Play Book Tag discussion

Cindy really does like to shelve the books we read for challenges on the Play Book Tag shelves. She does an amazing job, but it's pretty difficult to identify everything that has been read.

Please help her out by either posting or linking to your reviews in this thread.

Or, you can even simply post the title and the author that you have finished and want shelves. One title per post please.

Or even better, head over the shelf and add your books!

Here's a link to the shelf!

https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

I just shelved Service Model that I read for the prompt "Read a book with a character who is an alien (or might be one)."

Do you want us to post it here too?

✅7. Read a book by a "new to you" author

Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory by Sarah Polley
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

@Cindy - I shelved it as Canada, compass, play-harder

Joy D wrote: "I just shelved Service Model that I read for the prompt "Read a book with a character who is an alien (or might be one)."

Do you want us to post it here too?"

Hi, Joy. Technically, if you are shelving it, I don't think Anita is using this thread for anything, so you probably don't need to post here.

ANITA, please reply and correct me if I'm wrong!

However, I find it's not usually a bad thing to have someone double check. I even double check my own when I've read for the monthly tag or a challenge. When I come across it during shelving, I will double check my own and I have found the odd time where I've forgotten to shelve it.

NancyJ wrote: "✅7. Read a book by a "new to you" author

Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory by Sarah Polley
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/......"

Thanks, Nancy!

LibraryCin wrote: "Joy. Technically, if you are shelving it, I don't think Anita is using this thread for anything, so you probably don't need to post here., ..."

OK, thanks, Cindy!

10. Read a book with a "new to you" author- Finished 1/4/25

The K Team

9. Read a book featuring a current or historical person you admire.

Finished 1/5/25

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. Review

1. Read a book that includes points of view from more than one character
State of Terror - 1/4
I know we don't have to read in order, this just happened to be the first one I read.

5. Read a book set in a country you have never visited: Iceland

Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
My review

4. Read a book set in 1925 or earlier: 1909

Anne of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
My review

4. A book related to or featuring the game of baseball

Catch Us When We Fall by Juliette Fay - review here

LibraryCin wrote: "Joy D wrote: "I just shelved Service Model that I read for the prompt "Read a book with a character who is an alien (or might be one)."

Do you want us to post it here too?"

Hi, ..."

Cindy is totally correct. I am not using this thread at all. It's strictly to aid Cindy with shelving.

And I appreciate those of you who are taking the extra step to post here. I do like to have what we've read for PBT activities added to the shelf!

I really like seeing what people read for the prompts. :)

5. A character who is an alien (or might be one) -
Doors of Sleep - Tim Pratt
Review - www.goodreads.com/topic/show/23003793...

Jen K wrote: "I really like seeing what people read for the prompts. :)"

Good point - it can give people more ideas, too!

I am with Jen, it's great to see what people are reading for each prompt. For example, I was really curious what someone would read for a character who is an alien, now I know!

7. A book that someone else in the group put on their Top 10 Reads of 2024 list
The Personal Librarian - Marie Benedict - on Lyn's list - read 1/9/25 - My Review

2. A book tagged "Literary-Fiction" at least 5 times

Read- Pachinko
Tagged Literary-fiction 823 times-https://www.goodreads.com/work/shelve...
Review-https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

#7 a book tagged motherhood
read -
Looking for Jane
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I have shelved this
play harder
Canada

Prompt:
A book with a setting or plot that includes a theatrical performance

Hag-seed by Margaret Atwood. 4 stars, Completed 1/10/2025

Prompt fit: the main character teaches a prison literacy class in which a performance of Shakespeare's The Tempest serves as a primary plot point.

Dog on cover

Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food / Ann N. Martin
4 stars

This is the third edition. The author is looking at commercial pet food diets, what’s in them, the animals testing, all kinds of other crazy things the pet food companies do for profits (potentially at the expense of people’s pets, and certainly at the expense of animals who are used for testing). The author advocates for people making their pets’ food from human-grade foods.

I knew of some of these things, but there are horrifying things going on, particularly the animal experiments. I will add that this book (I don’t think there is a newer edition) is from 2008, but I’d be surprised of many of these practices have changed. The author is Canadian, and looks mostly at pet food in Canada and the US.

There is a good chunk of detail explaining what many of the ingredients you see on packaging actually mean. For this reason, I feel like this is a good book to have as a reference (I borrowed a library copy). It’s hard to keep all the ingredients straight. Pets that were euthanized, but not cremated, are likely in most of these foods… this includes the drug used to euthanize those pets ending up in these foods. Also dead livestock, roadkill, and zoo animals. These are all sent to rendering plants that grind and mix them up, then send them to pet food companies to use in pet food.

