Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants





Team Members
• Laura (Captain)
• Aiswrya Bhaskaran
• Cherry
• CiCi
• Joy
• Lulu Fritz
• M
• Mary
• MelanieJoy
• Navi
• Richard Butler
• Trina
• Vian
• Melissa Williams
• Rebecca Guyer

Team Spreadsheet
Challenge Status Sheet

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About this Challenge
◈ Starts on 12 June and runs for 10 weeks (ending 21 August)
◈ The team with the highest points at the end of the game wins!
◈ Each fortnight the mods will “spin the wheel" and assign each team a word
◈ The team's task is to read books to spell out the word, gaining points per letter tiered by the book length (see below)
◈ The team will get an extra 15 completion points if all the letters in the word are part of their spell-it-out
◈ Once teams have read their word for the week they can "re-read" the word to gain more letter points, but no additional completion points.
◈ Only books STARTED after the challenge begins can count
◈ Books must be at least 160 pages in length. Children's books, Graphic Novels, Scripts/plays (movie and theater), Cookbooks and Poetry books cannot be used unless by word count they can be verified (by arbookfinder.com or arbookfinder.co.uk) as at least 40,000 words or have an audio edition that is at least 5 hours long
◈ Only books read during the specified round can be used (“read date” is what counts, not the day you start.) Books cannot be “banked” from previous rounds to use later in the challenge
◈ Rereads are permitted provided it has been at least 6 months since you last read/listened to the book

Point System
◈ Books less than 160 pages = 0 points
◈ Books between 160 and 1000 pages = 0.1 points/page
◈ Books over 1000 pages = 100 points
(points will be rounded up/down from 0.5 as per standard maths)

Tags
◈ Each colour segment on the wheel has been paired with a selection of genre tags.
◈ If you read and use a book with a matching genre, you will gain 5 bonus points per book, for a maximum of 10 books / 50 points.
◈ Genres must match exactly (though plural/singular is OK).
◈ There is no minimum number of tags required.
◈ Books must be used in the spell out to qualify for Tag points.
◈ for reasons the sheets show these points as "Top Shelf bonus" points

Task Lists
◈ The challenge comes with a task list
◈ If you read and use a book for a task you will gain 5 bonus points per book
◈ Each player in a team has their own task list (i.e. task #1 can be completed by each member in the team)
◈ Each book can only be used once - one book per task, one task per book

BOM Points
Participating in Book of the Month (BOM) discussions during the time frame of the challenge will score points as follows:
◈ 40 points for writing a discussion question set
◈ 20 points for participating in the discussion

How a "spell it out" works
Spell out the word(s) using the first letter in the book's title, the first letter in the author's first or last name, or the first letter of a character's first, last, or nick-name, or the first letter of the series name. As always, if the first letter of a title starts with an indefinite or definite article ('A', 'An', 'The', etc.), you may use the first letter of the second word in the title to spell out your chosen word. If you are listening to an audiobook, the first letter in the narrator's first or last name also can be used. We're also allowing for Translators names, as long as the edition you are reading is a translation version.


Theme

ROAD-TRIPPIN' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11GYv...

The words teams might have to spell out are:

Departure
Backpacking
Sandcastle
Exploring
Egyptian cruise
Barbeque
Pub Quizzing
Rocky Mountains
Snorkelling
Yodelling
Celebration
Creativity
Trip to the zoo
Drive to Uluru
Island hopping
Sea Kayaking
Reading
City Break
Exercise
White water rafting
Zoom calls
Highway Sixty One
Over night express
Tourism

Countdowns

Start of Challenge

Round 2 -- The end of Round 1 /start of round 2 is 10 pm UK, 26 June

Round 3-- The end of Round 2/start of round 3 is 10 pm UK, 10 July

Round 4--The end of round 3/start of round 4 is 10 pm UK, 24 July

Round 5- The end of round 4/start of round 5 is 10 pm UK, 7 Aug

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Members: Everyone!
Laura (Captain)
Teddie (Co-captain)
Aiswrya Bhaskaran
Cherry
CiCi
Joy
Lulu Fritz
M
Mary
MelanieJoy
Navi
Richard Butler
Trina
Vian
Vitalia Strait

Starts July 2: sign up for DQs or join the conversation here!


Starts July 16: sign up for DQs or join the conversation here!

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Starts June 14
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Starts June 21
sign up for DQs or join the conversation here

Hello teammates and welcome! It's nice to see some friendly and new faces. I'm Laura and I 'll be captaining along with Teddie as our co captain. Wheels is the first team challenge I played and Wheels 2 was the beginning of my captain responsibilities with too many team challenges here and other groups along the way!

