Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Team Elizabeth Tower




Team Member
• Cat Captain
• Danielle Co-Captain
• Yasmine Co-Captain
• Kaley
• Teresa Blomander
• Dawn
• christene_littlelibrary
• Sally
• Sarah
• Lucy
• Dora
• Rina
• Tati
• Stephanie Bentivegna
• vian



Team Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... (Captains only)
Challenge Status: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Planning Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... (Team members add books here!)

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Current Active Tasks

Mini 2
23 Read a book with short stories
28 Read a book which has the main location (setting) as a bus, train, or other road based vehicle
41 Read a book tagged "Education" at least 10x
42 Read a book tagged "Fun" at least 10x
43 Read a book tagged "Culture" at least 10x
47 Read a book with an earthly mode of transportation on the cover (i.e., no spaceships)

46 Read a book first published in February of any year - claimed
31 Read a book that is on the Best Unknown but must be Known books List - claimed
32 Read a book tagged "Time Travel" at least 10x - claimed
44 Read a book that is on the The Worst Books of All Time List - claimed

Mini 3
WW74 Author born in France
WW83 N

WW309 Author born in Iceland - claimed Stephie
WW310 Blue, Red and White on cover
WW311 character rides horses
WW312 "volcano" in text
WW313 letters GLACIER in title (any order)
WW314 nature on cover (no people)
WW315 I
WW316 C
WW317 E
WW318 L
WW319 A
WW320 N
WW321 D

Mini 1
Countries we CAN'T read for:
Medium
Sri Lanka

Hard
Croatia
Sierra Leone
Zambia

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BOOKS OF THE MONTH

MAY
18th | What the River Knows | discussion thread
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JUNE
 2nd | Great Big Beautiful Life | disscusion thread
16th | The Berry Pickers | disscusion thread
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JULY
 2nd My Friends | discussion thread
16th The Sword of Kaigen | discussion thread

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AUGUST

Nominations - open until 27th June
Adult/Non-Fiction
Theme: Oceania

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Greetings everyone!

Welcome to Team Elizabeth Tower, the favourite tower for pedants, who can correct mis-naming errors gleefully (Ben Ben is the name of the bell, and has never been the name of the tower, dontcha know?!)

More importantly, welcome to the latest version of Towers!
For those who've played before - it's more of the same :)
For those who are new - it looks intimidating with all the minis, but is really simple: read books, post about them, read more, have fun!

Every book will be used for the tower, and hopefully can also be used for bonus points for the minis (all of which have been released already. or so we are told, with the crazy mods here in NBRC who can tell?!) So that means that those of us who like to plan, can dig into our TBRs and create a tower of books to be read for this challenge :)

Minis are broadly:
Mini 2: Travelling Tasks - a list of tasks that get revealed as we finish. Will vary from super specific to easy fills. We can bank books for this one
Mini 3: World Wheel - two sets of tasks related to different countries. We get new sets when we finish an earlier one. You can see the full range of tasks in the Official sheet to help dig out books that might work, but can't use banked books - the book has to be finished after the spin that turns up the task.
Mini 1: Itineraries - this one is entirely up to us to work on. We need to read books set in countries from around the world to make up a round the world trip. The difficult bit is making sure that we meet the requirements of minimum difficulty countries. So for this one, please do shout out your plan for books from different places!

This is a lot, so do read the rules about the minis, and then come back with any questions!

Team Strategy
Your thoughts on strategy very welcome! For instance, shall we go competitive and hunt down unusual locations to get the most bonus points possible from our itineraries? Or are we more relaxed?

