Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Team Endless Meal Prep




🍽️ Deanna (Captain)
🍽️ Kaley (Co-Captain)
🍽️ Marie-Anne (Co-Captain)
🍽️ Angela
🍽️ ChristinaT
🍽️ Annalisa
🍽️ slideshell
🍽️ Lauri
🍽️ Robin
🍽️ Mimuna
🍽️ Andy
🍽️ Alisha
🍽️ Lucy
🍽️ Tati
🍽️ Silje
🍽️ Alaina




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

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Team Endless Meal Prep Member Shelves

🥪 Deanna (Captain) (18)
🥪 Kaley (Co-Captain) (10)
🥪 Marie-Anne (Co-Captain) (9)
🥪 Angela (10)
🥪 ChristinaT (15)
🥪 Annalisa (6)
🥪 slideshell (15)
🥪 Lauri (6)
🥪 Robin (7)
🥪 Mimuna
🥪 Andy
🥪 Alisha
🥪 Lucy
🥪 Tati
🥪 Silje
🥪 Alaina

🍴🍴Spreadsheets🍴🍴
🥪Team Thread
🥪Planning Spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
🥪Official Spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
🥪Status Spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Page Points
📚 Books less than 100 pages = 0 points
📚 Books between 100 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)

Bonus points
To brighten your multi-tasking lives a tiny bit, each book used in the spell-out might also work for bonus points:

📚 5 points for books published more than 2 years ago (2021 or earlier)
📚 10 points for books published more than 50 years ago (1973 or earlier)
📚 20 points for books over 100 years old (1923 or earlier)
📚 5 points for books over 400 pages
📚 10 points for books over 600 pages
📚 20 points for books over 800 pages

📢📢📢📢ROUND 1 INFO📢📢📢📢
📌Word: INSURANCE PAPERWORK
⏳Starts: 12 Oct 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...
⏳Ends: 26 Oct 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

📢📢📢📢ROUND 2 INFO📢📢📢📢
📌Word:
⏳Starts: 26 Oct 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...
⏳Ends: 9 Nov 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

📢📢📢📢ROUND 3 INFO📢📢📢📢
📌Word:
⏳Starts: 9 Nov 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...
⏳Ends: 23 Nov 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

📢📢📢📢ROUND 4 INFO📢📢📢📢
📌Word: INSURANCE PAPERWORK
⏳Starts: 23 Nov 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...
⏳Ends: 7 Dec 9pm UK - https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Books of the Month
October - The Road Trip - starts Oct. 16

🍴🍴General Info🍴🍴
🥪Wheel Rules
🥪Water Cooler Chat Thread

🍴🍴Resources🍴🍴
🥪 Color Cover - https://labs.tineye.com/color/
🍴Word Count Resources:
🥪 AR Book Find (US) | https://www.arbookfind.com
🥪 AR Book Find (UK) | https://www.arbookfind.co.uk
🥪 AR Book Find (AU) | https://www.arbookfind.com.au

Welcome Team Endless Meal Prep! Are you ready to take on the mundane madness of the Boring Wheel of Life (aka Wheel-a-thon 9)?

I'm Deanna, your captain for this adventure. If you have any questions please ask and I or one of our fabulous co-captains Kaley and Marie-Anne will answer or hunt down the answer for you. Basic rules can be found here. For wheel veterans, make sure to double check the sections titled bonus points, how a "spell it out" works and individual reading caps to understand the differences with previous rounds of wheel.

A little about me. I live in Virginia and homeschool my youngest (11th grader) in the morning and work a retail closing shift in the evenings. I spend most of my spare time reading from various genres with mystery, fantasy, and science fiction being the most prevalent. Most nights, you'll find me reading a book to wind down after work with a cat curled up in my lap.

In honor of our team name, here's a brief meal prep clip from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-fCt...

Anyway please introduce yourself and post a link or let us know the name of your wheel shelf. (Brief pause while I run to create my own shelf...😊)

🌟 Icebreaker Question: 🌟
If you could magically eliminate one boring chore from your life forever, which one would it be and why? 🧹✨

Hello team!!

My name is Kaley and I’m one of your co-captains for this challenge!

I live in Indiana (US) with my husband and our dog and cat. As of last week I am a new auntie to the cutest twins and I’m so excited! My sister lives all the way out in Arizona so I haven’t been able to meet them yet but I’m going to visit in a few weeks.