I'm in Canada, east coast and happily awaiting the re-opening of our province which starts tomorrow!

Please remember to link your shelf for this game!

Hi everyone! I'm Aiswrya, live in New Jersey. This is my first time playing Wheelathon. There seem to be numerous rules and I might need some help navigating those during the initial weeks :)

I primarily read romance, I don't mind reading adventure. I usually avoid thrillers and horrors since they give me horrible dreams, especially since I read right before going to bed!

I'm eagerly waiting for restaurants to open up! I'm so tired of making my own meals! I can't wait to start traveling again! My job involves A LOT of travel and I've honestly not spent this much time at home in the past 4 years!

This is my shelf for the challenge.

Hi Team Traveling Pants! I'm Teddie (f) and am looking forward to playing with everyone!

I'm coming off a challenge hiatus, and looking forward to finding the perfect yellow covered book that starts with a U and has a 5 in the page numbers again. :)

My shelf

Hello all! My name is Joy and I'm a neuroscience grad student. I like reading young adult, sci-fi, fantasy, and classics; but try to read tons of different genres.

My wheel shelf is here.

Hello, I am M from the west coast of Canada. I am currently living that isolation life with my husband, cats, and a mountain of books. My main genres are sci-fi, fantasy, and historical fiction.

Here is my wheel shelf
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Hi everyone! This is my first time competing in Wheelathon. The last team challenge I participated in was Tower Teams last year and it was a ton of fun. I've been excited for Wheelathon ever since!

I live in Vancouver, BC (I see a few fellow Canadians here which is great! :)). I try to read widely across many genres but lately I have been really enjoying Fantasy, Romance, Nonfiction and Literary Fiction.

Hope everyone has been keeping safe and healthy during these unsettling times!

My Shelf

Hi Everyone!
This is my first time playing Wheelathon but this isn't my first group challenge. I have done Tower Teams and Uno. I am in Florida and my schedule is kind of a mess right now but I am committed to reading as much as possible for this challenge.

I read a lot of romance, fantasy, and paranormal but I also like a good cozy. I am in the same boat with Aiswrya, thrillers and horrors are generally not for me.
Super excited to be on a team with you again Laura.
* and you too MelanieJoy :)

My Shelf

Hi everybody!

Apparently our easier-to-type nickname is simply, Team Pants. :D

I love meeting so many new people! I've been poking around your shelves a bit, and have already added a bunch to my TBR. One of my favorite parts of the team challenges is finding others who like similar books, and discovering new titles to read - or at least add to TBR.

Speaking of which, I haven't been reading as much as usual over the past few months, and most of my consumption has been audiobooks when I take little drives to break up the day. I thought with the whole working from home thing, I would be reading more, but no. Anyone else finding this?

Teddie wrote: "Hi everybody!

Apparently our easier-to-type nickname is simply, Team Pants. :D

I love meeting so many new people! I've been poking around your shelves a bit, and have already added a bunch to my..."
The exact opposite has happened with me. I used to read 5-7 books a month but now I read a book a day (sometimes 2)!

That's awesome, and I'm jealous! :)
I'm looking forward to this challenge getting me back in the groove.

Teddie wrote: "Hi everybody!

Apparently our easier-to-type nickname is simply, Team Pants. :D

I love meeting so many new people! I've been poking around your shelves a bit, and have already added a bunch to my TBR. One of my favorite parts of the team challenges is finding others who like similar books, and discovering new titles to read - or at least add to TBR.

Speaking of which, I haven't been reading as much as usual over the past few months, and most of my consumption has been audiobooks when I take little drives to break up the day. I thought with the whole working from home thing, I would be reading more, but no. Anyone else finding this?"

Team Pants - I love that!!

I've been listening to quite a few audio books as well. Working from home has allowed me to listen casually while doing mundane, repetitive tasks.

Hi guys, nice to meet everyone. I'm Richard from the north of England.

I'm looking forward to this, it's my first team challenge of any kind (so bear with me and some of my potential stupid questions). I like to read all sorts of genres but crime/thriller are my go to genres if I'm in a slump. I noticed my reading levels increase a bit since we went into lockdown but not to the levels some people in the group read at.

My bookshelf for the challenge

Hi everyone! Nice to meet you ( or see you again!) No question is stupid Richard- it's how we learn. Once we start playing you will see it's rather quite simple and FUN. Basically, in a nut shell the team reads books, adds them to their wheel shelf and posts here ( we will show you later what that looks like) when they are finished. Teddie and I will do the work of adding them to the spreadsheet!

