Hooked on Books discussion

The Chrononauts — 2026: Time Traveler's Challenge ⏳
Duration: January 2026 to December 2026

Welcome, temporal navigators! This thread is your crew's headquarters for the year-long journey through history. Use this space to coordinate reading plans, share era-specific book recommendations, discuss your adventures through time, and celebrate your progress on both your Personal Timeline and our Shared Timeline!

🚀 Crew Manifest
• Amanda
• Michelle
• Elizabeth
• danielle
• Melinda

🧭 Our Mission
- Personal Timeline: Advance your crew from Prehistoric Times (Year 1) to Timeless Classics (Year 6000) by earning years through reading!
- Shared Timeline: Contribute to our community's collective journey. Every year you earn helps move everyone forward through history.

📜 Earning Years
- Base Years: every 100 pages = ~1 year
- Bonus Years: 2 years per completed bonus
- Monthly Era Champion: Winning crew earns a +30 year boost!

Example: A 280-page book with 4 bonuses earns: ROUND(280*0.01)=3 base years + (4*2)=8 bonus years = 11 Total Years

📊 Crew Log (Spreadsheet)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

🎯 Check-Ins
We'll post monthly reminders and tasks here! And please, post in your team thread at least weekly — Let's support each other to keep our timeline advancing!

Let the temporal adventure begin! May your books be compelling and your timeline be ever-forward! ⏱️✨

🪙 Time Traveler's Challenge - Bonus System Explained

Earn bonus years to accelerate your team's progress through the timeline! There are 8 possible bonuses per book (max), across several categories.

📅 Monthly Theme Bonuses (2 per month)
• Each month will have 2 Main Page Genre (MPG).
• Complete a task with a book from the monthly bonus genres to earn the bonus.
• These change monthly — check the HOMEBASE thread or your Team SS!

🗺️ Geographic & Temporal Collection Bonuses
• Unique Country Bonus: Earn a bonus for each new country (book setting ONLY) your TEAM reads from.
• Unique Publication Year Bonus: Earn a bonus for each new publication year your TEAM reads.
• Important: Uniqueness is tracked per team, not individually. Coordinate with your crew to maximize collection!

🌍 Diversity Reading Bonus
• Earn a bonus for reading a book by an author from an underrepresented group. (Updated from Book Quest: this is now author-related only, not based on genre or content.)

Underrepresented groups include: BIPOC authors, LGBTQ+ authors, authors with disabilities, neurodivergent authors, authors from marginalized religious groups, authors from developing nations, and indigenous authors.

⭐ Personal Badges
• Each month features unique personal badge challenges.
• These will be revealed when monthly tasks are posted.

🏺 Team Artifacts (Collective Bonuses)
These require entire team participation!

Team Read 📚
All team members read the same book and participate in an approved Buddy Read discussion thread.
Thematic Treasure Hunt 🔍
Your team finds books from your individual reading that share a common theme, motif, or symbol (like "fire," "moon," "rebirth," "keys," "mirrors"). Submit a combined "catalog" with quotes/examples showing the connection in your thread.

📝 Bonus Submission Notes:
• Claim bonuses on your team spreadsheet.
• For Diversity Bonus: Select the author's identity from the dropdown when claiming.
• For Unique Country/Year: Your team tracker will show your growing collection via a map.
• Team Artifacts require special submission in the thread!

Remember: Each bonus earned = +2 years on your timeline! Strategic bonus hunting can accelerate your journey dramatically. ⏱️✨


🌀 TEMPORAL ANOMALIES (Special Limited-Time Bonus)
• Watch for surprise bonus tasks with specific time-limited windows.
• A fun way to earn a quick burst of years — stay alert!

Hi team!!

Just to get a sense of where everyone is at, I'm in Colorado, so MST for a time zone.

• Amanda - EST
• Michelle - EST
• Elizabeth - CST
• danielle - MST
• Melinda - MST

Hi all! I'm in Wisconsin (central timezone). Looking forward to a year long group challenge.

