note In The Help, H & E connect in both titles. But, in Little Lord Fauntleroy, you cannot connect Lord & Fauntleroy at the O, because the Y would be connecting to the I.



4. Anthologies do not count.

General rules:

1. The book may be in any format - paperback, ebook, audiobook.
2. The book may be in any genre.
3. The book may NOT be combined with the Year Long Alphabet Challenge.
4. The book must be read between June 1 and June 30, 2013.
5. The challenge is for one book. You may read more books if you chose, but only the highest scoring book will apply.
6. The book must be 200 pages or more determined by the issue you read. If reading eBook or audiobook it will be deteremined by the issue that comes up on a Goodreads search.
7. Subtitles do not count.

Scoring:

Everything will score according to the official Scrabble letter values:
1 pt - A, E, I, O, N, R, T L, S, U
2 pt - D, G
3 pt - B, C, M, P
4 pt - F, H, V, W, Y
5 pt - K
8 pt - J, X
10 pt - Q, Z

Tally up the points for the following criteria:

Title - Where letters connect, give them double points (this can be quite strategic since some letters are worth more than others).

Example - The Help...
The: T = 1, H = 4 x 2, E = 1 x 2
help: H = 4 x 2, E = 1 x 2, L = 1, P = 3
Total: 25 points

Example - Little Lord Fauntleroy gets double points for the L in Little, L in Lord, R in Lord and R in Fauntleroy.

Genre - For ease of determining genre, we will use the one that is shelved the most on the book's page.

Author

So we are scoring on Title, Genre, & Author.

Have fun! Questions?

Wow! This is awesome, Janice! I will read Little Lord Fauntleroy.

How the genre and author will score?

A great challenge! I will have to go check out my bookcase and kindle and get a pen and pencil out to see what will score best.

Fun fun fun! If the title has an apostrophe in it ( The Handmaid's Tale) could we still use it? I know this book wouldn't work - just used it as an example.

Can we use a book that we are going to use in the toppler or a group read? I second Anna's question on how to score the author and genre too.

Anna wrote: "How the genre and author will score?"

You will need to assign the values to each letter in the genre and author's name and tally the score. It's the same as the title only there won't be any double scores.

Marnie wrote: "Fun fun fun! If the title has an apostrophe in it ( The Handmaid's Tale) could we still use it? I know this book wouldn't work - just used it as an example."

Yes, ignore the apostrophe.

Sarah wrote: "Can we use a book that we are going to use in the toppler or a group read? I second Anna's question on how to score the author and genre too."

Yes. The only activity that you cannot use the same book for is the Alphabet Challenge. Topplers and Group Reads are fair game.

OMG! I love this challenge. You rock, Janice. :)

Excellent. Thanks for clarifying Janice. Just one more question! So if we chose say The Great Gatsby which does interlock but the author (F. Scott Fitzgerald) doesn't is this ok? Do I still score the title AND the author?

Sarah wrote: "Excellent. Thanks for clarifying Janice. Just one more question! So if we chose say The Great Gatsby which does interlock but the author (F. Scott Fitzgerald) doesn't is this ok? Do I still score t..."

We're only looking at the title for interlocking letters. The author just gives extra points.

Pragya wrote: "OMG! I love this challenge. You rock, Janice. :)"

Hehehe! I'm glad you like it Pragya. :) Thanks.

Janice wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Excellent. Thanks for clarifying Janice. Just one more question! So if we chose say The Great Gatsby which does interlock but the author (F. Scott Fitzgerald) doesn't is this ok? Do I..."

Excellent. That makes sense now. Thanks again.

Another great challenge Janice! Looking forward to taking part in this one.

I also have a question. If a book is shelved as romance > historical romance, what would you score it as? Romance or historical romance?

I would say that you go with the first part - Romance.

Janice wrote: "I would say that you go with the first part - Romance."

Ok, cool. Thanks Janice.

Oh my. My brain just crashed.

Thing Two wrote: "Oh my. My brain just crashed."

Best thing to do is take a pencil and paper and work it out in a grid like the examples. I took a quick look at your TBR 2013 shelf and saw two possible candidates.

