Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Dez



• sammy (Captain)
• eni (Co-Captain)
• sonia (Co-Captain)
• ashley-basile
• kate
• jane
• laurla
• linda-c
• shan-a
• melindam
• thebookishlifeoflorna
• lucy
• Alma
• silje
• melanie-king
• tea
• ashlee
• elizabeth
• alexandria


Challenge Status Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Team Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

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RULES - please read this page carefully

MINI CHALLENGE INFO:

All you need to know about how the mini challenges are going to work can be found HERE

All the details for the wheel mini can be found HERE

Countdown to the start of the challenge: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Team Sheet (captains only): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Team rankings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Planning sheet (this is where you can claim tasks/let us know what you're planning to read): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...


★ Above you will see the link to the team planning spreadsheet. If you are happy to use it, please do. If for whatever reason you are unable to, you can leave a completion post for your finished books instead. Something along the lines of:

Completion

Book:
Author:
Pages:
Date finished:
Rating: (optional, but could spark fun discussions or tempt others to pick it up too.)

If reading for a mini challenge task, please list all tasks it will work for, including the reason why.

★ Please remember that only books started after the challenge begins can be used.

★ Please do try to remember to add the books you've read to your challenge shelf. Your captains need to verify each book, and this will make our lives considerably easier.


Team Shelves:

• sammy
• eni
• sonia
• ashley-basile
• kate
• jane
• LaurLa
• linda-c
• shan-a
• melindam
• thebookishlifeoflorna
• lucy
• alma
• silje
• melanie-king
• tea
• ashlee
• elizabeth

It's easy to be an awesome teamie. Here's how:

★ Do I need to read a ton of books? - Nope, you can be an awesome teamie reading whatever you're comfortable with, even if that is no books at all.

★ Do I need to read nothing but doorstoppers? - Again, nope. You can read any length book you want, so long as they meet the requirements and still be an awesome teamie.

★ The secret to awesome teamieness? Communication!

- Can't quite manage your books for the month (all reasons for this are accepted, even "I just didn't feel like reading")? No problem! Just let us know, so other people can step in and cover what needs covering.

- Only reading one book per month and don't feel like chatting on the team thread? Perfectly fine, participation isn't mandatory (but fun, so definitely encouraged!). All we ask is that you drop any of the captains a line, either on the thread or as a DM at least once a week to say you're still participating in the challenge. Completing a book and updating the SS/leaving a completion post is also acceptable as a sign you're still playing, of course.

- Life thrown you a curve-ball and you need to pull out of the challenge? We totally understand. Please let one of the captains know (you don't have to give reasons if you don't want to) so we can say 'auf wiedersehen' (so much nicer than ghosting) and request a replacement player to fill in for you.

BOM info for May

1. - Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. A fantasy romp about a band of aging mercenaries (that draws parallels with aging rockstars on Earth), - Sign up for DQs and discussions are here - starts 2nd May

2. - The Dangerous Harem by J.R. Hogan. folk who were around for the first two installments will tell you not to expect high literature, but definitely hilarious daily discussions. DQ sign up and discussions are in the NBRC Backroom here (over 18s only) - Starts 10th May

3. - The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau. Mexican Gothic Horror. DQ sign ups and discussions are here - Starts 16th May


BOM INFO FOR JUNE:

1. - The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. A '1001 nights' inspired story. Magic and politics in a vivid Arabian setting.
sign up for DQs and/or participation HERE

2. - The Red by Tiffany Reisz. Backroom erotic fiction. Likely to be better written than the Dino books. (and I have everything crossed the discussion will still be fun!)
Sign up for DQs and/or participation HERE

11/22/63 by Stephen King. Despite the author, this is NOT a horror! Historical (and time-travel) fiction set around the time of the Kennedy assassination.
Sign up for DQs and/or participation HERE

It's new mini time!

If you look at the planning sheet, you will find a new tab called "don't feed the chipmunks". this tab contains the new mini that starts on the 1st of June.

10 tasks are available at any time, and when we finish one and add it to the official sheet, a new task is created, up to a total of 140 of them.