I read a lot of romance — contemporary, fantasy, historical . . . Doesn’t matter as long as there’s romance involved :) I think I’ll occasionally read outside of those but that’s a good 90-95% if what I usually read. If I’m reading outside of those genres, it’s usually for bonus points in a challenge :-P

Hmmm, one mindless chore to get rid of . . . Honestly, the mods put me on the right team! I don’t think it’s necessarily so much the physical meal prep itself as it is constantly thinking about what to make for dinner. I’ve said many, many times that the one thing I wasn’t prepared for properly for adulthood was deciding what’s for dinner every single day for the rest of eternity!

Here’s my wheel shelf Deanna: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Aloha from Hawaii! My name is Lauri & this is my umpteenth Wheelathon! My favorite genres are historical fiction, mystery, paranormal, chick-lit, snarky romance, adventure… I will read just about anything! My general rule of thumb is to give a book 100 pages before deciding whether or not to continue.

I was born & raised in Hawaii (island of Oahu) and am a quite happily married old lady with 1 adult son. I still work full-time at the State Psychiatric Hospital in the Medical Records Unit.

Can’t wait to see our categories & start planning - - my favorite part!

One mindless chore to get rid of? Cleaning in general and dusting in particular! If I’m going to do a chore, I want it to STAY done forever!!

Hello from the Pacific Northwest, just north of Seattle. I'm one of your co-captains for this Wheel challenge.

We moved here 3 years ago when I retired from my academic career, close to our daughter and grandchild. I moved here from Belgium, where all my family lives, to be with my American husband. My American family is spread over the east and west coast, and the south.

I am an omnivore reader, pretty much, reading in a couple of different languages. I love mysteries of all kind, as well as fantasy and scifi. I also like a lot of non-fiction, particularly about science, math, art and archaeology, as well as biographies related to those topics. I read mainly paper copies and ebooks, but don't do audio books. I would probably end up in a ditch somewhere if I had to concentrate on listening while driving =).
I'm looking forward to this challenge!

Hey Kaley and Marie-Anne! Aloha Lauri!

Our first word will be INSURANCE PAPERWORK. I'll try to get the tracking spreadsheet up in the morning before I go to work.

Welcome Lauri! Ooooo, Hawaii! My cousin lived there for a time and she has the best memories from it. It looks beautiful there! I totally agree about wanting a chore to stay done forever. Dishes are also one of my least favorite tasks because as soon as you're done, BAM, they're all piled up again it feels like. The worst.

Marie-Anne I am so the opposite on audiobooks. But that could also be because if I'm listening to music in the car it's like I'm hosting my own little concert so I'm actually more concentrated when I'm listening to an audiobook haha.

Hello, team!! My name is Robin and I'm thrilled to be a part of this wheel-a-thon! :) I'm joining y'all from New Jersey, USA where I am a college writing instructor and working on my dissertation for my PhD in literature. NBRC has helped me rediscover the joy of reading for fun (and not just reading for my own research/job) over the last few years!

I read fiction pretty widely (not a huge non-fiction fan, I read enough as-is for work) -- but my favorite genres are sci-fi, fantasy, magical realism, mystery, and thriller/suspense. I'll be taking a break from a long series I've been reading (Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series) to catch up on some TBR reads during this challenge. I'm so excited!! :)

I definitely think I would eliminate cooking / meal prepping from my chore list permanently... The mods must have known that the kitchen is my battleground!! Honorable mention is laundry, I can't STAND folding clothes!

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

Welcome Robin!! Do you have any sci-fi recs? I want to expand my reading horizons but I haven't read a ton of sci-fi in the past so I have no idea on where to start.

I have heard wonderful things about Kushiel's Legacy! I see a lot of the mods talking about it every so often, but the length of those books has been so intimidating I've been too scared to start :-P Not that I haven't read long books like it, but most of the longer series books I've read have been something where the first book or two were much shorter so I eased into it or something I had previous familiarity with (like Outlander, where I started the show, liked it, then tried out the book).

Kaley wrote: "Welcome Robin!! Do you have any sci-fi recs? I want to expand my reading horizons but I haven't read a ton of sci-fi in the past so I have no idea on where to start.

I have heard wonderful things ..."

Kaley wrote: "Welcome Robin!! Do you have any sci-fi recs? I want to expand my reading horizons but I haven't read a ton of sci-fi in the past so I have no idea on where to start.

I have heard wonderful things ..."

