The Perks Of Being A Book Addict discussion

Team Fraggle Rock




Team Members:
Karen (captain)
Ashley
Fatimah
Mary-ellen
Mira
Sarah
Sofie
Kirsty
Brianna

Fraggle Rock Spreadsheet

Welcome Teamies!

There is a week until we start so hopefully everyone will find this thread over the next few days.

To get to know eachother it would be great if you could introduce yourself:


Where do you live?
What is your favourite book genre?
Do you have a favourite book?
Other hobbies?
Have you ever watched Fraggle Rock?


For me:
Where do you live? Sydney, Aus
What is your favourite book genre? I don't have a genre, but I love character driven novels. I don't read horror or romance
Do you have a favourite book?Quite a few depending on my mood :)
Other hobbies? I have a 2 year old son, and I love veggie gardening. That plus FT work keeps me pretty busy
Have you ever watched Fraggle Rock?I absolutely *loved* this show. The doozers (I think they were called?) were my favourite

Hi Karen and the rest of the team :)
Where do you live? Perth Australia

What is your favourite book genre? I like a lot of different ones mainly mystery, chick lit and ya I also really like books with animals in and ones with dual characters

Do you have a favourite book? There are so many books that I love it's hard to pick a favourite.

Other hobbies? I love playing basketball and watching Rugby League and spending time with my 2 dogs as well as cooking and baking. I also have a veggie garden, which is producing ridiculous amounts of cherry tomatos at the moment!

Have you ever watched fraggle rock? I am 21 so was not born when the show started, I hadn't even heard of it before now

Hi All :D

Where do you live? Adelaide, Australia

What is your favourite book genre? I don't know if I have a favourite - I just tend to avoid romance.

Do you have a favourite book? I have so many and I couldn't pick one.

Other hobbies? Spending time with friends, cooking & sport/gym

Have you ever watched Fraggle Rock? I had to google it because I hadn't heard of it before

Welcome Sofie and Ashley!
Our first hands have been drawn and are shown on our spreadsheet. If you can start thinking about what books you'll be reading in Feb and how they may fit?

Sofie - I have a zillion cherry tomatoes too! I never plant them, they just reappear every season and sometimes in the craziest places. At the moment I'm also growing butternut pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, corn, beans, and my usual herbs and chillis.

I have had a look at our first hand, I have a book for each of the cards and am happy to read any if there is one you would prefer me to do

6 - Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins (First name of author starting with S)
3 - Easy - Tammara Webber (First name of author staring with T)
7 - A man of his own - Susan Wilson (First name of author starting with S)
8 - The Loop - Nicholas Evans (Last name of author starting with E)
Skip - I am currently reading Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult, apparently we are allowed to use ones we are already reading as long as we don't finish them before the beginning of the competition (Last name of author starting with P)
9 - Us - David Nicholls (Last name of the author starting with N)
5 - Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell (name of book starting with F)

Are there any you guys would prefer to read? I don't mind if anyone else is reading another book for skip I am happy to read another as well.

Cherry tomatoes are great! I am growing carrots, watermelons and parsley, your garden sounds great Karen!

Any of the cards would work for me so I'm happy to see if someone wants something specific first :)

Where do you live? Melbourne, Australia
What is your favourite book genre? Drama/romance (the Brontes), fantasy, dystopian (especially Margaret Atwood)
Do you have a favourite book? 1984, Agnes Grey and The Edible Woman
Other hobbies? Acting, writing and petting animals haha
Have you ever watched Fraggle Rock? Not recently!

6 - Stephen King - 'Salems Lot
3 - Thomas Hardy - The Mayor of Casterbridge
7 - Stephen King - The Shining
8 - Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
Skip - Can't find anything!
9 - Can't find anything, again!
5 - Again, nothing :(

I don't mind which of these I end up reading :) Just let me know which works best for us!

Hello everyone!

Where do you live? South Tangerang, Indonesia.
What is your favorite book genre? Epic fantasy and road trip books. I also love YA contemporary, though I'm picky when it comes to it.
Do you have a favorite book? It's hard to pick only one, I have a few for every genre I've ever read.
Other hobbies? Biking and watching animes
Have you ever watched Fraggle Rock? I hadn't heard of it before now

Sofie, those are great ideas! I would love to read Easy by Tammara Webber for 6 if it's okay with you all. I've been wanting to read it for quiet a long time. I'm so excited for this UNO challenge!