That said, the main "rules" I want us to work by are:
1. Be kind - written words can be misread, with a negative tone read in where it wasn't intended. So please read all comments with the assumption of good intentions :)
2. Communication - there's a lot of things going on here, let alone real life, so please do let us (and especially captains) know if you are going to be away or low comms or anything! Additionally, do post at least once a week to confirm you are still with us: book recs, tale of a new found favourite reading spot, angst about your TBR growing not shrinking!
3. Have fun! - yes it's a challenge, but there's only bragging rights at stake, so take it lightly. For instance, whilst you might have read a book intended for Task A, but the captains decide to put another book there - do not worry! we will have earmarked your book for another spot - all books will be used for maximum points!

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About me: Cat (she/her), lives in London, challenge addict!
My shelf: TTXI_RTW
My reading: all sorts! I'll be digging up some books set around the world to start, and can be reliably expected to hunt down books to fit really niche tasks!

Favourite place visited: I've just got back from a long weekend in Amsterdam, which was lovely (once I got to grips with checking for pedestrians, bikes, trams and cars!), but honestly London in the sun is hard to beat.

Dream destination: I'd love to go to Iceland! Also Budapest (I have a vague long-ish term plan to get to Budapest by train through Europe)

Hello team

I’m Danielle (she/her) and I’m from Wales.

Love Tower Teams and looking forward to playing again.

Haven’t been able to travel for a long time. I did love Ireland when I went many years ago.

Here’s my shelf - tower

Hello, everyone!

I'm Tati, from Brazil. Haven't been able to travel for a while now (money keeps running away from me), but London has a special place in my heart.

Welcome Tati. Can you post link to your shelf please?

Hi everyone!

I'm Christene, from Philippines. I think this is my 3rd time with tower teams. I'm open with book recommendations for the tasks, I usually read fantasy and thrillers. I'm so excited to start. Nice meeting y'all!

Dream Destination would be anywhere in Europe.

here's my shelf - z-ttxi-nbrc

Hello Team!

I'm Teresa and I hail from southern Alberta, Canada. I've never left North America, but would love to go to Great Britain or Australia!

my shelf: tt-xi-read

I wanted to mention that while I do read a lot, I may be a bit under my allotment in June due to my husband and I going camping! I'll be gone the first week of June and have many non-reading activities planned :D

Welcome Christene and Teresa

Teresa wrote: "I wanted to mention that while I do read a lot, I may be a bit under my allotment in June due to my husband and I going camping! I'll be gone the first week of June and have many non-reading activi..."

Thanks for mentioning and enjoy when you go :)

Hi everyone! I'm Lucy from the UK (south of England to be exact). I've done Tower Teams before and always have fun finding books on my TBR to fit the tasks. I read almost everything, but I'm very much a mood reader so I go through genre phases sometimes.

Favourite place I've been is probably New Zealand/Aotearoa and I would love to go back someday, maybe to the North Island next time. I've been to Amsterdam for a day and would love to go back there as well (this is slightly more realistic than anywhere in the southern hemisphere).

My shelf is tower-eleven

Strategy wise, I think it'll be good to hunt down some of the more unusual locations to read. If we have to get at least two per itinerary, it might be best to start off with those two and then the other, easier countries can be filled in more easily (and any not used can be used for minis).

Hello everyone! I'm Sarah, also from the UK. So excited to read around the world with you all! I think my first tower teams was #4, and haven't missed one since.

My shelf is the stunningly unoriginal tt-xi‎. :)

I'm all for hunting out the hardest countries if I can, but wouldn't want anyone else to feel they have to if it's not their thing.

G’day all

Hi to all those I have known for a long time - and hi to those who are going to be come new friends.

About me: I am Sally and I live in Australia. I’m retired and live with my husband of 48 years up in the ranges some 2 hours inland from a Brisbane in Queensland.

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

My reading: I am reading from the lighter end of a range of genre - the world is too scary at the moment to go looking for more of the same in my fiction. So it is romances, cosy mysteries, middle school, historical romance, magic, paranormal, cute witches, handsome vampires and blue aliens. I’m a fairly eclectic reader.