The catch is, these tasks can only be met with books in the "free choice" category. So where possible, we want to try and fill the tasks with books in the 100-399 range, which we read enough of to cover all the slots and give us free range slots for too. We want to try and avoid using longer books for these tasks, unless that's all we can find to cover one.

Expect some of these tasks to be truly diabolical... The mods have been spying paying attention to all the *ahem* fun suggestions people have made on the pre challenge chat thread and elsewhere to come up with a lot of tasks, some of which will be difficult to find anything for (Kate, you may well come to regret volunteering for "dubious book" duty, lol!)

Remember we can't use books finished before the 1st of June. What we can do however, is "bank" books after that time. So say Eni reads a 200 page book that doesn't fit any of the tasks on the 14th, but the perfect task comes up for it on the 20th, we can use her book then to cover it.

As always, any book can only be used for one mini challenge, so we can't use a chipmunk book for any of the other towers.

NEW MINI FOR JULY



The chipmunks have been hard at work, putting together a new torture mini for us!

For those of you that did last year's Muses TT, you'll remember the monster wheel. this mini is based on that one. as with June's Mini (which is also still active during July), we can only use 'Free Choice' books for this one.

As we've slipped down the rankings a bit, we can use one book for multiple tasks within a set, which will help speed us along a little, hopefully! those overachievers in the top teams have to read a separate book for each task! ;)

All the details for the new mini can be found HERE

Our first tasks are on the planning SS, but only books finished on or after the 1st of July can be used!

Wheel mini task sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

🐿️ THE STATE OF THE CHIPMUNKS 🐿️

Claimed tasks:

109. Ten Tallest Towers 2 - Merdeka 18 - Read a book set in, or by an author from Malaysia - Sammy
113. Ten Tallest Towers 10 - China Zun - Read a book set in, or by an author from China - Lucy
117. 10 Awards - Read a book that won the international 10 Awards - Read a booker - Lucy
120. X Books - Read a book where the ISBN contains an X - Ashlee
125. Random 10 - X-Box - Read a book related to computer gaming - Linda
133. 10 Things the Chipmunks Love - Defenestration! - Read a book you can connect to defenestration somehow (find it in the text, set in Prague etc) - Sonia
139. Top 10 Books 2015 - Read book from the GR "Best of 2015" list (see https://www.goodReads.com/list/best_b...) - LaurLa
140. X-Rated - Read a book with MPG Adult - Ashlee


OPEN TASKS:


124. Ten Tallest Towers 4 - Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower - Read a book set in, or by an author from Saudi Arabia

Hello team Dez!

I see a lot of familiar names here! Looking forward to playing with you all.

I'm Sammy, and I'll be your captain this TT, and I'm really excited to have both of the lovely sisters as co-captains! If any of you have any questions at all, just holler, and one of us, (or one of the veteran players on the team) will have the answers for you, or will go check with the other captains/mods if necessary.

I've done all but one of the team challenges here at NBRC these past 4 years, and I'm really excited to kick off this next one too.

I read pretty much anything, I read a lot, and during team challenges I tend to read an awful lot of BIG chunky books (because all those delicious points). Please do not feel like you have to follow suit. Just because your captain is a nutcase who enjoys 1000-pagers, doesn't mean you have to be!

I have also been known to post the occasional bit of *ahem* reading inspiration in the form of pictures of pretty people (always people who have chosen to be in the public eye, and never anything any more revealing than you'd find on a book cover). If you feel uncomfortable with this, please let me know and I'll put them behind a spoiler tag. Conversely, if you wish to see pictures of specific individuals, sing out and I shall see what I can find.
Just so you all know, Sonia has dibs on Chris Hemsworth and finding pictures of him will absolutely earn you brownie points.

Hello,

So excited to start TTX with you all.

This will be my 6th year of TT.

I am Melinda and live in Hungary, in a small lake town not far from Budapest with my husband and my nine-year-old son. I work in Budapest for one of the EU Agencies and commute on a train 3 days a week (precious reading time!!) and work from home 2 days.