Hi Kaley!! Oooh I definitely recommend the Area X series by Jeff VanderMeer (beginning with Annihilation) if scifi with a surreal, ecocritical bent sounds interesting to you. My other favorites are anything by Emily St. John Mandel (I'd start with Station Eleven, which is her most sci-fi-ish offering), and Severance by Ling Ma is also a great, quick read. If you want first contact/aliens (and lots of them) I recommend Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis / Lilith's Brood series, beginning with Dawn. Probably my favorite sci-fi series ever, and one of the strongest openings of any sci-fi novel I've ever read, but it is unapologetically WEIRD and it features romantic (?) elements between aliens and humans, so proceed with caution if that doesn't sound like something you'd like. Butler is thinking a lot about race, hybridity, transhumanism, utopias, and what it means to be truly "human" in this series, and constantly posing ethical questions about what it means for the humans and the aliens to intermix/create a new species. It's really, really gripping!

If you think you'd like to dip your toes in with some shorter entries, a few SF novella recs: for alternate history sci-fi with a generous helping of western/adventure elements, I highly recommend Sarah Gailey's American Hippos duology (beginning with River of Teeth) or Gailey's similarly enjoyable Upright Women Wanted. Or! If you think you'd like a Holmesian cozy mystery series set in a sci-fi world, I enjoyed reading The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (caveat though: this is an unfinished series, so if that bothers you maybe wait for Older to publish a few more of the Mossa & Pleiti adventures before you dive in!).

Also: Kushiel's Legacy is faaaantastic. I literally cannot stop thinking about it! But it was SO good that it caused a huge reading slump after I finished book 1 (at a whopping 901 pages, it was quite the undertaking, and took me the better part of August-early September). So I'm thankful to be taking a break from Carey for a minute and getting some TBR books read for this challenge instead! :)

Oh I forgot to mention The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (or Liu Cixin, I've seen it written both ways)... Absolutely excellent, though maybe not the best for somebody new to the genre -- this series is so MASSIVE in scope that hurt my brain a little the first time I read it!!

Oooo lots of recs! Thanks so much -- I will definitely be looking into those more!

Kaley wrote: "Oooo lots of recs! Thanks so much -- I will definitely be looking into those more!"

Of course! Please report your findings here if you end up enjoying any of them during the challenge!! ;)

Hi everyone!
My name is Angela and I am from Illinois near Chicago. This is only my second wheel challenge and I am looking forward to another round. I enjoy reading a wide range of genres but shy away from horror and fantasy.
Other than reading, I like to take long walks, usually listening to music. I have tried audiobooks numerous times, but my attention span does not allow me to focus and my mind wanders. I am also a big fan of reality tv, especially Big Brother and Survivor, where I geek out about the shows. I follow Reddit threads and listen to podcasts discussing the strategy.
My least favorite chore is lawn care/ dealing with the yard.

My shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Angela wrote: "Hi everyone!
My name is Angela and I am from Illinois near Chicago. This is only my second wheel challenge and I am looking forward to another round. I enjoy reading a wide range of genres but shy..."

Hi Angela!! This is only my 2nd wheel, too.

I'm also a HUGE Survivor nerd. Are you watching this latest season?? I am enjoying it so far! Do you also watch Traitors, by chance? If not, you must start watching -- it's excellent reality TV. :)

Ooo fellow Survivor fans!! That reminds me — I totally forgot there was a new episode for me to watch today (I have to watch it a day later on streaming).

I second that about The Traitors!! I’ve only seen the US version but I plan to watch the UK version at some point. But I can’t wait for season 3 of the US version with Boston Rob!!

Yay!! Hi fellow survivor fans:) I am watching this season and enjoying it. I have watched only US Traitors and will probably eventually watch other franchises. Also excited about Boston Rob (and Tony). Loved watching Cirie and Parvati on the earlier seasons. I enjoy Bravo shows too so love seeing them on Traitors as well.

Hi all, I'm Annalisa. I'm from Asheville, NC. This is my 7th Wheel. I need to reread the rules since they have changed but this is the first day I've had internet in two weeks. Where I live was affected by Hurricane Helene. I might be an almost invisible player or I might be very active. It will all depend on how things go as they stabilize. I'm currently visiting family that got back power, water, and internet. Where I live I think got power back today but no water and it will likely be a month or more before we get it back.

