The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

30.6 - TessaVanessa's task: Spelling Bee

Book 1: Read a book with a title of at least 3 words where the first letter of each word in order spells a word or acronym. Ignore subtitles. The word or acronym must be found on https://www.dictionary.com/

Book 2: Read a book with the word spelled from Book 1 in the title or subtitle. The word must match exactly. Punctuation is considered to be part of the word for SRC purposes.

Example:
Book 1: Fates and Traitors (FAT)
Book 2: Size 12 Is Not Fat

Book 1: Lock Every Door (LED)
Book 2: Led Astray

Book 1: Easy Motion Tourist (EMT)
Book 2: Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself By Becoming an EMT

Reserved

Reserved

This thread is now open!

I love this idea, but it's really hard, I have hundreds of books in my TBR and the only one I have found that works is The Heiress Effect, which gives me the word The. Can I use that?

And also, if the title has 4 or 5 words, do they all have to be used? You can't just take 3 of the 5 in order. Example, if a book was entitled My Aunt is a Dancer, you can't use MAD as your word, is that right?

Robin P wrote: "I love this idea, but it's really hard, I have hundreds of books in my TBR and the only one I have found that works is The Heiress Effect, which gives me the word The. Can I use tha..."

You can use the word "the" .
It requires all the words in the title be used.

Just popped in to suggest that mystery lovers try the Eve Dallas "In Death" books series. They give you quite a few words to use, including Divided in Death. Classic mystery lovers can try Death in Ecstasy, Singing in the Shrouds or Lord Edgware Dies.

Tess wrote: "Robin P wrote: "I love this idea, but it's really hard, I have hundreds of books in my TBR and the only one I have found that works is The Heiress Effect, which gives me the word Th..."

Great, thanks!

Teri-K wrote: "Just popped in to suggest that mystery lovers try the Eve Dallas "In Death" books series. They give you quite a few words to use, including Divided in Death. Classic mystery lovers ca..."

Great idea! I started reading these when they were part of a task in Winter Challenge(?)

Teri-K wrote: "Just popped in to suggest that mystery lovers try the Eve Dallas "In Death" books series. They give you quite a few words to use, including Divided in Death. Classic mystery lovers ca..."

that was my go to straight away

I have Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography--1949-1962 in a TBR box of unread books. The title initials are WITS.

If I use this for book 1, would At Wit's End or At Wits' End work for Book 2? Or does the apostrophe rule them out?

My question is similar to Julia's I was thinking of Everybody Behaves Badly (EBB) and The Ebb-Tide can I use it even though there is a hyphen?

Katrisa wrote: "My question is similar to Julia's I was thinking of Everybody Behaves Badly (EBB) and The Ebb-Tide can I use it even though there is a hyphen?"

The word needs to stand alone.

Julia wrote: "I have Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography--1949-1962 in a TBR box of unread books. The title initials are WITS.

If I use this for book 1, would [book:At Wit's End|..."

The second one will work WITS'

Head's up on a change in task wording! ;-)

The word you use for Book 2 must match exactly. Punctuation is considered to be part of the word for SRC purposes.

Keep in mind this SRC default rule when you're hunting for books: aA "word" in a title is a string of letters/symbols/punctuation marks with no spaces. So, a contraction is one word, as is a hyphenated word. The default rules can be found here: Default Rules

SRC Moderator wrote: "Head's up on a change in task wording! ;-)

The word you use for Book 2 must match exactly. Punctuation is considered to be part of the word for SRC purposes.

Keep in mind this SRC default rule wh..."

If I understand that rule correctly, that means WITS' will not work. I hope Julia notices this before trying to use it.

Julia wrote: "I have Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography--1949-1962 in a TBR box of unread books. The title initials are WITS.

If I use this for book 1, would [book:At Wit's End|..."

Please read message 15. According to the rules of the challenge WITS' will not work. I'm sorry I wasn't clear on that rule.

I hope that others will post what they find that works here. If I find any more, I will do so. I was very lucky to find THE!

Robin P wrote: "I hope that others will post what they find that works here. If I find any more, I will do so. I was very lucky to find THE!"

I'll share mine!
I am planning to read Payback's a Witch (there are actually several books with this title) for book 1 and Lending a Paw for book 2.