Elizabeth wrote: "Hi all! I'm in Wisconsin (central timezone). Looking forward to a year long group challenge."

Hi Midwesterner! I'm originally from the Chicago area. Just moved out this way almost 10 years ago. 😊

Hi everyone! I'm in located in Washington, D.C. (EST) 😊

Awesome! My husband is from Chicago so we visit pretty often. Hey Amanda! Good to see you in another challenge.

Elizabeth wrote: "Awesome! My husband is from Chicago so we visit pretty often. Hey Amanda! Good to see you in another challenge."

Yess, you too!! 🫶

I saw Ashley posted this... but this is being taken into consideration now even before we were made into a team... so maybe we should see where we each stand with this?

If you haven't already, please confirm the following for team placement:

I want to be "competitive" and "chatty"/work actively with my team.
I want to be laid-back, but still work actively with my team.
I want to be more task-focused, and will check-in, but won't do much TEAM-heavy bonuses
Somewhere in-between (you can specify)

I'll answer for myself - I'm competitive, chatty and like focusing on team goals and things like buddy reads, bonus points, etc. And I typically check in daily a few times.

I can adjust, but need to know what I'm expected to adjust to.

I'm maybe average as far as competitiveness goes? I've never participated in buddy reads but definitely would. I joined some of the other challenges to get bonuses for the Snowball fight game so I'm willing to put in some additional work for this as well when it starts. I'm very chatty which for me is the whole point of a team challenge is being sociable. I'm also realistic in I don't expect to be #1 and I know with two small kiddos that I will have times where I can't read as much some months or some challenges will be more difficult than others. So I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.

Elizabeth wrote: "I'm maybe average as far as competitiveness goes? I've never participated in buddy reads but definitely would. I joined some of the other challenges to get bonuses for the Snowball fight game so I'..."

If I understood what Ashley said in the sign-up post is that there is no competition between teams for 2026, just within how far we get on our own team. I made a copy of the SS so I could play around with it to see how it works and I have to say, I'm really excited!! Ashley outdoes herself with these SS.

And hear you for snowball fights! I was in a few other challenges, but joined a couple more to help maximize my snowball points! 🤣

I'm always amazed at what can be done with SS! I myself know absolutely nothing about them so it's always really cool to see how different each one is. It's definitely a talent!

danielle wrote: "I saw Ashley posted this... but this is being taken into consideration now even before we were made into a team... so maybe we should see where we each stand with this?

If you haven't already, pl..."

I definitely am chattier and like to work actively as a team. I like to engage and help others when I can.

As far as competitiveness, it depends on what it is, but generally speaking - I'm competitive with myself more so than with others lol like I always want to do the best I can and push myself for challenges. I like to try to win because it challenges me more, but I also don't really care if we don't win lol

Like I wouldn't become annoyed if other people read at a slower pace. Especially for just a fun activity like this. I just like to do my personal best and enjoy working in teams :)

I also love buddy reads but not because it earns bonus points, I just like discussing my feelings and thoughts with others - the bonus points are just an additional plus (I think that kind of sums up my competitiveness too lol)

Yeah, I get that. I mostly strive to do better for myself. Winning is nice, trying is better - if that makes sense.

I was just trying to get a sense of what people want from this and if we're a good match in playing style and Ashley's post I thought was a good thing to ask. I guess we'll find out! ... still have to hear from our other 2 teammates, and I'm guessing we might not hear from them until we're closer to January.

I like BRs - for both the discussion and the bonus points. I can be a little grumbly about certain genres, but usually can be talked into trying something.

I'm excited for this challenge and am looking forward to it!

I'm pretty open as far as genres go (for br) it's more libby availability than anything. I always struggle getting the BOTM in most groups because of that.

This challenge doesn't start until January, right? I was gonna a list send a list of books on my TBR for possibly BRs - but it might be better to wait until we're closer to January to see what I have/haven't read by then.

