Hooked on Books discussion

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work! ~ A Year-Long Reading Challenge
Individual Challenge
January 1st - December 31st, 2025


Let's read books and complete tasks related to team and partner sports that are played and enjoyed around the world!


On the 1st and 15th of each month I will post a new team sport in the Playing Field Thread. You will have four tasks to choose from for each sport. You only need to complete one. Participate in as many or as few sports as you would like.


You will make your Completion Posts here IN YOUR OWN THREAD. Please use this format. {You are welcome to copy and paste the game tasks into your own thread if you would like.}


Completion Post
Team Sport:
Book:
Author:
Date Read:
Task:
How it Fits:


If you have any questions, please post them in the Referee's Table Q & A Thread.


Challenge Rules:
📘 Standard Rules Apply
📘I will create an individual thread for you prior to the start date.
📘Your first team sport will be posted on January 1, 2025.
📘Books must be completed after the team sport has been posted.

✅ Team Sport: American Football

Book: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Author: J.K. Rowling
Date Read: Jan 2nd
Task: Series - 7+ primary works
How it Fits: 7 book series

Book: The Great Polar Fraud: Cook, Peary, and Byrd?How Three American Heroes Duped the World into Thinking They Had Reached the North Pole
Author: Anthony Galvin
Date Read: Jan 3rd
Task: Author - Tony
How it Fits: AFN is Anthony

✅ Team Sport: Soccer

Book: Bank 3.0 - Why Banking is No Longer Somewhere You Go, But Something You Do
Author: Brett King
Date Read: Jan 15th
Task: Published - since 2009
How it Fits: 2012

Book: Put Anxiety Behind You: The Complete Drug-Free Program
Author: Peter Bongiorno
Date Read: Jan 15th
Task: Title - starts with a letter in PITCH
How it Fits: P

✅ Team Sport: Basketball

Book: Royal Mysteries of the Tudor Period
Author: Timothy Venning
Date Read: Feb 2nd
Task: Text - 'two'
How it Fits: "two nineteenth-century operas" p.14

Book: Adventurers: The Improbable Rise of the East India Company
Author: David Howarth
Date Read: Feb 4th
Task: Author - letters of TWO
How it Fits: hOWarTh

✅ Team Sport: Baseball

Book: Energy Harvesting and Energy Efficiency: Technology, Methods, and Applications
Author: Nicu Bizon
Date Read: Feb 16th
Task: Title - double letters
How it Fits: eFFiciency

Book: The Ozempic Revolution: A Doctor's Proven Plan for Success to Help You Reverse Obesity, End Yo-Yo Dieting, and Protect Yourself from Disease
Author: Alexandra Sowa
Date Read: Feb 16th
Task: Author - initials in AMERICAS PASTIME
How it Fits: AS

✅ Team Sport: Softball

Book: Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in 1914
Author: Prit Buttar
Date Read: Mar 1st
Task: Title - all initials in GEORGE HANCOCK
How it Fits: COE

Book: Billie Eilish
Author: Billie Eilish
Date Read: Mar 2nd
Task: MC - female
How it Fits: MC is female

✅ Team Sport: Volleyball

Book: The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World
Author: Peter Frankopan
Date Read: Mar 16th
Task: Title - all letters of NET
How it Fits: The NEw

Book: I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids
Author: Jen Kirkman
Date Read: Mar 16th
Task: Published - 2 of 1964
How it Fits: April 16, 2013

✅ Team Sport: Rowing

Book: The Adult Autism Assessment Handbook: A Neurodiversity Affirmative Approach
Author: Davida Hartman
Date Read: Apr 1st
Task: Title - starts with a letter in COXSWAIN
How it Fits: A

Book: Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California
Author: Frances Dinkelspiel
Date Read: Apr 1st
Task: Text - 'crew'
How it Fits: "she ordered her entire crew" p.62