Aprilleigh wrote: "If I understand that rule correctly, that means WITS' will not work. I hope Julia notices this before trying to use it..."

That's correct. WITS' will not work. Don't worry, Julia's been notified.

I must nuts for doing this, but I went through my 3944 books, which includes everything I am aware of reading in my life, and everything I own, and everything I might want to read someday (includes kids' book, which I skipped). This is what I found

Land of Wolves - low
The Alice Network tan
The Amateur Marriage - works with Tam Lin
The Hate U Give - thug
Heart and Soul - has (this one is promising)
Hunting and Gathering - hag
Parable of the Sower - pots
People of Darkness - pod
A Rising Man - arm (also promising)
Where or When - wow

There are also words like cot, tot, tab, dow, which seem unlikely to be in titles (there are also ass and tit, but let's not go there!)

Just think how many more books I could read if I didn't spend so much time on these threads and researching options!

Kristina Simon wrote: "Aprilleigh wrote: "If I understand that rule correctly, that means WITS' will not work. I hope Julia notices this before trying to use it..."

That's correct. WITS' will not work. Don't worry, Juli..."

Thanks for the clarification. I'll keep looking.
And thank you Aprilleigh for making sure.

Julia wrote: "Kristina Simon wrote: "Aprilleigh wrote: "If I understand that rule correctly, that means WITS' will not work. I hope Julia notices this before trying to use it..."

That's correct. WITS' will not ..."

You're welcome - and thank you for bringing the book to my attention - I may use it (title initials spell AWE).

Robin P wrote: "I hope that others will post what they find that works here. If I find any more, I will do so. I was very lucky to find THE!"

I am planning to use Tokyo Ever After with The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Kathy KS

After checking my TBR, I found a number of possible book #1, but found these matches. Perhaps they can start some ideas in others.

Mukherjee, Abir. A Rising man [ARM]
Niven, Larry, The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton

Havill, Steven F. One perfect shot [OPS]
Lemmon, Gayle Tzemach. Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield

Box, C. J. Back of beyond [BOB]
Skrutskie, Emily. Bonds of brass [BOB]
Taylor, Dennis E. We are legion (We are Bob)

Robin P wrote: "I must nuts for doing this, but I went through my 3944 books, which includes everything I am aware of reading in my life, and everything I own, and everything I might want to read someday (includes..."

Just thought I'd point out that How to stop time does NOT spell anything (HTST). I got my hopes up, since it's on my TBR!

Kathy wrote: "Robin P wrote: "I must nuts for doing this, but I went through my 3944 books, which includes everything I am aware of reading in my life, and everything I own, and everything I might want to read s..."

You're right! I'll take it out. My brain was boggling with so many books to look through.

I am planning on using The Eyre Affair (TEA)
with Sweet Tea and Secrets

or

Prisoner of Tehran (POT) with Stirring the Pot: My Recipe for Getting What You Want Out of Life

The Inscrutable Mr. Elizabeth has the useful initials of TIME.

Robin P wrote: "I must nuts for doing this, but I went through my 3944 books, ..."

Wow! That's commitment! :) I only went through between 1200-1250 books on my shelves.

Here's what I found on mine if it helps anyone:

A Little Life (ALL)

A Single Swallow (ASS) - my library has Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass so I might go with that pairing

Long After Midnight (LAM) - paired with Blanche on the Lam

Pavilion of Women (POW - I was thinking the acronym not the batman sound effect)

Gentlemen and Players (GAP) paired with The Gap of Time

The Invisible Library (TIL) - though you have to be careful with this one because it often has an aspostrophe, but not always

This might be helpful Acronyms task Help Thread, but caution- the parameters for this 2015 task were different.

I found some in my tbr if they help anyone (I haven't checked they all fit src guidelines or match dictionary.com though):
Someone Like You (sly)
Breakfast At Tiffany's (bat)
The Illustrated Man (Tim)
The Invisible Man (Tim)
Rilla of Ingleside (roi - matches Ubu Roi)
Girl at Sea (gas)
Crime and Punishment (cap)
Calling on Dragons (cod)
The Sun Also Rises (tsar)
A Separate Peace (asp)
Leaves of Grass (log)
Terms of Endearment (toe)
Truth and Beauty (tab)
City of Girls (cog)
Circus of Wonders (cow)
Tokyo Ever After (tea)
Breasts and Eggs (bae)
Love Is a Revolution (liar)
loads of different books called because of you (boy)
Secrets in the Snow (sits)
Thief of Time (tot)

Hope some of those are helpful. There are a couple of oldies on there as well so may be able to get the ebook for free!