Amanda wrote: "This challenge doesn't start until January, right? I was gonna a list send a list of books on my TBR for possibly BRs - but it might be better to wait until we're closer to January to see what I ha..."

I think it's a great idea to try planning early, but maybe once we see the prompts we'll have for January?

I definitely am interested in doing some BRs if they can work. The only downside is it has to be all 5 of us to count. And I'm not sure how that will work, but we can definitely suggest some and maybe the planets will align and we'll find some that work!

danielle wrote: "Amanda wrote: "This challenge doesn't start until January, right? I was gonna a list send a list of books on my TBR for possibly BRs - but it might be better to wait until we're closer to January t..."

Ah, yes, I see that now. 5 people isn’t too many, so hopefully we can find books throughout the year that we all want to read.

I’m always open to trying something outside of what I typically read, as long as I have the time -- but if we plan ahead, I can work them into my other reads :)

I'm gonna stalk all of your shelves real quick to see what everyone generally likes

Amanda wrote: "I'm gonna stalk all of your shelves real quick to see what everyone generally likes"

Great idea! I'll be curious to see what you find.

Well I just compared books with everyone, and the good news is I have at least 20 books in common with each of you on our WTR shelf :)

Michelle - you and I have 90 in common lol

I’m going to check if there are any books all five of us share, but overall, it looks like we have an interest in the same types of books. Which is great -- I think we'll definitely find something for a team read.

Amanda wrote: "Well I just compared books with everyone, and the good news is I have at least 20 books in common with each of you on our WTR shelf :)

Michelle - you and I have 90 in common lol

I’m going to ch..."

THAT'S AWESOME! Great detective work! 😍

In case anyone is interested 😂 I thought it was kinda fun

Here's my reading compatibility with each of you:

Danielle - 90% compatibility
Score: thrillers - 100 fantasy - 90 romance - 80 science fiction -90

Melinda - 87%
Score: popular fiction - 100 thrillers - 70 fantasy -80 science fiction- 100

Elizabeth - 95%
Score: popular - 90 classics - 100 popular fiction - 100 nonfiction - 100 fantasy- 90 romance- 90 science fiction- 100

Michelle - 76%
Score: popular - 80 popular fiction - 80 nonfiction- 80 fantasy - 80 romance - 70 science fiction - 70

Those scores are just based on books we have on our shelves.

danielle wrote: "Amanda wrote: "Well I just compared books with everyone, and the good news is I have at least 20 books in common with each of you on our WTR shelf :)

Michelle - you and I have 90 in common lol

..."

Hahah thank you ☺️

That's actually a really neat feature I've never used!

I wonder when we'll see the prompts for January. I'm VERY curious and want to plan. I know the end of this month might be a big hectic. Although technically I'm off work for the last 2 weeks of the year (including the first few days in January), so I should have some time to plan a bit.

I'm here. I didn't realize teams were made already. I'm on EST.

Michelle wrote: "I'm here. I didn't realize teams were made already. I'm on EST."

Hi Michelle, what state are you in? You're the only other ESTer on the team :)

danielle wrote: "Amanda wrote: "I definitely am interested in doing some BRs if they can work. The only downside is it has to be all 5 of us to count. And I'm not sure how that will work, but we can definitely suggest some and maybe the planets will align and we'll find some that work!"

MOD HERE!

I wanted to clarify this for y'all! You can earn bonus points for just doing an Informal or Formal Buddy Read with anyone in HOB (you note the link in Column J, and that will earn you a Bonus Point. It does not even have to be with someone on your team!

There is a separate Bonus under "Team Artifacts" which are Collective Bonuses and this is the one that requires entire team participation! It's the "Team Read" where all team members read the same book and participate in an approved Buddy Read discussion thread.

So, you would actually earn BOTH bonuses if you did a Team Read. Does that make sense?