All this said I'm looking forward to a distraction. My family and I are all fine and didn't have damage to our property. It is just a lot and I'm hoping this is a nice distraction.

I will do my best to check in regularly and the min of a week. However, the internet is not all that reliable (it went down for about 5 hours today) and cell service is also unreliable (my phone is currently in SOS only mode).

My kindle is loaded with books and when I'm not hauling buckets of water and gallons of drinking water I'll likely be reading. So my chore I hope to not have to do again would be all water hauling related (dishes, flushing the toilet, showering, drinking all so much more work that you would expect when you don't have tap water.)

Link to my shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I still can’t do a link to save my life! I’ve been trying forever!

My shelf is nbrc-wheel-2024

Hope that helps!

Annalisa — glad to hear you don’t have property damage, and everyone is safe, but so sorry you had to go through and are still going through all that! I can’t even begin to imagine your experience. I hope this challenge does provide you with a bit of distraction too! And if you’re unable to check in, we’ll know why so no worries on that front.

Angela wrote: "Yay!! Hi fellow survivor fans:) I am watching this season and enjoying it. I have watched only US Traitors and will probably eventually watch other franchises. Also excited about Boston Rob (and To..."

I don’t watch the Bravo shows (or Big Brother) but The Traitors has made me want to start! Part of the reason I’m watching Dancing with the Stars this season after not watching it for years is because of Phaedra 🤣

Hi everyone! I'm ChristinaT from Iowa. I work overnights at one of our local casinos so my online time is all over the place depending on how my sleeping goes. Day sleeping is so hard!

I primarily read MM romances of all sub-genres but will read MF romances as well in addition to mysteries, some horror, and I'm not opposed to Sci-fi and fantasy. I will also read a little dab of YA. This last year I read 2 non-fiction books (its not my norm). Both were memiors and I enjoyed them enough to pick up more in the future. My least favorite genre or sub-genre actually is NA Romances. I'm a single, 51 year old, with no children, stuck in her ways, opinionated woman. I just can't with the NA female mindset.

I started to read MM Romances about 2 years ago. They ramped up my reading so much but also rejuvenated my love of reading as I lost it along the way.

This is my first Wheel and I'm so excited to be a part of it. I like that there is a cap for reading and gives an overage option to those of us who underestimate our ability to fit "just one more book in". I signed up for 10 books per round but tend to read around 30 books a month. I just figured not every book I read would be useful.

As far as meal prep... I've never actually done that. I'm one of those people who get hungry and then say "Well I probably should have thawed out some [fill in the blank] for dinner tonight. Oh well, cereal for dinner or is!" As far as chores go I really dislike doing them all. Every last one of them. The good news is my brain understands the importance of a clean living environment with the exception of putting my clothes away once the laundry is washed, dried, hung and/or folded. My brain. She's smart but also hard to convince that even though we can't see our clothes (or books or hobby supplies or a list of 100 other things we own) they still do exist. If my laundry is all tucked away my brain thinks I have absolutely nothing to wear. My brain is sometimes a scary place.

Well that's about all I have for now. I got our thread all checkmarked so I'll get notified of updates. Oh and here's my shelf link...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Boring-wheel-of-life
Sorry posting cute links on my phone is hard. Possible but hard.

Lauri wrote: "I still can’t do a link to save my life! I’ve been trying forever!

My shelf is nbrc-wheel-2024

Hope that helps!"

That's fine. I found it. Thanks!

Welcome everyone! We are almost all here. Hopefully our last 2 members will check in today.

Tracking spreadsheet is up. See message 4 for the link. You just need fill out the basic info in the light green area, and the co-capts. and I will fill in the rest.

If you are uncomfortable or unable to use the spreadsheet for any reason, feel free to post completions here in the thread with the following information:

Title:
Author:
# Pages:
Date Read:
Letters it works for:

Has anyone picked out their first book to read tomorrow?

Yay! Can't believe it starts tomorrow already!

I probably should pick out something to start with . . . I know I'll be reading The Road Trip at some point for those sweet, sweet BOM points, but I probably won't start it until a few days in so I don't get ahead of the discussion.

Deanna wrote: "Has anyone picked out their first book to read tomorrow?"