Hi Fatimah
Yeah that would be fine with me :) and if we get a reverse I can read it! It does look really good let me know what you think when you've finished :)

Welcome Sarah and Fatimah! I'm glad to see at least one other person has watched Fraggle Rock before (and so is as old as me..lol)

Looks like we are all going to have lots of options for our hands. Maybe as you read a book if you post it to this thread with how it may fit a card, and then I'll just start putting them on the spreadsheet. As we get to about half way through the month we can start to attack any gaps and strategise a little (i.e. if we think it is worth skipping a hand etc.) This is a short month, so I would also recommend reading whatever shorter books you can to try and fit more in.
Oh, and books count that have a "read date" of Feb 1-28 (doesn't matter when you start), so if you are starting to finish any books close to the end of Jan, maybe hold off on finishing until Feb 1 :D

@Sophie
I'm also reading Us by David Nicholls for one of my RL bookclubs. I won it through a Christmas giveaway with the publisher and I'm a little excited because One Day has always been a favourite novel (and movie) of mine. I've also read Fangirl so we can count that as a "reverse" too

@Sarah
I just finished re-reading Wuthering Heights. It is an all-time favourite for me so that could also count as a "reverse". I highly recommend the audio through www.librivox.org (I liked version 3 they have the "dramatic reading")

Great :) I'll continue to read lone wolf but hold off finishing before feb 1 :p

Books I know I'll be reading in Feb:




I'll fit them in to any gaps and can read another 1-2 if we have other gaps to fill. I do have these from NetGalley which I can read in Feb or March




Us 0 (stand alone) ; 9 (N author name) ; Skip (character D Peterson)
Froi of the Exiles 4 (F title) ; 2 (book # in series) ; 5 (F title)
Russka: The Novel of Russia 8 (E Author) ; 0 (stand alone)
The Language of Flowers 2, 3 (T title) 0 (stand alone)
Landline 9 (char: Neal) 0 (stand alone)
Love Letters to the Dead ?? 0 (standalone)
The Martian 2,3 (T title), 0 (stand alone)
The Bitter Trade 2,3 (T title) SKIP (P author) 6,7 (S char: Spinks), 0 (stand alone)
The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches 2,3 (T title) 6 (# in series) 4,5 (F char: Flavia)
Bruiser 6,7 (S author name), 0 (stand alone), 9 (N author name)

Sounds good to me! I'm reading Utopia by Sir Thomas More at the moment, I'm sure that could fit in somewhere. I should finish it around Feb 1 the way I'm going at the moment :)

So, we don't have to read in order of the hands? That sounds much easier! Filling in the gaps after sounds like a good idea. :) So excited to get started!

We need to fill up the hands in order to get the points, but we don't need to read in that order.
So, if we finish hand 1,2,3,5 and only part of 4, by the end of the month then we wouldn't get points for hand 5. I hope that makes sense :)

So I figure if we just work out in the middle of the month how many gaps we have then we can hopefully fill those in to get the most points possible. We want to find a way to use every single book we read!

Also, hand 7 is an amazing one which will be easy to complete. So if we need to skip a hand in order to fill that one it may be worth it. Either way, we should aim to get through at least the first 7 hands :)

Yep, all makes sense! Sounds like a good strategy to me :) I can't wait to see what everyone reads, might give me some new things to add to my TBR jar!

Hi Everyone,

Mary-Ellen here!
I live in Sydney.
I don't have a favourite genre, I like to read lots of different things.
I don't have a favourite book. I would find it impossible to choose just one.
I love to read and I also write. In fact this intro is a bit brief and boring because I just submitted my short story for the NYCMidnight competition today and I'm a bit knackered! Sorry!
I've never watched Fraggle Rock.

In terms of round one, I'm happy to read any of the following, just let me know which:

6 Speak
3 Abhorsen 3rd book in the series
7 Swerve
8 Around the World in Eighty Days hoping eighty counts for 8!
Skip The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Author's initials are KK
9 The Knife of Never Letting Go Author Patrick Ness (my least favourite)
5 First Frost

Welcome Mary-Ellen!
Nice work with submitting a short story. I bet that was a relief :) What kind of story did you write?

I would say read what you feel like. As we get into the month I'll see what gaps we have to cover. I've also read Abhorsen and The Knife of Letting Go ; so either could also count as a reverse.

