Pick-a-Shelf discussion

3.1 Mini SAT: 50 points when you have read off the following 12 shelves (with 5 books):

paranormal
2007
anthologies
anthology
fiction
ya-fiction
ya
ya-lit
contemporary-romance
harlequin
american
american-history

3.2 20 points - Read the Month: "The name of March comes from ancient Rome, when March was the first month of the year and named Martius after Mars, the Roman god of war": Read a book that contains, either in title, character, or author’s name, a Roman god’s / goddess’ name from below list (exact spelling please):

12 Major Roman gods / goddesses:
Apollo
Bacchus
Ceres
Cupid
Diana
Fauna
Flora
Fortuna
Janus
Juno
Jupiter
Mars
Mercury
Minerva
Neptune
Pluto
Saturn
Venus
Vesta
Vulcan

3.3 20 points - Reading the Rainbow: Read books with the following (predominantly) colored covers:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

Note: there are 7 colors of the rainbow – you can read up to 5 books per challenge but to claim points for up to 5 books, read a different colored cover for this particular challenge.

3.4 30 points – 8th March is International Women’s Day to celebrate “the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present, and future”. Read a book either:

a. about women’s issues (ie. rights to vote, discrimination, violence, etc). It can be fiction / non-fiction, that’s up to you. AND / OR

b. biography / autobiography of those who championed women’s causes, for example Susan B. Anthony (US), Elizabeth Cady Stanton(US), Amelia Jenks Bloomer (US), Miles Franklin (AUS), Germaine Greer (AUS), Mary Wollstonecraft (UK), Mary Stopes (UK), etc... All of the above I garnered from lists of feminists on Wikipedia but please these are only examples.

3.5 30 points: Read around the world:
Read a book written by an author from* or where it is mostly set in a country of your choosing but... your choice for this month is limited to a country where the first initial starts with the letters P, Q, R, S, T. Use only this List of Countries for this challenge
*either by birth / currently residing or if they have passed away, where they are interred.

Wow! This is a long one, but it sure has some interesting challenges.

I'm editing this to add that I don't know what I'm going to read for a few of the Mini-SAT as they are totally out of my reading zone (ie. harlequin, paranormal, and romances). This is definitely a challenge to get these read!!

OK, clarification question. For the reading the rainbow, do we need to read all 7 colors to get the points, or do we get the points after 5 books, or do we get the points for each individual book, and we can read up to 5, but they must hit different colors?

LynnB wrote: "Wow! This is a long one, but it sure has some interesting challenges.

I'm editing this to add that I don't know what I'm going to read for a few of the Mini-SAT as they are totally out of my read..."

Lyn, there are 'other' harlequin books like Inside Out by Maria V Snyder and ...

Stolen by Tess Gerritsen
Intertwined by Gena Showalter
Past Midnight by Mara Punhagen
My Soul to take (Soul Screamers #1) by Rachel Vincent

Whether they hit paranormal and / or romance I don't know yet but that will be easy to check I'm sure ;)

Lyn M wrote: "OK, clarification question. For the reading the rainbow, do we need to read all 7 colors to get the points, or do we get the points after 5 books, or do we get the points for each individual book,..."

Good one... points for each book and you can read up to 5 but they must be different colors.

I had to pick a darn harlequin up at the library today that isn't shelves that way...lol!! its shelves as harlequinromance, harlequin-romance, but not just plain harlequin...

Delicious Dee Challenge Addict wrote: "I had to pick a darn harlequin up at the library today that isn't shelves that way...lol!! its shelves as harlequinromance, harlequin-romance, but not just plain harlequin..."

I hate it when that happens!

I know. It sucks.

I hate it when I have to read a harlequin for a GR challenge! :)

Lynne wrote: "I hate it when I have to read a harlequin for a GR challenge! :)"

Hey I know a 79 year old lady that has a TON of them you could borrow!! She keeps giving them to me, and I don't even read them anymore, but I don't want to tell her, lol.