Yes!! I'll be reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise ! I thought it would be nice to finally get it off my TBR, and I just recently reread Gatsby so it'll be a nice continuation of my Fitzgerald kick. :) Plus, it's juuuust eligible for the 100-year bonus (published 1920)! I'm in Montreal this weekend with a friend, but I'm hoping to have time to read in between our tourist-y adventures. :)

Annalisa wrote: "Hi all, I'm Annalisa. I'm from Asheville, NC. This is my 7th Wheel. I need to reread the rules since they have changed but this is the first day I've had internet in two weeks. Where I live was aff..."

Annalisa, I'm so sorry to hear you've been hit so hard by Helene! I have family in Winston-Salem that were spared the worst of it, but hearing about how areas further west in NC were hit is devastating. :( I hope you're hanging in there!

I have a bunch - - working on those pesky vowels! I even have 2 U possibilities!

Can’t wait to get started!!

Hi everyone!

I'm Michelle from southern PA and I'm a little late because I just spent 43+ hours this week at my kid's book fair and I'm BEAT!

I have 4 kids (25,22,10 and 6) plus 2 dogs and 1 husband 🤣

This is my first challenge here and I'm very excited!

I am about to pass out from exhaustion, but I will make sure to check in tomorrow morning and pick some books and make sure I know what I'm doing

I read just about anything but primarily romance, mystery and fantasy.

I typically read about a book a day, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on my very hectic schedule.

My shelf is nbrc-wheel24

I'm about to pass out

Welcome, Michelle!

Just under six hours until start time!!!! https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

I’m a little bummed it doesn’t start earlier in the day becauseI have a busy weekend starting right after the challenge starts and all through Sunday. BUT it’s a super fun book event so it’s very fitting. And I get to meet Ashley Poston (again — I actually met her during her book tour a few months ago) and Abby Jimenez so it’s going to be a very fun weekend for me!

Ready, Set, Read!!!

Yay! I am starting with an escape sci-fi romance. Bound by Tana Stone.

Deanna wrote: " Ready, Set, Read!!!"

Woohoo!!! Let's go team EMP! :)

Happy Monday! I hope everyone's weekends went well :)

Michelle - Can you please put Bride on your wheel shelf?

My first book is almost done but not well thought out for this challenge 🤦‍♂️Two days ago I noticed 20+ books in my Audible library available through Audible Plus are expiring either the last week in October or the first week in November. This is almost 75% of what I've borrowed (the other 25% are ones I've purchased.) Almost all of them are MM Romances with the exception of one cozy mystery and a couple of one offs. I really hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the Scribd debacle where they all of a sudden gutted their available Romance selection or the "sorry...not sorry" response Audible had when discontinuing their popular Audible Escape program.

Anyway, I have to figure out how to listen to 20+ books in the next 3 weeks. 😆

Oh no!! I hope you are able to get through as many as possible before you lose access!

Hello team! Just finished my first book for this challenge on my roadtrip with a friend (Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys), and I have to say... it was NOT GOOD! Lol! And to make matters worse... it's exactly 99 years old. Soooo close, how aggravating! I'm halfway through my another quick(ish) read (Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise) and I'm feeling similarly lukewarm about it.

So it turns out I need RECS! Can anyone recommend something to turn my reading luck around? These two will be the latest in a slew of 1- and 2-star ratings for me lately... :(

I sure wish I could recommend something to you Robin but I'm thinking my reading interests and yours are on completely different worlds. I have not been able to read anything older than a 90s mystery in forever. I tried reading some beloved classics (like Pride and Prejudice) and could not get past chapter 2. They just aren't for me 😕

Trying to think of some for you, Robin! I read mostly romance though so everything I can think of doesn't seem to match your tastes. I was looking at your shelves to see if I could come up with something similar to what you've rated based on those and the only one I could think of I saw on your shelves two seconds later! And I can't think of anything else like it that I've read . . . I'll keep thinking though!

Robin wrote: "Hello team! Just finished my first book for this challenge on my roadtrip with a friend (Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys), and I have to say... it was NOT GOOD! Lol! And to ma..."

Based on your shelves, you might enjoy


I haven't actually read the first three, but based on the books you've rated 5 stars I think you might enjoy them. I'll look for some more ideas later when I get home again.

HTH

I also have heard wonderful things about The Song of Achilles!

You all are wonderful!! Thank you for the kind words and great recs -- it's so funny that you recommend Jekyll & Hyde and Frankenstein, Deanna, because I'm teaching both texts this semester to my undergrads. :) True classics, and for good reason! I think I might finally read The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein (after I finish the much-anticipated-by-me Sea of Tranquility) -- you're the second person who's recommended it to me!