✅ Team Sport: Polo

Book: Will It Make the Boat Go Faster?: Olympic-Winning Strategies for Everyday Success
Author: Ben Hunt-Davis
Date Read: Apr 17th
Task: Title - all the letters of MALLET
How it Fits: wiLL iT MAkE

Book: The Triumph of Empire: The Roman World from Hadrian to Constantine
Author: Michael Kulikowski
Date Read: Apr 18th
Task: Cover - horse
How it Fits:

✅ Team Sport: Water Polo

Book: Flee 9-5: Get 6 - 7 Figures and Do What You Love
Author: Ben Angel
Date Read: May 2nd
Task: Cover - body of water
How it Fits:

Book: Lonely Planet Scotland
Author: Lonely Planet
Date Read: May 3rd
Task: Set - Scotland
How it Fits: It is

✅ Team Sport: Cricket

Book: You Deserve This Sh!t: Get Unstuck, Find Your Path, and Become the Best Version of Yourself
Author: Jordan Tarver
Date Read: May 16th
Task: Cover - white
How it Fits:

Book: Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business
Author: David Edery
Date Read: May 17th
Task: Published - 11
How it Fits: November 11, 2008

✅ Team Sport: Wiffle Ball

Book: Our Place in the Sun: Canada and Cuba in the Castro Era
Author: Robert Wright
Date Read: Jun 2nd
Task: MC - FN initial is in WIFFLE BALL
How it Fits: Fidel

Book: Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir
Author: Wil Wheaton
Date Read: Jun 5th
Task: Plot - char makes a joke
How it Fits: "I am embarrassed and make a joke. I say to the actors walking around the bridge, “If you need any help flying this thing, I’ve totally got your back!” " p.36

✅ Team Sport: Rugby

Book: House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films
Author: Kier-la Janisse
Date Read: Jun 17th
Task: Text - 'union'
How it Fits: "the result of an unholy union between her now-dead mother and Satan himself" p.202

Book: Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions
Author: Annik LaFarge
Date Read: Jun 19th
Task: Author - initials in MIDDLE AGES
How it Fits: AL

✅ Team Sport: Beach Volleyball

Book: A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19
Author: Edna Bonhomme
Date Read: Jul 2nd
Task: Pages - 2 of 1915
How it Fits: 315 pages

Book: Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash
Author: Alexander Clapp
Date Read: Jul 8th
Task: Cover - beach scene
How it Fits:

✅ Team Sport: Handball

Book: Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness
Author: Patrick House
Date Read: Jul 18th
Task: Published - Oct
How it Fits: October 1, 2022

Book: The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture
Author: Euny Hong
Date Read: Jul 18th
Task: Set - Asia
How it Fits: South Korea

✅ Team Sport: Tennis

Book: Board Games in 100 Moves
Author: Ian Livingstone
Date Read: Aug 2nd
Task: Published - 2+ of 1988
How it Fits: 2019

Book: The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora
Author: Wendy Pearlman
Date Read: Aug 2nd
Task: Text - 'eye'
How it Fits: "work as an eye for the government" p.51

✅ Team Sport: Pickleball

Book: Green Gold: The Avocado's Remarkable Journey from Humble Superfood to Toast of a Nation
Author: Sarah Allaback
Date Read: Aug 16th
Task: Cover - food item
How it Fits:

Book: One for Joy: An introvert’s guide to the secret world of solitude
Author: Tom Albrighton
Date Read: Aug 20th
Task: Published - 2021, 2022, or 2023
How it Fits: January 10, 2023

✅ Team Sport: Ice Hockey

Book: Making Disability Modern: Design Histories
Author: Bess Williamson
Date Read: Sep 1st
Task: Title - starts with letter in MONTREAL
How it Fits: It does

Book: Beating Brain Fog- Your 30-Day Plan to Think Faster, Sharper, Better
Author: Sabina Brennan
Date Read: Sep 1st
Task: Published - March
How it Fits: March 4, 2021