Favourite place visited: I have been very fortunate in that my father’s job meant we travelled a lot in the first decade of my life - so spent time in Nigeria, The Gambia, Switzerland and England before my parents emigrated to Australia in 1970 and remained here ever since. In my part of the world - Asia/Pacific my favourite places are New Zealand and Singapore - countries I have visited on numerous occasions. 10 years ago hubby and I went on a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, so you can add Amsterdam and Budapest to my top European places

Dream destination: Canada, Greenland and Iceland are top of my wish list. But reality means my region, so would love to spend Christmas in Singapore and return to New Zealand.

Here's the link for my shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Question - I have a book set in Sri-Lanka (or Ceylon as it was in the time the book is set)

I have added it to my Tower Team shelf - but other than this post - how do I indicate this

We have a planning sheet

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

✿~Danielle~✿ wrote: "We have a planning sheet

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

Cool - added 👍

Just refreshing memory 😀 I didn’t play last year as was travelling remotely for 3 months

Now, once it starts I just post my completions in the spreadsheet? I don’t need to post in here? Or both?

Hi everyone! I'm Vian and I'm in Atlanta, Ga.

My last big trip was two years ago, I went to Oahu, but I try to take road trips whenever I can get away. I love Tower Teams, and I'm really excited to travel the world with you all.


My Shelf =
tower-teams-xi-2025

Sally906 wrote: "✿~Danielle~✿ wrote: "We have a planning sheet

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

Cool - added 👍

Just refreshi..."

You don't need to report in both sheet and here, just one or other. Of course if it's a great book from a tricky country do let us all know!

Hi all, I'm Rina and I live in Switzerland.
I usually don't go on big trips and prefer taking day trips every now and then. My favorite place was probably Montreux — we originally went there just because my husband wanted to see the Freddie Mercury statue, but we both ended up really loving the town.

My shelf

Hello everyone,

I'm Dora, from Croatia :)

My shelf: ttxi

I've stopped traveling since my son was born 3 years ago (we went to Germany once when he was 1 and we were all miserable) - for now we do just short trips to the seaside.

I've been looking for Egyptian born authors. Trickier than you'd think!

Discovered Andre Aciman (Call Me By Your Name) fits the bill, but have picked up a collection of stories by their Nobel prize winner.

So that task is claimed :)

Hello team!

I'm Yasmine, also from Switzerland and I love travelling. Next week I'm going on a business trip to Germany and will stay a bit longer to enjoy visiting some new places, even though a lot of people scowl when I mention that place being Frankfurt :P I've never been, so I'm happy to make up my mind about the place once I see it for myself.

@Rina: I went to Montreux for the first time during Covid and I really adored the place! I keep going back for the good food and some sunny weekends away from home :))

For this challenge I'm going to try and tackle some of the more challenging books on my tbr that I've not felt motivated to read so far, I finally want to get rid of those. Let's see how that goes

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

Regarding Mini 5 (tagged 'review' 10 times) does it have to be review exactly? Because the irregular witches book is tagged 'reviewed' 52 times and 'reviews' 9 times.

Hello everyone!

My name is Dawn, originally from Northern Ireland and now living in Hampshire, UK :)

Tower shelf is the very original: towers-2025

I read a lot of genres and am always open to recommendations! Currently going through a big fantasy phase. Up for trying to hunt down difficult countries too :)

Favourite place visited: We just got back from a 10 night trip to Iceland, the most amazing country- already wanting to go back!

Lucy wrote: "Regarding Mini 5 (tagged 'review' 10 times) does it have to be review exactly? Because the irregular witches book is tagged 'reviewed' 52 times and 'reviews' 9 times."

It has to be exact, no variations.

Hi all!

My name is Kaley and I live in the US in the state of Indiana, which is part of the Midwest region and eastern time zone.

I mostly read romance but I'll read a lot of different types of romance (contemporary, fantasy, historical, etc.). I will occasionally branch out, but you'll most often find me with a romance book!