Just for a bit of interest, I've done some analysis of our hands. If we can get through all 12 hands then the count of how frequently the numbers come up is as follows:

Number	 0	1	2	3 4
Frequency	3	8	5	6 7

Number 5	6	7	8	9
Frequency 7	5	7	7	7

Card Skip Reverse Draw 2 Wild Wild Dr4	 
Frequency 5	4	7	3	3

So I guess that means we have a lot of 1,4,5,7,8,9 to contend with

I thought I'd get the ball rolling a bit and pick a some books for the first three hands. I'm happy to swap anything around but I need to return the first two books to the library early Feb so makes sense to get some points for them!

Hand 1
9 - The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Main character's name starts with N - Nella Oortman

Hand 2
6 or Skip -Gray Mountain by John Grisham
Main character's name starts with S - Samantha Kofer

Hand 3
5 - Juliet by Anne Fortier
Author's surname starts with F - Anne Fortier

Karen wrote: "Welcome Mary-Ellen!
Nice work with submitting a short story. I bet that was a relief :) What kind of story did you write?

I would say read what you feel like. As we get into the month I'll see wh..."

Thanks Karen. It was a relief to get it finished. NYCMIDNIGHT gives you the genre, subject and a character and you need to write your story around that. This time I got: Drama, Poverty and A Juggler. They give you one week to write a 2500 word story, I find it a great way to learn different genres. Last year I got Horror and in the Flash Fiction competition, I've had Suspense, RomCom and Romance. The great thing is they give detailed feedback on every story, which is really helpful.

Great analysis on the numbers Karen. How interesting we got no fours. That should make the fives easier.

That's great on the reverses. I'll start on Abhorsen. In terms of the other reverses, I've read a few on your list Sophie:

Anna and the French Kiss
Easy
Fangirl

All good reads! So if you end up reading any of those we could count those as reverses too.

Maybe as we update what we read, if others have already read it they should sing out so you know the options for where to put it Karen. Relevant character names and settings might be helpful to share too, in case we have to switch some around at the last minute. Happy reading everyone!

There are seven 4's :)

Oh! In that case lots of 'Fs' :)

Ashley wrote: "There are seven 4's :)"

Sorry - copy and paste fail! I have edited :D

We have just 2 members who haven't checked in yet, hopefully we will see them soon!

In the meantime, we start this Sunday! So in terms of strategy it would be super helpful if any books you are reading this week, you just hold off on finishing until Feb 1 :)
When you do finish, please post here with the book and how it might fit cards. The more options you can give me on how it might fit the better! :D

What happens if they don't check in Karen? Are there subs?

Also, I'm reading 'The Man with the Compound Eyes' at the moment. What happens with titles starting with 'The'? I'm assuming this counts as a 'T', but thought I should check as I have a few of them.

@MaryEllen
That concept around short story writing is really interesting. I can imagine it would be very challenging to have to get random genres like that!

@Ashley
I've also read The Miniaturist, so that's another option for a Reverse. Looks like we'll have that card covered :)

me again....
looking through our thread and what we all have as planned reads, and then checking out our most frequent numbers, it looks like "1" is going to be a challenge as no-one has one for this number yet. so if you have any books that fit that criteria, maybe throw it on your list for the month :)

Mary-ellen wrote: "What happens if they don't check in Karen? Are there subs?

Also, I'm reading 'The Man with the Compound Eyes' at the moment. What happens with titles starting with 'The'? I'm assuming this coun..."

At the moment we only have one unallocated subs, but there is one team missing a few members and a captain, so they may end up being disbanded and allocated across the rest of the teams. Hopefully not, we shall see!

In terms of titles with "The" (or any definite or indefinite article such as as/a ) you can chose to ignore it or use it. So in your example, that would be a T or a M (and as no "M" is needed, we could use "T")
:)

Excellent thanks! People still have a few days to materialise. I'll keep my fingers crossed! Actually the book is set in Taiwan, so we had the 'T' covered anyway in this case. Also one of the key characters is Alice Shih, so it's a 'T' or an 'S': 2, 3, 6, 7 or Skip! It's also a book I chose for the cover, so it fits for the personal reading challenge too! Have to love that versatility!

I don't think that 1 will be too much trouble. I have six or so first books in a series that I haven't read yet. There seem to be a few new releases around at the moment that are the beginning of a series so others might have some on their to read lists without knowing. I just found that out about The Cinderella Murder which I'll be reading soon so that will be one checked off!

Hiii. Sorry for being really late!!