I love reading and reading challenges. Books in any format are my joy, though recently I got more addicted to audiobooks.
My favourite genres are the classics, fantasy, golden age detective fiction and women's fiction. But I read everything if I am in the mood for it: non-fiction, romance, history, sci-fi. However, I tend to avoid horror/thrillers.


My shelf is: ttx

Ah yes, thanks for the reminder!

Please could you all let us know your TT shelves? Grazie.


Also, planning sheet will be available as soon as our resident spreadsheet geniuses have had a chance to set it up.

Also, just so we do not clash with Sonia on Chris Hemsworth, I call first dibs on Tom Hiddleston. 😍

Ah, the two of them go together so well... lol.

Sammy wrote: "Ah, the two of them go together so well... lol."

Yusss. ❤️

Yey, the teams are up. Have you notice you have not one, not two, but three former mods in our team?

And since our captain just asked so nicely, I'm going to put both meal prep and playing hairdresser on hold and play with spreadsheets

Eni has been trying to read for Uno the while day and I keep pestering her, so she will be happy I have something else to do instead. Lol

Again, I do believe it says something about how much they feel we need supervision, lol!

Ahem... I was one of them :P

And you need the most supervision of all

:D ;)

Sonia wrote: "Yey, the teams are up. Have you notice you have not one, not two, but three former mods in our team?

And since our captain just asked so nicely, I'm going to put both meal prep and playing hairdre..."

How did I not notice that there were 3 former mods here?! And some v experienced players too... Will have to keep an eye on your strategies.

Sonia, takes one to know one, right. ;) :D

Sophie wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Yey, the teams are up. Have you notice you have not one, not two, but three former mods in our team?

And since our captain just asked so nicely, I'm going to put both meal prep and p..."

You do realize I was once on the winning spot, of the TEN tower challenges, right?

Although I came very close with towers III, in book points we had the higher count... but the buddy read points gave the victory to thundercats... that and the initial books of 5 pages left on the book.

living and learning, I guess.

Sammy wrote: "Again, I do believe it says something about how much they feel we need supervision, lol!"

Not here to supervise. Definitely not.

Sophie wrote: "Sammy wrote: "Again, I do believe it says something about how much they feel we need supervision, lol!"

Not here to supervise. Definitely not."

Just to hand out popcorn? ;)

And hope for treats...

Sonia wrote: "Sophie wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Yey, the teams are up. Have you notice you have not one, not two, but three former mods in our team?

And since our captain just asked so nicely, I'm going to put both ..."

There's a reason some rules have changed over time!

Sophie wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Sophie wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Yey, the teams are up. Have you notice you have not one, not two, but three former mods in our team?

And since our captain just asked so nicely, I'm goin..."

Yep.

Can I jus say I like this towers a lot?

I even shed a few tears when reading the minis and everything.

Awww, we aim to please! We had fun with the minis and all the links to previous TTs.

Sonia wrote: "Sophie wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Sophie wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Yey, the teams are up. Have you notice you have not one, not two, but three former mods in our team?

And since our captain just asked so n..."

*hugs back*

Oh. Ma. Gah! So excited. Our team is a powerhouse! Also, are we allowed a little Ryan Gosling here? Or no?



ANYWAY....

I'm Ashley, I live in Alabama, but I am just not a "southern girl". I own/run a family business for dogs and cats. I have 3 kids, a dog, and a husband.

This is my second TT, and I love UNO, et al. I enjoy most book genres, but my favorites are PNR/UF and historical fiction. I also have become very into Memoirs and Biographies lately. I’m also trying to work my way through the classics, with little enjoyment, if I’m being perfectly honest…

Oh, here's my shelf: TTX

Okay, so, for the planners out there - you know who you are - Planning spreadsheet is on:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

I even added a couple of my books as an example.

We'll be tweaking a little bit to make it easier on captain tetris, but the main core (books and tasks) is there, so, have fun

Yaayy, spreadsheet! :) ♡

Also, just to make it clear, there is no absolute need to use it, if you don't feel comfortable with it. Just make a completion post on the thread, and we'll be happy with it.

