Hooked on Books discussion

The Flux Capacitors — 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
• Julia
• Char
• C
• Ashley
• Pending

🧭 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!

Hello, fellow Flux Capacitors! Excited for this challenge 😊

Hello! I'll be pretty busy the next few days, but I'll try to chat when I can!

I have a moment this morning, so I'm posting the January bonuses here:

📅 Monthly Theme Bonuses (MPG)
🏕️ Adventure
🧭 Survival

🏅 Personal Era Badges
To earn these bonuses, you'll need to personally accomplish one of the following "tasks". This means that whatever book you are trying to gain the bonus for, should not only fit a regular monthly task, but also be related to the badge.

🔥 Firestarter
A book that sparks a group discussion — controversial, emotional, divisive, or just plain chaotic.
🎨 Cave Painter
Create or share something visual inspired by your book: moodboard, sketch, collage, digital art, cave scratchings… whatever your medium, show it off.
🪶 Hunter-Gatherer
A book someone on your team has already finished. Yes, you’re “gathering” from others’ finds. Yes, that’s the point.
📜 Recommendation List Pick This will be an ongoing badge for the entire challenge, so here's a little info to start you off.
Every participant may submit up to 12 recommended books by the end of January. After that, the list locks for the rest of the challenge. You can read anyone else’s rec (not your own!) for a bonus.

How to submit your list: Post your list in your team thread and tag/link here. I’ll add it to the Index.

🏺 Team Artifacts (Permanent Collective Bonuses)
These require team-wide participation every time you attempt them:

📚 Team Read
Everyone reads the same book + joins the buddy-read discussion thread.
🔍 Thematic Treasure Hunt
As a team, compile a mini-catalog of shared themes/motifs found across your individual reads: fire, moons, wings, mirrors, rebirth, keys — whatever pops up. Include quotes or receipts.

How to submit your list: Post your "catalog" in your team thread and tag/link here.

🌍 Geographic & Temporal Collection Bonuses
New this year! Your team earns bonuses for:

• Unique Country Settings
• Unique Publication Years

These are team-level, not individual — coordinate, so you’re not all reading 2022 USA books and screaming later because you can only claim one bonus.

🌈 Diversity Author Bonus
Back from last year! Earn a bonus for reading a book by an author from an underrepresented group. This is author identity only (not content-based), and includes:

BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, marginalized religious groups, developing nations, Indigenous authors.

🌀 Temporal Anomaly Bonus (Jan 1–31 Only!)
Start the year easy:

Read a book with a BLACK cover.

Bonus Genres (unchanging all year):
• Speculative
• Epistolary
(Tag 5+ counts — doesn’t need to be MPG.)

🏅 Personal Temporal Anomalties Badges (unchanging all year):
Perspective Shift 🔄 – Highlight a moment in your book where the narrator or POV tricks you, surprises you, or changes your understanding.
Causal Loop 🔁 – A book you discovered because of another member's post or discussion in the challenge.
Time Dilatation ⌛ – Get completely lost in a book, reading for so long you lose track of time.
Recommendation List Pick 📜 – See above!

Also, I don't know if anyone is interested, but the January Formal Buddy Read is Rules of Civility, which is BLACK and would work for the Temporal Anomalies Field Task, so that would be a bonus point (BR)! If we all read it and did the BR, we could get the Team Read bonus too!

Also, I am planning to re-read Wuthering Heights (new adaptation is coming out in Feb) and I think it works for "Read a book that uses vivid imagery to bring a harsh, natural environment to life."

Does anyone want to BR that?

And last, before I have to run to work! This month, let's try to keep an eye on each other's reads, and mark the 🪶 Hunter-Gatherer Badge ("A book someone on your team has already finished.") if we see a book we have read before!

Thanks Ashley, this is great. Some thoughts...

I already have some ideas for the recs list, will post a first draft later and add to it when I think of more.

How do the unique Country and Pub Year work on the SS? Does it automatically flag is a country or year has already been claimed, or do we need to check if someone else has already read a book that works for that bonus?

I'm also optimistic that the Thematic Treasure Hunt could be something to work towards all or at least most months. Maybe we can post potential themes/motifs for our planned books and see if anything lines up? I'm a mood reader and suck at planning ahead, but I think it's still worth a try.

TBH I do not see myself reading Rules of Cilvility or Wuthering Heights - but if the rest of the team is willing to read Rules of Civility, I might give it a go for the team bonus.