Karen wrote: "Lyn, there are 'other' harlequin books like Inside Out by Maria V Snyder and ...
Stolen by Tess Gerrit.."

Thanks! I'll check into these. For me, overlap on shelves will be a very good thing ;)

I actually saw a few on the harlequin shelf that weren't really harlequin's...if that makes you feel any better...

Diana Palmer is complete trash (in a good way) and a few of hers are on the shelf and you could get a gods/goddesses points for her name

Lynne wrote: "I hate it when I have to read a harlequin for a GR challenge! :)"

For the rainbow challenge I'm interpreting blue to be any blue and indigo to be a dark blue. Does that sound right?

Also with the Roman gods challenge does the character need to be a main character or will any character with those names count? And can I read 2 books from a series to fill 2 of the spots? I'm thinking specifically of Minerva McGonagal in the Harry Potter books.


For those that aren't hip on reading harlequins, these are two I've read that are clean. I got them as free kindle books.

Snowbound by Janice Kay Johnson
Hide In Plain Sight by Marta Perry

Yes for the rainbow colours

for Roman gods, as long as it's not some obscure character, it counts. So you can use Minerva McGonagal (she's definitely not obsure) and you can read the series.

I thought I was going to have to come up with a harlequin that fit in american history, too! --wouldn't that be strange ;) Fortunately, with a little shuffling, I finally got 4 books that fit all the shelves.

Found a great list with fiction books on a wide variety of women's issues:
http://yprl.bibliocommons.com/list/sh...

i haven't read it yet, but the title is one of my favorite quotes - Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History - its supposedly a compilation of famous women through out history including a lot of the sufferagettes...I also picked up a bio of Mary Cady Stanton today at the library

Question: I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for the February challenge but it also covers a March SAT. Can i count it in?

Hope it's just me, but is anyone else missing the shelves box on the right when you look at books?? How are we going to find out what the books' common shelves are?!

ETA
Just my computer being wonky. The popular shelves box shows up about once in 7 or 8 tries. Probably just need a reboot or something :)

Mercy wrote: "Question: I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for the February challenge but it also covers a March SAT. Can i count it in?"

Have you actually finished reading it, Mercy? If you finished reading it before 1 March (ie. before March challenges being posted) then no, unfortunately you can't...

What do I do if I am reading a book that doesn't come up in goodreads at all?

Ask a goodreads librarian to add it. We have several in this group. I think Kazza is one, and Delicious Dee, also.

what book is it?

Lynne if you pm me the details - title, author, year of pub, isbn, description, format (p-back, or hardcover), number of pages etc...I can add it to the database

Thanks for the responses guys, but it turns out I found it. I don't know why I couldn't the first time I looked but the 2nd time, it was there. I is really good too. I highly recommend it. At the Palaces of Knossos: A Novel

The March Bonus Challenge is out!!

Yay! And it looks like fun!

Question regarding challenge 3.2 (Roman goddess). Within the anthology I am reading for the SAT is an author named Diana Peterfreund. I am assuming that I can use her as my "Diana" since she is listed on the back cover with all of the other writers who submitted stories. There are two editors who are listed as the main authors of the book, so I wanted to be sure.

Amy wrote: "Question regarding challenge 3.2 (Roman goddess). Within the anthology I am reading for the SAT is an author named Diana Peterfreund. I am assuming that I can use her as my "Diana" since she is lis..."

Yep, that's fine, Amy :)

Thanks, Karen. You've gotta love those overlaps!

Yet another question. The second book I'm reading for challenge 3.2, Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire features Cupid, Venus, Apollo and Vulcan so far. I don't imagine I can use one book to complete four tasks in one challenge (but I can hope)...LOL What's the verdict?