The drug companies do awful tests on animals for useless purposes (some, actually useless, while other testing is likely done to find the cheapest things they can add to the food to make more money). I’d already read this, but vets are rarely taught about nutrition except in elective courses, and even then, those courses are taught by the pet food companies themselves. Regulations are pretty much nonexistent, and what regulations there are, are mostly voluntary.

Despite the author preferring a home-made diet for pets (and she includes all kinds of nutrition information that needs to be included (for cats and dogs), as well as recipes), she also mentions a few of the companies that she thinks are better than others (at least back in 2008).

There is a lot of repetition in the book, but I just assumed that was in case someone read the chapters out of order (that is, if they were reading a certain chapter on a certain topic, then maybe later (or not) came to read a different chapter on a different topic).

Prompt: A book that involves a disability

Much Ado about Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin

Nada's younger brother has Ataxia causing him to use a wheelchair. Both the disorder and her brother are significant to the story.

Prompt: A novel set during the Ancient Roman Empire

Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Black Loch
Prompt: Read a book by an author whose last name could be a first name: example: Christopher ROBIN

Prompt: A book where the main character has a pet.

Out of Time by Lynn Abbey . 3 stars, Completed 1/12/2025

Prompt fit: Our main character, Emma, has two kitties (Spin and Charm) that make appearances throughout the book as either snuggle buddies on cold nights, or as messengers of warning about strange visitors in the house.

Prompt: a book where the main character has a pet
(The two cats in my book are waving to Jen's cats)

A Potion to Die For-heather Blake

The main character, Carly, has two cats, Roly and Poly.

12. A book featuring a struggle with mental health

Fight Night by Miriam Toews

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

There has been both mental illness and suicide in the family, and Swiv’s mother seems to be struggling to keep herself from descending into depression whilst Swiv’s grandmother seems to experience manic episodes.

I completed three books so here are the related prompts:


5. A book involving a father, fatherhood or Father’s Day.

5. The President's Daughter by Clinton/Patterson
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

10. Read a cultural book

10. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


11. A book by an author of color

11. Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibanez
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A book featuring a ruler, monarch or dictator

Venus in Copper - the Roman Emperor figures in the plot since the main character Falco has worked for him and he later unexpectedly shows up for a dinner with Falco's family. - Read 1/11

A book with less than 3000 ratings:

You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War

Ratings: 1,269

Shelved

Read a travel memoir

The Last Cold Place: A Field Season Studying Penguins in Antarctica
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I shelved it as compass and play harder

Prompt: 10. Read a book set in a country you have never visited
Girl in Ice – Erica Ferencik (4 stars) 1/14/25 - Greenland (never been there) - My Review

A book with a predominantly RED cover. (At least 50%)

Ten Lords A-Leaping by C.C. Benison

Cover is 81.6% red.


shelved - play harder, canada

I've shelved all three of these:

1. Read a book that's been included on a celebrity book list. For example Oprah, Barack Obama, Reese Witherspoon, Bill Gates, etc.
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham - review here

3. A book that is a travel essay or memoir
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls - review here

11. Read a book written by an author that shares your initials.
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts - review here
(This one is also shelved under "Canada")

I've done
12. Read a book that was made into a movieThe Witches

An easy one to get started and a memory of childhood.

Read a book related to heat

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

Prompt: A book featuring a love story

The Lightkeeper by Susan Wiggs. 3 stars, completed 1/17/2025

Prompt fit: Hopefully the 92 romance tags are sufficient to rationalize this one but let me know if you need more to clear this one!

I completed my #4 - A Book Set in New York. Thats 4/12 for me so far.

When Angels Left the Old Country by Sasha Lamb
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Read a book with a BIPOC main character

Keeper'n Me by Richard Wagamese
review: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I just found this. I have read 2 books for Play harder.

#4 The cover contains an object that starts with P,B,or T
Murder in the Manor by Fiona Grace
Review--https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


#5 Read a book who's author's initials appear in the phrase"PLAY BOOK TAG"
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Review--https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

6. A book with the word “history” in the title

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman - review here

Shelved

#10 Read a book set in a country you have never visited

Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan Henry
Review--https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

A book that fits last months PBT tag

Whisper Network-Chandler Baker

tagged mystery-suspense 14 times

shelving done to here Jan 19/25

5. An award winning book from 2024
Provenance by Ann Leckie - review here

shelved

Prompt: Read a book with a cemetery in it.

Family Secrets: Ellie McLellan Genealogy Mystery - Book 1 by Beth Farrar
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Shelved as Canada, Play Harder

8. Read a book that's been included on a celebrity book list. For example Oprah, Barack Obama, Reese Witherspoon, Bill Gates, etc. - Oprah Book Club

Familiaris - David Wroblewski
My review

Prompt: Read a book with a character who is an alien (or might be one)

The Sparrow

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...