📜 Julia's Recommendations 📜 (in no particular order)

Disclaimer: I mainly read MM and smutty romance novels, but I'll try to keep this list as varied as possible since we have very different tastes on this team, if I remember correctly. I will keep thinking about books that might work and will add to this list later on.

#1: Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn - 4 stars
works for both bonus genres (Speculative and Epistolary)
An epistolary novel that explores what happens when you are no longer permitted to use specific letters of the alphabet. Really interesting from a linguistic standpoint. I read it for a lit seminar at uni and thought it was a really quick, fun, and unique read.

#2: Love Virtually (German original: Gut gegen Nordwind) by Daniel Glattauer - 5 stars
works for bonus genre (Epistolary) and set in Austria and Germany (useful unique country points)
A virtual romance written entirely in epistolary. Beautifully written, although I've only read the German original. Also has a very satisfying sequel. Might come in handy if you have to read a book that has been translated into English from another language for another challenge.

#3: Death in the Spires K.J. Charles - 4 stars
A queer historical mystery. K.J. Charles is one of my all-time-favourite authors and her books are amazingly well researched. Even though this is not my favourite novel of hers by a long shot, I think it would work really well for non-romance readers, as the relationship aspect is really only hinted at and takes a backseat to the mystery. I usually prefer it the other way around, but I know that not all of you are romance readers.

#4: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins - 4 stars
works for bonus genre (Speculative) and January MPG Adventure
In case you haven't gotten around to reading the latest installment of the Hunger Games series yet. Highly recommend, Suzanne Collins really knows how to pack a gut punch.

#5: The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic - 5 stars
A runaway joins a college sports team of rejects and addicts. One of my all-time favourite books - I would give anything for Netflix to adapt this as a series.

#6: Cemetery Boys Aiden Thomas - 4 stars
works for the diversity bonus
A very charming queer YA urban fantasy novel with trans rep that is set to get a sequel in September 2026. I'd definitely recommend listening to the audiobook version as it is really well narrated.

#7: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - 5 stars
Yes, it is worth the hype.

#8: Free from Falling by E.L. Massey - 5 stars
Highly recommend if you are looking for a romance novel with trans rep that leaves you all warm and fuzzy, but still offers a lot of emotional depth. It is the fourth book in the Breakaway series but works really well as a standalone.

#9: Whisper by Tal Bauer - 5 stars
works for the diversity bonus and set in Afghanistan and Pakistan (useful unique country points)
An absolute behemoth of a book (700+ pages) that follows a CIA agent joining the first Special Forces team on the ground in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. A lot of characters and scenes are based on real events. A super gripping thriller, really well researched, featuring a queer love story that is central to the plot, but this book is so much more than "just" a romance novel. MPG War, so I'm thinking that this book might work really well for WWII & Post-War Era (September).

#10: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Probably one of the best YA dystopian novels that I have every read; very gripping and fast-paced.

#11: Soul on Fire by Tal Bauer - 4 stars
works for the diversity bonus and set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (useful unique country points)
A Navy Seal and a doctor race against time to prevent terrorists from manufacturing a world-wide ebola outbreak. MM Romance, but the love story takes a back seat to all the action. And yes, I am recommending a second Tal Bauer book because this book is an insane feat that I still cannot believe he was able to pull off. The author had a poll up in his FB group where his fans could pick the genre for his next novel. He then challenged himself to come up with the idea for the novel, do the research (A LOT of research), write, edit, and publish the entire novel within ONE month. I repeat, ONE month between coming up with the concept and actually publishing this book. A true testament to just how talented he is as a writer.

#12: The Physician by Noah Gordon - 5 stars
set in Persia/Iran (useful unique country points), pub in 1986
An absolute classic that came to mind because I just realized yesterday that the movie adaptation is getting a sequel. I will admit that it has been a while since I've read this book - it was my first every adult novel and I absolutely devoured it when I was in my early teens. Might come in handy for the Middle Ages (March).

I'll look and brainstorm - however I don't think I can read Sunrise again yet, I'm emotionally damaged from my first read through! 😂

I'm here! Trying to digest everything... 😳 I'm not sure yet what I would recommend, since I've been reading indie authors lately, and typically those aren't as readily available...

Okay, list of recs is up, I'll share the link in the other thread. I'll brainstorm what books I might want to read for the January tasks over the weekend...