The hard part is being patient while the challenge starts. At least we can chat and read before it starts.

I love seeing what you all enjoy reading. I like to read almost everything and particularly like historical fiction, contemporary, mystery, memoirs.

Navi wrote: "Hi everyone! This is my first time competing in Wheelathon. The last team challenge I participated in was Tower Teams last year and it was a ton of fun. I've been excited for Wheelathon ever since!..."

High five fellow Vancouver peeps!

What's up Team Pants!

Been a while since I've done a chatty team challenge, been doing team challenges recently but took a hiatus in 2019, so it's good to be back! (My first team challenge was WOBBLE 2016 - very intense but so fun!) Been on teams with a few of you before so it's good to see you again, and great to meet new people!

I'm in California in a pretty high COVID spreading area so still sheltering in place other than working as a nanny for two families who are also self-quarantining. (Previously taught pre-school before the school shut down).

My current top genres are YA and fantasy; I occasionally sprinkle romance, non fiction, literary fiction, and mystery/thrillers in there. Feel free to take a look at my books and see what you like or ask me if I like a book, or tell me that a TBR book is a MUST READ because you LOVED it or whatever! There's also a place next to the profile name where you can compare books from shelves and that's really fun; I do it a lot with new friends.

Have a great weekend everyone and looking forward to getting to know you better!

Here is my shelf

Hey everyone!

I'm Vitalia and I'm from Alaska. Although our state's open, my family and I are still quarantining due to underlying health conditions. I've never done one of these wheel challenges, but I'm excited to try!

I read a lot and from all types of genres. Currently I've been really into thrillers, which I haven't read a huge amount of before. Since I've been staying home, I've had so much time to read, and I'm loving it! I'm always on the look out for a good book, so feel free to send me recommendations.

Here's my shelf for the challenge!

Hey Melanie and Vitalia... welcome to team Pants!


Has anyone actually read the book our team is honorary named after?

What's everyone reading right now? Anything good?

Laura wrote: "Hey Melanie and Vitalia... welcome to team Pants!


Has anyone actually read the book our team is honorary named after?

What's everyone reading right now? Anything good?"

I've watched the movies, does that count :P Loved them!

I'm reading an M/M romance called First Impressions. It's okay, nothing exceptional.

Good Afternoon Team! Well, at least it's afternoon here in Florida. My name is Cherry and I am new to Goodreads this year. I'm excited to be part of this (my first) team challenge.

My go-to genres have always been historical fiction (big Philippa Gregory fan) and cozy mysteries (especially a good series where I can get lost in a small town or even better and English countryside). But this year I wanted to broaden my scope a bit and that's how I found the Goodreads community their many recommendations.

My Wheelathon shelf:

Cherry's Wheelathon Bookshelf

Laura wrote: "Hey Melanie and Vitalia... welcome to team Pants!


Has anyone actually read the book our team is honorary named after?

What's everyone reading right now? Anything good?"

I'll be honest, I've never even heard of it! I'm currently reading Fair Warning which I got as an arc and its up to the usual Michael Connelly standards. He is one of my favourites though.

Aiswrya, that works! I may have to watch... I haven't yet. I think I 've seen you around at RRRC.

Welcome Cherry!

I've got a couple of books on the go: I'm listening to Truth or Beard and A Beginning at the End I'm also trying to make my way through She Rides Shotgun

Has everyone taken a look at the task list on the spreadsheet? There are 200 tasks and we can gain additional points if the book(s) we read for our spell out matches one of the tasks. There are some interesting ones.

Laura wrote: "Aiswrya, that works! I may have to watch... I haven't yet. I think I 've seen you around at RRRC.

Welcome Cherry!

I've got a couple of books on the go: I'm listening to [book:Truth or Beard|2331..."

Yeah! I thought I've seen you around! I think Navi is on RRRC as well.
Navi, I think we may have been on the PIFMs together.

I took a look at the spreadsheet. Is our official round 1 word DEPARTURE and a red tag or is that just an example? Wondering if I can start figuring out what books I want to start on June 13th :)

Good to meet more teammates! I have not read our team name's book, although I have seen the movie and the sequel multiple times.

I'm also listening to A Beginning at the End

and slowly making my way listening through Renegades and reading through Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge. Interesting reads so far, we'll see if I like them or not by the end.