Ashley wrote: "danielle wrote: "Amanda wrote: "I definitely am interested in doing some BRs if they can work. The only downside is it has to be all 5 of us to count. And I'm not sure how that will work, but we ca..."

Oooo.. Thanks for the clarification. I totally missed that! And yes, that clears it up for me!

Amanda wrote: "Michelle wrote: "I'm here. I didn't realize teams were made already. I'm on EST."

Hi Michelle, what state are you in? You're the only other ESTer on the team :)"

New York

danielle wrote: "I saw Ashley posted this... but this is being taken into consideration now even before we were made into a team... so maybe we should see where we each stand with this?

If you haven't already, pl..."

In regards to this, I'm the last one.

I want to be "competitive" and "chatty"/work actively with my team.
I want to be laid-back, but still work actively with my team.
I want to be more task-focused, and will check-in, but won't do much TEAM-heavy bonuses
Somewhere in-between (you can specify

I'm not super competitive or super chatty unless I have something significant to add, but I have no problem pulling my fair share. I'm not a buddy reader, but willing to do other kinds of bonuses. I read all type of genres if it has a good story, but I really like horror and paranormal Basically if it goes bump in the night, I'm all over it. I have over 5000 books on my TBR so finding something to fit a task is fairly easy. Anyways this sounds like a really fun challenge and I can't wait to play with y'all.

Michelle wrote: "danielle wrote: "I saw Ashley posted this... but this is being taken into consideration now even before we were made into a team... so maybe we should see where we each stand with this?

If you ha..."

I'm looking forward to it. I have been ... resetting my expectations for this one. So chatty? Yeah. I tend to check in fairly frequently. I'm sort of assuming some of us might have some BRs here or there, but overall I'm not going into 2026 thinking it's very realistic for us to hit any 5 person (whole team) BRs. I'm going to rely on some of my other challenges for those heavier things.

But, I didn't do this challenge before... so what I'm not sure what to expect, but I can be pretty flexible.

I just get myself more pumped every time I check into this thread. 🤣 I'm definitely ready to do some planning.

Elizabeth wrote: "I just get myself more pumped every time I check into this thread. 🤣 I'm definitely ready to do some planning."

right?? I'm anxious to see our tasks since I've starting building my January TBR!

Did any of you do this challenge last year?

Do any of you know when we might expect to see January tasks?

I only joined a couple months ago but just by looking back at last year's around the 14th I think so maybe soon would be my guess

Elizabeth wrote: "I only joined a couple months ago but just by looking back at last year's around the 14th I think so maybe soon would be my guess"

🤞🤞🤞

Has anyone done any planning yet for our January prompts that we know already?

I think the only book i know for sure I'm reading next month is Welcome to the School by the Sea for the tarot challenge. I haven't seen any prompts for this yet am I missing something? I'm not always the best at reading through challenges 😂

Elizabeth wrote: "I think the only book i know for sure I'm reading next month is Welcome to the School by the Sea for the tarot challenge. I haven't seen any prompts for this yet am I missing something? I'm not alw..."

Oh geez.. .I mixed up my challenges. 🤦‍♀️ ... I think I should just go offline. LOL

LOL go read your book Danielle!

Elizabeth wrote: "LOL go read your book Danielle!"

I am! I'm listening to a ridiculous little book. It's exactly the kind of mindless book I needed today. I have had a day, it's been ridiculous!

I saw a comment that we might get our January tasks today! I'm excited to start planning so i hope we do!

Our January tasks have been released in our SS!!

yay!!

are you guys planning your books ahead of time or just reading what you want and seeing where it fits when the time comes?

Amanda wrote: "are you guys planning your books ahead of time or just reading what you want and seeing where it fits when the time comes?"

I'm a planner. So, my first stab will be to see of the books I have planned, which work.

After that, I might check in with you guys to see if there are any possible buddy read opportunities for the ones I have no book selected for.

Given my BPM, my hope is to try to hit all tasks in the month. But outside of my planned books, I'm usually pretty open to trying something different!