While I'm bugging you, I am reading Someone Knows My Name which is written by a Canadian author. The story takes place in Sierra Leone, Canada and the United States, so I'm thinking I can use it for challenges 2.5 (Canadian author) and 3.5 (Sierra Leone). What I'm wondering is how much of the story has to take place in a given country for it to count toward the associated challenge. This book starts in Sierra Leone where a girl is kidnapped and brought to the US as a slave. She later returns to Africa for a few years, but she spends many more years in the US than Africa throughout the book.

Wow, I really sucked on the challenge for March. Maybe I should have given up challenges for Lent. LOL Hopefully I will do better in April.

LOL, Lynne - that's a good ONE!

@Amy:
Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire counts only as one book even though there are numerous gods / goddesses in it but it is one book.

Someone Knows My Name, for setting, it has to be mostly set in a place for you to claim it. Seeing that it's set in 3 different settings, if equally spread out (ie. approx 1/3 of story in each setting) then you may claim for each setting however if not, then if you'd like to claim for Sierra Leone (3.5), the story would have to be set there for more than 33.33% of the book. Does that make any sense? Basically, it just has to be set in a location for 'most' of the time.

Thanks, Karen. Not the answers I was hoping for, but rules are rules. I will count Cupid for one book in 3.2 and will use Someone Knows My Name for Canada only (2.5), since the author is Canadian.

Lynne wrote: "Wow, I really sucked on the challenge for March. Maybe I should have given up challenges for Lent. LOL Hopefully I will do better in April."

LOL, I had the same thought (but seeing as I'm not practicing and haven't done the Lent thing in years, this wasn't really going to happen).

Lynne wrote: "Wow, I really sucked on the challenge for March. Maybe I should have given up challenges for Lent. LOL Hopefully I will do better in April."

You and me both, sista! I think Joe being here for a weekend and then 10 days might have had something to do with it?? It's a good excuse anyway. Hopefully April will be better for both of us.

I think March was my best month yet

I've been reading many anthologies so far and I have a couple of questions on that:
Can I split up the parts of an anthology? For instance I've been reading The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 and one of the stories was written by an African American, so can I count that for Challenge 1.5? And in another anthology Bitten by Cupid, one of the authors, Lyndsay Sands, was born in Canada, so can I count her for Challenge 2.5?

Aand another question. Reading Lawless by Diana Palmer; can i count her for the Roman gods Challenge?

Thanks much :)!

Ooh, good question... didn't really think about anthologies! And as it happened I read Bitten by Cupid too, ;p

Um, I think since we (somewhere sometime) said for books of at least 100 pages (did we? I think we did) except for Mini SAT (noting picture book shelves etc), as long as that particular story is 100+ pages, you can count it for the challenges :) - I think that's fair...

And you can count Diana Palmer for the Roman gods challenge

Kazza wrote: "Ooh, good question... didn't really think about anthologies! And as it happened I read Bitten by Cupid too, ;p

Um, I think since we (somewhere sometime) said for books of at least 100 pages (di..."

Yay!! Thanks Kazza :)

Kazza wrote: ...
Um, I think since we (somewhere sometime) said for books of at least 100 pages (di..."

Kazza,
I don't remember reading about books needing to be 100 pages. Must've been in a comment rather than in the original directions -- because I refer to the directions often to check myself to be sure I'm doing it right.

I tend to intersperse my reading among adult, young adult, and kids' books. So I think several of mine might be under 100 pages. Should I go back and check, and take them off?

Besides children's books, I think that a 100-page limit would rule out some terrific graphic novels. Looking at my "my books," I see that 2 of the 4 wonderful Shaun Tan books I discovered recently are under 100 pages. I don't remember whether I reported any of them for the ROAR, but will check if I need to.

Of course, I'm willing to go back and take books off if those are the rules we need to have, but I want to be clear, especially before I start planning for April. If something is on the mini-SAT, you're saying length is not an issue? But for any of the other challenges (e.g., 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, & 3.5),they must be over 100 pages?