Where do you live?
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
What is your favourite book genre?
Don't really have a favourite genre but I dislike fantasy.
Do you have a favourite book?
I have a couple of books I really enjoy but nothing in particular.
Other hobbies?
Crafting and writing (not very good at both)
Have you ever watched Fraggle Rock?
No, I have not and I have never heard of it! (I'm 17)

Also, I have my books picked out for the first hand. I'll just type it out here :)

6 - The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger
3 - The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie
7 - The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
8 - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Skip - Mercy by Jodi Picoult
9 - A Message in a Bottle by Nicholas Sparks
5 - The Last Tycoon by F.Scott Fitzgerald

Great Mary-Ellen and Ashley :)

Welcome Mira - great to have you! I have also read The Catcher in the Rye and Wuthering Heights so they are some more options for Reverse :)

I'm currently reading 2 books. So I'm not going to finish them before Feb 1 so they can count (one is a re-read and the other is a YA fantasy which is pretty predictable so I'm not super keen to know the ending ;)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 6,7 (S char: Strange) SKIP (S char: Strange), 9 (N char: Norrell), 4,5 (F char: Fitzroy Somerset)
Eragon 8 (E title), SKIP (P author), 1 (book 1 in series), 6,7 (S char: Sephira)

And here is how I know my Feb reads can count. One book I don't know until I start reading if there will be any characters that can count. Otherwise it will need to be a wild or wild draw 4

Us 0 (stand alone) ; 9 (N author name) ; Skip (character D Peterson)
Froi of the Exiles 4 (F title) ; 2 (book # in series) ; 5 (F title)
Russka: The Novel of Russia 8 (E Author) ; 0 (stand alone)
The Language of Flowers 2, 3 (T title) 0 (stand alone)
Landline 9 (char: Neal) 0 (stand alone)
Love Letters to the Dead ?? 0 (standalone)
The Martian 2,3 (T title), 0 (stand alone)
The Bitter Trade 2,3 (T title) SKIP (P author) 6,7 (S char: Spinks), 0 (stand alone)
The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches 2,3 (T title) 6 (# in series) 4,5 (F char: Flavia)
Bruiser 6,7, SKIP (S author name), 0 (stand alone), 9 (N author name)

Karen wrote: "@MaryEllen
That concept around short story writing is really interesting. I can imagine it would be very challenging to have to get random genres like that!"

It is pretty challenging, but it is a great way to learn. The first one I ever got was: horror, a prisoner and a genetically-modified organism. I rarely read horror, so it was a very steep learning curve trying to write it. I have huge respect for writers of horror now!

I'm currently reading The Book Thief, which works for 0. I hope that will help!

Sarah wrote: "I'm currently reading The Book Thief, which works for 0. I hope that will help!"

It counts as a 2 or 3 too Sarah, because the Title starts with 'The'. Also, I've read it so, it could be a reverse as well.

Every book helps Sarah, thanks! That one could also be a 6 or 7 (character S is Rudy Steiner) so we have a few options :)

Awesome! I'm only a few pages in so I don't know all the characters names yet haha ty!
Looking forward to seeing what everyone else ends up reading, might find some new things for myself :)

I only know as I may have read that book a few times... teehee

Haha :D I can see why it's beautifully written. One of my friends and my mum have been badgering me to read it and I just happened to pull it out of the jar :)

In some ways it is unfortunate it has so much hype as then people can be disappointed when they read and it isn't what they expected. Personally, I think it is a beautiful book about some very difficult subject matter told in a unique way. The movie isn't bad either!

Hi all
In order for me to track what categories our books can fit I'm going to use this spreadsheet
You can either request edit rights and add in your own books and put the info in the column as to how it will fit, or when you post them here I will add it in.
That way, if I need to make some movements at the end of the month to allocate books to hands I will have all the info in one place :)

Karen wrote: "Hi all
In order for me to track what categories our books can fit I'm going to use this spreadsheet
You can either request edit rights and add in your own books and put the info in the column as to..."

Great idea Karen. That way we can slot in the books with less options first and keep the more versatile ones (with lots of options) to plug gaps at the end.

If I've added up correctly with the Draw 2s, we need to read 71 books, in February between us.

I always hated draw 2s ... now I love them ;)

lol
that's cool. And the teams were set up with an average of 60 books per month across the members, so if we all read an extra book (or even two!) this month we should be able to cover all the hands which would be awesome

I'm currently reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer. It counts as 1 (book one in a series), 9 (set in New Beijing) and skip (char: Prince Kai).
Karen, I've read Love Letters to the Dead so it could be reverse as well.

Looking at the spreadsheet I've also read Lone Wolf so that's another reverse.