I have another question. I have a book with a two-word title and the third letter of the first word interlocks with the first letter of the second word. Would this count? Sorry to keep asking questions, my brain has gone for a holiday I think!

Yes. The letters can interlock at any point.

Thanks again Janice. I think I am clear on everything now.

Very very awesome!! I love Scrabble :-)

So if I read Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim as Historical Fiction, the scoring would be:

22 for the title with the common letter being "o"

Do we score for Author's name and Genre? Or only for the title?

If we score for Author and Genre, then the scoring would add:

Author 19
Genre: 27

Total for title, author and genre: 68

Clarification: Is Young Adult really considered a genre or just a subclassification. If a book is listed as Young Adult first should we go with the second listing, lets say Science Fiction or Romance, etc?

ohh!

How you come up with these challenges, I have no idea.

Love it.

Roz wrote: "So if I read Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim as Historical Fiction, the scoring would be:

22 for the title with the common letter being "o"

Do we score for Author's name and Genre? Or only for the..."

I count 70 - you get 2 points for the O in Yellow and 2 points for the O in Crocus.

Cathie wrote: "Clarification: Is Young Adult really considered a genre or just a subclassification. If a book is listed as Young Adult first should we go with the second listing, lets say Science Fiction or Roma..."

Young Adult will be counted as a genre because we are going by what it is shelved as the most.

Aw, double points for each occurrence of the connecting letter. Cool!

Great book choice Roz! :-)

I'm going to go with The Knife Of Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Yes you may. We won't hold you to it if you change your mind later. :)

Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett most popular genre classics

How many points?

must scurry off and stare at books til one says "pick me!", and it will coincidentally have lots of points :o)

Anna wrote: "Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett most popular genre classics

How many points?"

The point values for each letter is back in message one along with instructions for calculating the connecting letters. Each participant scores and reports their own choice(s).

I'm definitely going with The Great Gatsby on this one and combining it with the group read.

Wow, what a brain-scrabbler!

Wow, this is a challenge. Many of the books I am considering for next month are 1 word, or don't fit. There are a few though. I'll try to get one in for certain.

No kidding, this is harder than it appears at first! After hours of searching and writing out and counting titles, authors and genre - I think I found mine.

It hurts not to kill two birds with one stone and not go with The Great Gatsby at 71 points, but I am going for a WIN this time, I hope. :)

I might go with Moll Flanders, as long as I don;t have to include the subtitle...

Cherie wrote: "No kidding, this is harder than it appears at first! After hours of searching and writing out and counting titles, authors and genre - I think I found mine.

It hurts not to kill two birds with ..."

I think I worked it out at 77 points!

Helen wrote: "I might go with Moll Flanders, as long as I don;t have to include the subtitle..."

Rule 7, General Rules: Subtitles do not count. You're safe!

Cherie wrote: "No kidding, this is harder than it appears at first! After hours of searching and writing out and counting titles, authors and genre - I think I found mine.

It hurts not to kill two birds with ..."

I hope you do win, Cherie, for all the brain power you put into this one. :)

I have one tallied at 88 points if I gave the connecting letters the right score. So in your Yellow Crocus example the O is worth 2 for yellow and 2 for crocus because it is the connecting letter? Double letter score for the connecting letter, correct?

i officially hate the words of and and the now :)

Janice wrote: "Cherie wrote: "No kidding, this is harder than it appears at first! After hours of searching and writing out and counting titles, authors and genre - I think I found mine.

It hurts not to kill ..."

Obviously, my brain was not quite up to the challenge (pun intended) when I could not calculate TGG correctly. I had to get on the phone with my "scrabble expert" and "interpreter of challenge rules" to give me a hand re-calculating the score to get what Sarah stated.

Oh a happier note (for me) my book that I thought was good is even better!!!!!!!!

AmyK wrote: "i officially hate the words of and and the now :)"

lol, i know what you mean!

AmyK wrote: "i officially hate the words of and and the now :)"

::Like::

AmyK wrote: "i officially hate the words of and and the now :)"

Yup. There are so many titles that simply won't connect at the two words in the middle. And. Of. The. All words that should be banned.