I found a few that fit:

Dead in Dublin (did)
Dark Embers at Dawn (dead)
Summer of Night (son)
Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970 (far)
Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel lives in Civil War Washington (law)
A Lost Lady (all)
The Accidental Empress (tea)
War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East (was)

One of my TBR lists that I checked had only one book that spelled anything: Rooftops of Tehran (rot). I was excited until I did a search for that word...nope, nothing I want to read!

I was amused to find Amelia Peabody's Egypt (ape) and The Ape Who Guards the Balance (Amelia Peabody #10)
These would be re-reads for me.

Great ideas, everyone, thanks!

And yes, the next issue is finding a book with the word, but you have found some pretty easy ones among those.

Just one is off - The Accidental Empress doesn't work for TEA - glad I'm not the only person who got one confused!

I think Julia should get some kind of bonus for the so-appropriate Amelia Peabody match (I loved that series on audio!)

Robin P wrote: "Great ideas, everyone, thanks!

And yes, the next issue is finding a book with the word, but you have found some pretty easy ones among those.

Just one is off - The Accidental Empress doesn't wor..."

*blushes* oops!

Here's some more:

Hearse and Gardens (hag)
Heat and Dust (had)
The Here and Now (than)
His Illegal Self (his)
Hidden in Sight (his)
The Irish Princess (tip)
The House at Tyneford (that)
House of Trelawney (hot)
Huck Out West (how)
Land of Dreams (lad)

more to come as I find them

I will be going with either A Narrow Door (and) or History of Wolves (how) - both will be easy words to match

Meg wrote: "I will be going with either A Narrow Door (and) or History of Wolves (how) - both will be easy words to match"

Nice one Meg! A Narrow Door is the third book of a series whose first book is titled Gentlemen and Players. And they're one of my favorite genres!

From my TBR Owned list
Leverage in Death lid

The Alchemical Detective tad

The Atlantis Gene tag

Crowned and Dangerous cad

Death in Lovers' Lane dill

The Empty Nesters ten

Hiss of Death: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery hod

The Inner Circle tic

Murder on Moloka'i mom

A Raucous Time art

Trail of the Spellmans tots

Whisker of Evil woe

I found this one on my list yesterday. If you have KU or Amazon Prime, it's free: The Halo Effect (THE)

Also found, Before I Go (BIG)

I didn't do an exhaustive search through my library, but here are a few I've noted that look promising to me:

Better Off Wed (bow)

Foundation and Empire OR Foundation and Earth (fae)

Ghosts of Tsavo (got)

Hit and Done (had)

The IDIC Epidemic OR Treasure in Exile (tie)

Trouble in Nuala (tin)

Is it okay to use the plural of a word that shows up in the dictionary? I was thinking The Orphan Master's Son - TOMS because I found a book Toms River with no apostrophe. TOM is in the dictionary.

Amy wrote: "Is it okay to use the plural of a word that shows up in the dictionary? I was thinking The Orphan Master's Son - TOMS because I found a book Toms River with no apostrophe. TOM is in the dictionary."

The word needs to match exactly. This would not work.

Delay of Game (DOG)
A Different Dawn (ADD)

are a couple I found - DOG seems to be an easy-ish one to match

QUESTION
L.A. Weather
When you look at the cover the L. and A. are clearly separated. But I believe Goodreads rules puts initials all together.

So is this a 3-word title spelling L A W

Or it is a 2-word title?

Book Concierge wrote: "QUESTION
L.A. Weather
When you look at the cover the L. and A. are clearly separated. But I believe Goodreads rules puts initials all together."

It's a a 2-word title.

For book 2, says the word can be in the subtitle, so for "Bob", I could use the book : We Are Legion (We are Bob)?

Julie wrote: "For book 2, says the word can be in the subtitle, so for "Bob", I could use the book : We Are Legion (We are Bob)?"

Yes if book 1 words spell bob