Favorite place visited: This is hard because I am sadly ridiculously under-traveled outside of the US. But I love the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee!

I have a couple dream destinations since I haven't actually been outside of the US except to Canada when I was a young child, and I don't even have a passport. (I know, I KNOW. I keep telling myself to get one, but they're kind of expensive and I can't ever make myself justify the expense when I'm not actively planning a trip somewhere that I'd need it for. But then I never plan a trip somewhere I'd need it for because I don't have one. It's a vicious cycle.) On top of my international travel wish list are England and Scotland.

Shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Yasmine wrote: "Hello team!

I'm Yasmine, also from Switzerland and I love travelling. Next week I'm going on a business trip to Germany and will stay a bit longer to enjoy visiting some new places, even though a..."

I've been to Frankfurt a couple of times and it was nice; it's just that there are so many other cities/towns near Frankfurt that are more interesting.

Is it useful to add books to the planning sheet that are not coming up immediately? I have books in mind for a few of the tricky countries (Oman, Laos, Bulgaria) but I won’t be able to read them straight away - library books, BOM, things like that getting in the way.

I don’t mind if someone else gets there first but seemed a good idea not to duplicate the effort of hunting out the tricky countries, even if it takes me a few weeks to get there. I don’t think we’ll run out of countries for a least a month! ;)

I would add them, as you say it will be useful to know what options people have.

Ok, will do. Thanks, Danielle.

the minis will run all challenge :)

if you want to add a note of when you might be getting to it that'll be helpful :)

A couple of fantasy authors from surprise birthplaces, or the easy way to get some hard countries!
Nalini Singh - born Fiji
Cassandra Clare - born in Iran

I’ve been keeping the newest Nalini book (out on the 8th) for this, even though waiting is hard. I usually read her books as soon as they’re out.

Leigh Bardugo - born in Israel
Ibi Zoboi - born in Haiti

Cat wrote: "the minis will run all challenge :)

if you want to add a note of when you might be getting to it that'll be helpful :)"

I'll be sure to note which I'm currently reading so you know which is next to be finished - and approx ETAs as I can. :)

I’m more of a seat of my pants reader… I have a few challenges that pick the book for me or give me a task/shelf I need to pick from, and I’ll work those books in best as I can.

I see I’m set for 30/month but I thought I’d set it at 25 as I was going to try for longer books. I’ll do my best though!!

Cat wrote: "A couple of fantasy authors from surprise birthplaces, or the easy way to get some hard countries!
Nalini Singh - born Fiji
Cassandra Clare - born in Iran"

Oh wow I did not know that about Cassandra Clare! I have some of her books on my tbr, so that's definitely something I could tick off, same goes for Leigh Bardugo

✿~Danielle~✿ wrote: "Lucy wrote: "Regarding Mini 5 (tagged 'review' 10 times) does it have to be review exactly? Because the irregular witches book is tagged 'reviewed' 52 times and 'reviews' 9 times."

It has to be ex..."

Thought so! I didn't add it the mini to the book but just wanted to check.

Teresa wrote: "I’m more of a seat of my pants reader… I have a few challenges that pick the book for me or give me a task/shelf I need to pick from, and I’ll work those books in best as I can.

I see I’m set for..."

I am a seater too - I’m inclined to read first and fit to a task after.

I rarely read books over 300 pages - but having said that I have 2 ARCs coming up later this month that are over 400 so have added them to my notes to use for this challenge 😀

Rina wrote: "Yasmine wrote: "Hello team!

I'm Yasmine, also from Switzerland and I love travelling. Next week I'm going on a business trip to Germany and will stay a bit longer to enjoy visiting some new place..."

Ah nice! We're going by car, so there's a chance we can also go to the nearby places, let's see :D

Teresa wrote: "I see I’m set for 30/month but I thought I’d set it at 25 as I was going to try for longer books. I’ll do my best though!!..."

If you want to go for longer books do it! We'll work it out one way or another!