Cherry wrote: "I took a look at the spreadsheet. Is our official round 1 word DEPARTURE and a red tag or is that just an example? Wondering if I can start figuring out what books I want to start on June 13th :)"

Yes, DEPARTURE is the word we will spell out as many times as we can until we receive our next word and yes we have the set of red tags ( Fire, heat, China,Autumn,Dragon)

One of the books I 'm going to read (I think) is Eragon
It will work for :
E- title
P- author surname
R-Roran- character
tagged dragons by 2411 users ( 1st column)
#60 Read a book set in a different world
#62 Read a book with MPG Young Adult
# 67 Read #1 in a series


Then Teddie and I would decide which letter to best use the book for and which task would work best
A-Arya- character

MelanieJoy wrote: "Good to meet more teammates! I have not read our team name's book, although I have seen the movie and the sequel multiple times.

I'm also listening to A Beginning at the End

and ..."

I read Renegades, Melanie... I liked it.

I am glad we have this for the first word. I have dragon books coming out of my ears. I think the first read for me will be

M wrote: "I am glad we have this for the first word. I have dragon books coming out of my ears. I think the first read for me will be
"

Ooh one of my favorite authors! And I remember really enjoying this book! Hope you like it 😊

I have a few dragon shifter books on my TBR that I’m very excited for! So dragons for me too!

Aiswrya wrote: "M wrote: "I am glad we have this for the first word. I have dragon books coming out of my ears. I think the first read for me will be
"

Ooh one of my fav..."

I read it quite a while ago and loved it. His books are really good, I am looking to buy more of them

Laura wrote: "Has anyone actually read the book our team is honorary named after?

What's everyone reading right now? Anything good?"

I did read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but it's been years. Fun fact: A scene from the movie was filmed at my next door neighbour's house!

I'm trying to finish all of the books I currently have on the go so I have a clean slate for this challenge:

Flirting with Mermaids: The Unpredictable Life of a Sailboat Delivery Skipper - I love reading about people who live and work on the sea. This is an enlightening read!

Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like "Journey" in the Title - This is a beautiful and emotional memoir about a woman whose husband quickly passes away. There is equally as much joy as there is sorrow infused throughout the book!

Girl, Woman, Other - Around 10% in but I've been intrigued by this ever since it won the Booker Prize last year!

Stealing Cinderella - this is a dark fantasy retelling which is okay. Nothing too special!

Cherry wrote: "My go-to genres have always been historical fiction (big Philippa Gregory fan) and cozy mysteries (especially a good series where I can get lost in a small town or even better and English countryside). But this year I wanted to broaden my scope a bit and that's how I found the Goodreads community their many recommendations."

I have been loving cozy mysteries lately as well. I highly recommend the Port Danby Series by London Lovett if you have not read it yet!

Laura wrote: "Has everyone taken a look at the task list on the spreadsheet? There are 200 tasks and we can gain additional points if the book(s) we read for our spell out matches one of the tasks. There are some interesting ones."

I really like how they aren't too specific (except for the morris-dancing one haha!). I've found quite a few books on my TBR that fit certain tasks

I was going to start Unsouled next but can delay it a week and cover U? Also covers #67 Read #1 in a series too.

Not 100% sure about the tag's, is it literally if that word shows up on the books page of what people have shelved it under?

For Goodreads purposes, the tags are like the shelves, so when you add a book to a shelf, you're tagging it with that word(s).

A quick trick when looking for a collection of books with a specific tag: use the following urls, subbing in the word you want at the end.

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/dragon
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/fire

Another suggestion around tasks:
Try to find the most specific task possible to use for each book. So even if you pick a book that fits a wide-open task, i.e. MPG Fantasy (MPG = Main Page Genre, so this shelf has to be on the book main page itself,) check the task list after you finish to see whether there's a trickier task it will fit, i.e. Main character is a cobbler.

Thanks, Teddie! Those links are super helpful!

Teddie wrote: "For Goodreads purposes, the tags are like the shelves, so when you add a book to a shelf, you're tagging it with that word(s).

A quick trick when looking for a collection of books with a specific..."

Thanks for the tips Teddie, I wasn't sure what MPG meant but that clears that up!

I've also got The Eyes of the Dragon which covers a couple of things. I guess the best thing is to give you a few options of what we have available and which will get the most points for the team?

We will ask for all the options that a book fits. Sometimes a book will fit many letters.

Richard if you dont mind hanging off on that u book until the challenge starts that will be great

Laura wrote: "We will ask for all the options that a book fits. Sometimes a book will many letters.

Richard if you dont mind hanging off on that u book until the challenge starts that will be great"

No problem at all, I'll pick something else up instead and go with that one when the challenge starts.