We'll provide an example soon enough.

Ashley wrote: "Also, are we allowed a little Ryan Gosling here? Or no?
"

I'm pretty sure the rational, calm and usually the balanced mod known as Karen would kick us out of the group if we said no.

Sonia wrote: "I'm pretty sure the rational, calm and usually the balanced mod known as Karen would kick us out of the group if we said no."

Excellent!
And yay for spreadsheets!

That been said, weekends are a bit complicated around here, and there's some adulting needing to be done with. See you all tomorrow!

Just out of curiosity, and as a parting question, Sammy, are you going to post the "motivation of the day" this round?

*naughty grin*

Sonia wrote: "Ashley wrote: "Also, are we allowed a little Ryan Gosling here? Or no?
"

I'm pretty sure the rational, calm and usually the balanced mod known as Karen would kick us out of the group if we said no."

🫣🤭

Hi everyone

I have no idea how many team challenges I've done here, but sadly mostly ended somewhere in the middle if I remember correctly (Sorry Sonia!). I need something like TT (laid back -ish) to return me to reading and team challenges. Most of them are too competitive for me at the moment (I can't believe I'm actually saying that!)

Anyway, I'm one of those exes mentioned somewhere up. I'd like to say I'll read what's needed, but with my low book count I can't really promise that. I'll do my best :)

Shelf: tt10

I added a few books that I have on hold at the library that should show up after the challenge starts and books from the ACOTAR series I'm trying not to binge. Hopefully, this will make me space it out a bit.

Hi Tea! :)

Yes, I'll do motivation as and when I can. Won't be doing so when I'm on holiday or away for offspring's wedding, and I'm not entirely certain the docs will give me a time-out for google searches when I go in for my op, but otherwise I shall do my best ;)

Oh, and since Sophie was looking for treats...

Well after checking into the wrong team thanks to trying to navigate Google Sheets on my phone in an airport- I am now checking into the correct team. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

This is my 5th year of Tower Teams (Harry Potter was my first challenge ever in 2018) and because of that it’s always been one of my favorites.

I live in a small town in western Oklahoma- quite the change over the last few years for someone who was always a city girl. But that’s what happens when you marry a farmer - but sadly I am not Ree Drummond. I can cook but lack the empire! Our house includes two kids, one large dog, and two crazy cats.

I travel a lot for work and am in the beginning year of a long-distance doctoral program, for work, which has a residency component in June. I will probably get a little quiet then, not from a lack of reading but from a lack of time for the three weeks. The good news is it’s reading intensive so look for a number of random non-fiction books to pop up.

In terms of reading that isn’t for school- I am a pretty diverse reader but generally won’t turn down a good historical fiction, literary fiction, chick-lot, or thriller. Looking forward to playing with you all.

Just dropping in from team Deset to see what man-flesh has been on offer. Oh, and to say a big HELLOOOOOO to my buddies.

Big, blue and furry. Huh. Not what I was expecting. teehee

Lorn♡ wrote: "I live in sunny ol' England (big jokes it's never bloody sunny) "

Oh boy do I know that feeling... I don't only live in England, I live in Yorkshire! And yes, it really is grim up north, lol.

Jenny wrote: "Just dropping in from team Deset to see what man-flesh has been on offer. Oh, and to say a big HELLOOOOOO to my buddies.

Big, blue and furry. Huh. Not what I was expecting. teehee"

It's been a while... Judith has forgotten how the inspiration thing works ;)

And thank you for returning our Kate to us. we're very glad to see her! :)

:D

I will demonstrate my loyalty by volunteering as tribute for the first book related questionable book or prompt from the Mods!

Lorn♡ wrote: "Me too! Sheffield has been bloody miserable today haha"

So has Leeds :D

Kate wrote: "I will demonstrate my loyalty by volunteering as tribute for the first book related questionable book or prompt from the Mods!"

I like how you think! (but keep your voice down... they might hear you! lol!)

Us... Listen to conversations to create tasks... Never...

P.S. thanks for my treat!