Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Want to tell us about a new book coming out? Want to ask a question about a challenge or game? Can't find something? Want to just shoot the breeze? This is the place to do it. Give us something to talk about.

Oh, and the name of this topic was inspired by one of my favorite shows, Saturday Night Live. I love Dana Carvey. :)

Hi Everyone!
We (Lauren, Sashana, and I) decided to take on the moderating of this group because, in the spirit of the group name, we love a challenge. Please bear with us as we work to make this a fun place to talk, play, and challenge yourself. During the next week we will be doing some house cleaning of our group. Please pardon our dust as we attempt to clean house. While we are doing this if any of your posts get deleted we sincerely apologize. Thanks for sticking with us.

I am just about done with a chunkster read. 900plus pages. Its a great book though. I am glad to be almost done. I want to ge back to my romance reads.

Kenjii, 900 pages? Yikes! I'm glad it was good. Guess you get your money's worth when the book is that long.

I got it on paperbackswap.com for "free". So yeah its worth it. Its really like a trilogy written as one book =D

I need to get into one of those swaps.

Lisarenee, that commerical doesn't ring a bell with me but I simply do love the Old Spice one with the guy who asks ladies if their men can look like him. He is just too funny and I love his voice!

I think the Orbitz commercials are the best out there. I literally lol when I see them.

Yeah, those are pretty good too! They are so much better than when I was growing up..

@old Spice comm. That guy, Mustafa , landed a role in an Aniston movie I heard. He's so funny. Its the timing =D

That's it! He just manages to pull it off, not be annoying and you can't help but LOL..

Yall got a lot of interesting folders and chats going on in here. When I have my computer back I can't wait to spend some time going through them. For now, I picked a couple threads to stay current on, lol.

@Heather...at first I was like...hmmm..is this going to be a funny comm.? B/C I think it was a Super bowl ad...by the end I was a fan...it was hilarious!

Heather wrote, "Lisarenee, that commerical doesn't ring a bell with me but I simply do love the Old Spice one with the guy who asks ladies if their men can look like him. He is just too funny and I love his voice!"

I may need to find that one. It's been awhile since I've seen one of those commercials. My dad used to wear that stuff.

OMG, he is just too funny. You can find him in magazines and on TV. I just love his voice.. smooth as silk.

You girls are making me sorry I DVR everything and skip commercials. LOL

That's what the internet is for. So you can catch up on everything you missed including commercials. *grin*

YouTube has his stuff...lol

The other day I bought a book, but didn't know that it was part of a series. Does anyone else wish the Publishers would put the position in a series number somewhere on the book? I've only seen a few do so. Also, sometimes they list the books in the series inside on one of the first several pages, but you can't tell if they're previous stand alone books or part of a series. Also, why can't paperbacks and hardbacks come out at the same time?

I don't have this problem a lot because before I buy any book I research and look at reviews so I know which one comes first. But I can see how this could be a problem for some people.

Yes Lisarenee I wish they would do that. I have started a series in the middle or end more than once. Being on GR has helped that though.

I think they'd make more money if they did list it the series somewhere on the book. I got the third book of a series once and after reading it I realized I knew pretty much all I needed to know about the first 2 books and was upset I missed reading them first. I actually attempted the first and found it too boring because I knew what would happen.

I find this is an excellent site. Series by each author are listed in chronological order and it also gives details of forthcoming books.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

Thanks Carol. That is a nice resource to know about.

Carol that is a great resource, I added it to my favorites.

You're very welcome

Have you heard about the Dry Erase Board resignation hoax? The one where the girl supposedly resigns using a Dry-Erase Board sort of presentation? Here's an article the discusses some unique and different ways (although some are not the nicest) to quit a job that people have used:

http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/08/11/a...


And if you missed it here's the resignation hoax. I thought it was really funny even if it wasn't real:

http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-q...

Here's an interview with the actress who was involved in the hoax:

http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/08/11/e...

My hubby just emailed me the link to this article about the founder of goodreads. The article is from the Los Angeles Times. Thought you might be interested:

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnist...

Lisarenee wrote: "My hubby just emailed me the link to this article about the founder of goodreads. The article is from the Los Angeles Times. Thought you might be interested:

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists..."

Thanks Lisarenee - it was a very interesting article.

@Lisareneee I'll read that article in just a minute...while having my coffee. I was going to say, abt buying a book in the middle of a series. Do you have a cell phone? That a yes? LOL. Anyways I use goodreads mobile to quickly check:

a) if I have the book at home
b)# position in series

If has become the only way I shop for my books =D

I love goodreads mobile... I have the app :) It helps a lot when the computer is down.

Just thought I'd mention that this past week we hit two incredible benchmarks. First, we hit the 200 member mark and then we hit the 300 member mark and we're still growing. Thank you all for joining and thank you to everyone who has recommended our group to your friends. We are very touched and hope you enjoy this group as much as we do.