This may not work this time, if it feels like changing in the middle. But I'm wondering if in future challenges, a rule could be more proportional than an absolute taboo. For example, "In the books claimed for any one month, fewer than 1 in 10 is permitted to be under 100 pages." I understand the reason for the prohibition, but it another way, it seems to go against our group's main purpose of encouraging us all to read more broadly.

Just wondering ...

Susan, I'm really not sure whether we did or not and I don't particularly like to limit our readings in that way. I might be confusing it with other challenges I'm doing (don't ask how many cuz I really can't tell you!) and with the way things are going @ home & work the last couple of weeks, my head's kinda messed up.

So, errr, I'll amend the 'rules' thread to include a note that no limiting to number of pages however if the book you're reading is a collection of short-story, and you wish to claim points on one story (rather than the book as a whole) then this story will have to be approximately 100 pages. Does that seem fair?

I sound like I'm losing my mind and that's probably an accurate diagnosis for this week :p

Hi Karen,

Based on this rule, I'm guessing I can no longer use the author from my anthology for my "Diana" goddess, since her contributing story was less than 100 pages. My earlier post was as follows:

Question regarding challenge 3.2 (Roman goddess). Within the anthology I am reading for the SAT is an author named Diana Peterfreund. I am assuming that I can use her as my "Diana" since she is listed on the back cover with all of the other writers who submitted stories. There are two editors who are listed as the main authors of the book, so I wanted to be sure.

You had originally said I could use her, but based on the 100 page per author rule, I'd come up short.

Kazza wrote: "Susan, I'm really not sure whether we did or not and I don't particularly like to limit our readings in that way. I might be confusing it with other challenges I'm doing (don't ask how many cuz I ..."

Yes, it does, and it saves me a lot of work going back to count things. Thanks! Sorry to make things so confusing. :)

Kazza wrote: "Susan, I'm really not sure whether we did or not and I don't particularly like to limit our readings in that way. I might be confusing it with other challenges I'm doing (don't ask how many cuz I ..."

Actually, Karen, that really helps cuz it will make the Poetry reading much easier as many books of poetry are only 70 or 80 pages long.

I'm sorry to be causing SUCH confounding mess! I guess I didn't really think through this part of the 'rule' prior to the game being started however it being such a huge game, something was bound to be missed.

Amy, since I've already said that you could use it prior to this new ruling re pages, please claim the points - you deserve it ;) We'll make it looking forward only...

Kazza wrote: "I'm sorry to be causing SUCH confounding mess! I guess I didn't really think through this part of the 'rule' prior to the game being started however it being such a huge game, something was bound ..."

Kazza,
You really aren't making a "confounding mess" at all! You're doing your best to respond to a lot of unforseeable situations we're all asking you about, in a very complex situation. I think you're doing a marvelous job, trying to be absolutely fair to everyone and to the intent of the challenge, and you need to realize that we all appreciate it.

Just out of curiosity, if there isn't a page limit then why would a short story in an anthology need to be 100+ pages? Also, are you counting childrens books as juvenile fiction like Junie B. Jones or picture books like Green Eggs and Ham? It seems like if there were a 50 page limit that would allow Junie B. as well as graphic novels and short stories, but not most picture books that really only have 1 or 2 sentences on a page (except, of course for mini-SAT when needed). Or limit the total number of childrens books to 10 or so. Otherwise a person could sit down and do the entire year of ROAR with picture books in an afternoon. Just thowing the idea out there.

We sure do appreciate it, Karen. This challenge is so much fun!

Thanks, Susan & Lyn.

And Lahni, I was thinking of making it less than 100 pages but I couldn't come up with the magic number ;) so therefore I stated "approximately 100 pages"... It basically is leaving the ball in your court to sort of figure out whether it's a fair claim to the points. I'm only here to provide some rough guidelines.

Question about 3.2
If the planet Mars (or one named after another Roman God) figures prominently in a book, but is not in its title, does that book count for 3.2? I started to count something, then realized I wasn't really sure if it satisfies the requirement. The planet Mars is not really a character, but certainly a major component of the plot-line.