Sincerely,
Lauren, Sashana, and Lisarenee

Sizzlin Miss Kenjii, I think I need a new phone. I have a razor. I'm not sure I'd have access to goodreads mobile.

Lisarenne, I have an iPhone 3GS and it great. I recommend it :)

@Lisarenee I believe any new phone with NET access can get goodreads mobile.

Great and awesme milestone peeps, woohoo!

Where do you find the Goodreads mobile app?

It's in the Apple App store... Just search goodreads

I use goodreads mobile from the NET. It is free I believe the address is m.goodreads.com

Sizzlin Miss Kenjii wrote: "I use goodreads mobile from the NET. It is free I believe the address is m.goodreads.com"

Thanks.

So I’m going to go off topic for a bit. Did you guys hear about that new school in LA that they made for $587 million? When I heard this I was so pissed- and I still am! I go to an inner city school and we rarely have new books, we have no clubs, and we are always facing budget cuts which really do affect the teacher and my class mates (me included). I am thinking about becoming a teacher for inner city kids also and I find it shocking that the government can spend that much money on ONE school. It’s ridiculous! And to make matters worse, think about how many teacher were laid off in California recently- I guess we know where all the money went. Gosh, does the government know how many schools that money could have helped? Or how many teachers could have still had a job? But I guess the rich and famous needed something really grand for their offspring. Okay, I’m going to end my rant. Let me know what you guys think about this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100823/a...

Sashana, When I went to look at the article you posted I was thinking well maybe it's a college. It's a Kindergarten through 12th grade(Highschool) and I'm appalled. That's utterly ridiculous. Something like that should be built by private funding. What if they can't even hire the teachers to teach because all the money went into the building of the school? Just crazy and wasteful.

Oddrun, I will sometimes look at the last pages of a book after reading a small portion of it if I think I already can predict the ending. I can't recall ever doing so before ever starting a book. I like to be surprised. If you like a certain type of ending, however, what you do may be a good thing. You wouldn't have to invest in a story that makes you sad if you want a happy ending.

Okay, I am very sad. My little guy started Kindergarten today. Last year his school was only for half a day and this year it's a full day. He is my youngest, my baby. I'm getting that empty nest feeling that I thought was only supposed to happen when they up and leave for college. When my oldest started school I didn't cry and wondered what everyone was upset about. I was so excited for her. Now I know why people were crying.*wipes tears from eyes* The weather is gloomy and the rain is pouring down. It seems to be mirroring my mood.

Oh Lisa, I can imagine it is very sad. Don't be upset, they all love you so much and your son has many more school years to go :) They love you Lisa.

Lisarenee, I guarantee that your little guy will miss you as much as you do him, especially on his first day of school. Today my little sister started the first grade and this morning she was crying because she said she wouldn’t have anybody to play with :( I don’t remember starting school but from what I saw this morning kids are really scared of school.

Oddrun, what would you study if you went back to school?

Well, obviously I’m not an expert on the American education system but from what I’ve seen America needs to improve their curriculum in every way. I’m in the 12th grade and I’m learning things that I learned in Jamaica from the 6th/7th grade. I feel like public school in America is wastes of time, some peoplemay disagree with me but I’ve had the opportunity to go to school in and out of America so I can compare my experiences. But I definitely think America has some really great universities (which is the reason I my parents brought me to America). I’m not saying that America has a horrible education system but obviously there are many countries out there who are stepping it up when it comes to education now (China, Japan, England).

Yup, everything is different. But I love America. In Jamaica it's harder to go to school and you don't have many options there, but in America I can do so many things it makes my head spin!

Hmm, one of my schoolfriend went to America cause of her parents work and after a year they came back and she came back our school. And she told a bit about education and I shocked! she didnt learn anything cause she knew everything at all and she stayed behind us about lessons she lost a year. But we understood something else, too. our education system a bit rote but at America they teach lessons with some different method and I've to admit that yes she lost a year but she know everything better than us cause we forgot some subjects but she didn't!! But I dont know China, Japan education systems Sashana:)

So I saw The Switch tonight. It's about a woman(played by Jennifer Aniston) who decides to have a baby via a sperm donor. Her best friend (played by Jason Bateman) switches the donor donation for that of his own. 7 years later the results are quite apparent. The only problem I had with this movie is the child had brown eyes while both parents had blue eyes. Not possible. So I'm sitting there till the end wondering is this one of those movies where the doctor who performed the procedure was the actual donor? Gah! If you're wondering, the donor guy had blue eyes too. I couldn't remember the color of the doctor's eyes, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were brown.

So I have a little problem. I just checked out some great books from the library but I don’t know which one to read first. So someone please tell me what to read. I have The Time Traveler's Wife, The Maze Runner, The Count of Monte Cristo, Paper Towns, Water for Elephants, and The Kite Runner.