Historical Fictionistas discussion

Mini-Challenge #5 - January 2013

How this challenge works:
Each book read must touch at least one task from at least one of the category lists below. Each book can have multiple tasks counted, if eligible, but no duplicates. (If there are two of the same thing, points are only counted once.)

GENERAL RULES:
Participants may join at any time during the challenge. The challenge last from January 1st until January 31st, 2013. All points must be reported by 11:59pm EST on January 31st, 2013 to be counted.

1) Books must be at least 200 pages long. Eligibility for this is determined by the most popular edition on Goodreads. If the most popular edition is 197 pages, it will not count, even if the edition read is 215 pages.

2) ALL books must be completed and points recorded by 11:59p EST on January 31st, 2013 to count. Books started prior to January 1st will not be counted.

4) Re-reads and audiobooks are accepted. Audiobook page counts will be determined by the most popular edition on Goodreads.

SCORING:
***Please report all points in the Reporting Points Thread*** (This thread will be opened closer to the challenge start.)

5) To obtain points your book must touch at least one task in one or more of the challenge categories. Each item underneath the category is worth one point unless otherwise noted. Categories and items can be repeated as many times as you want throughout the course of the challenge, but an individual category cannot be duplicated for a single book. (Example: Cover contains skiis, ice skates and snow will only count once). It is your responsibility to tell us what items came up in your book.

For the mini-challenge, you can claim multiple points in each category. For the time period and locale setting categories, action must take place at the specific setting at some point during the book.

6) Bonus points will be awarded based on the length of each book read (number of pages determined by most popular GoodReads edition), as follows:
200 to 300 pages = 2 bonus points
301 to 500 pages = 4 bonus points
501 to 750 pages = 6 bonus points
751 to 1,000 pages = 8 bonus points
1,000+ = 10 bonus points

Bonus points will be awarded PER BOOK READ.

7) Cover requirements will be determined by the most popular edition on Goodreads. When claiming the cover requirements, please choose the display cover option when linking to your book.

Title requirements must appear in the title or sub-title (unless stated otherwise). A series name is not part of the title. The title that appears in the book link is the official title.

8) Extras scoring:
- If you review the book, include a link to your review and receive 5 bonus points. Must be a legitimate review, and this will be determined by the scorekeeper. ("Good book", "I liked it" or "It was crap" won't cut it for the bonus points! ;)

To link to your review: go to your "read" book shelve and chose "view" in the far right column. This should take you to a URL for your review. Copy that URL and paste into your post.

- If you are reading a book from your TBR, you can claim 2 bonus points. This will be checked by looking at the date that the book was added to your queue. The book must have been added prior to December 15, 2012. List the date added to claim the bonus points.

NOTE: If you do not see the date added when looking at your bookshelf, you can add this as a column by clicking on shelf settings. This will pop-up a list of additional data that you can add to your view.

9) HAVE FUN!!!
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CATEGORIES:
Setting: Time Periods
Dark Ages: 500s - 1200s
1700s
1920s
1950s
2000s

Genre (Look at genre on the book page)
Historical Fiction
Classic
Non-Fiction
Romance
Thriller
Young Adult

Setting: Locale
Africa
China
Greece
India
Mexico
Scotland
US - TX
US - CA
US - IL
US - NY
US - Colorado

Titles
The title (can include sub-title unless specified) contains the following:
the word “January”
4 or more words in the main title(does not include sub-titles)
A noble title (Example: Princess, Count)
An adverb ending in -LY
A punctuation mark

Book Cover
(Please link to the cover when claiming these points)
Depicts a winter scene (Examples: snow, skis, Christmas ornaments)
Primarily white cover (over 50 %)
Something from a farm (Examples: farm animal, crops, equipment or building)
Title only (no picture)
Mythical Creature
Food or drink

Random Tasks
Read a book which has been turned into a TV show. (Examples: Game of Thrones, Dexter)
Read a book that is part of a series containing more than 3 books
Read a book published a year ending in "3".
Read a book by a Goodreads author
Read a book with multiple narrators

January Events
In honor of the new year - Read a book related to a resolution that you have made (Examples: learning a new skill, quitting a destructive habit)
In honor of the release of the Hobbit and Tolkien's birthday (Jan 3) - Read a book featuring a quest
In honor of National Bird Day (Jan 5) - Read a book where the author's name is a type of bird
In honor of Amelia Earhart's first solo flight across the Pacific (Jan 11) - Read a book about a woman who was a pioneer in her field
In honor of the inauguration day (Jan 20) - Read a book featuring politics
In honor of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice (Jan 28th)- Read a book which a main character has the same first name as one of the main characters of an Austen novel.

Extras
+5 points for a review
+2 points for reading something from your TBR

Ask any questions below.

When I read a book it gets added to my 'currently reading' shelf and then my 'read' shelf. Once a book has moved shelves is there any way of telling if it was once on my tbr?

This looks fab by the way!

Looks great - I can definitely participate as January will be all from my TBRs and all are books I own. Count me back in. This is the kind of challenge that I do so enjoy.

I'm in! Looks like fun.

Zee - all shelves can be sorted by the date a book was added, even your 'read' shelf. So yes, after it is shelved as read the scorekeeper can see when you added it to your TBR.

For the Jane Austen character name option, is it a character in the book we read that shares a name with an Austen character?

This may be helpful for Jane Austen character names:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category...

I'll join in though I am considering this a Winter challenge because I know it will take me much longer than one month to do any part of this challenge. BUT I will only report books read during January on this site as part of the challenge.

For book published for a year ending in "3", do you mean the year the book was first published? Paperbacks are often published the year after. The first one appearing on a Goodreads search may be the hardcover or the paperback.

Nell wrote: "For book published for a year ending in "3", do you mean the year the book was first published? Paperbacks are often published the year after. The first one appearing on a Goodreads search may be t..."

I would go with the original publish date, but I'll let JoLene verify. :)

For genre, is it the first genre that's included on the GR list or any genre listed? Some of the books have several genres, e.g., historical fiction & romance.

Nell wrote: "For genre, is it the first genre that's included on the GR list or any genre listed? Some of the books have several genres, e.g., historical fiction & romance."

Any of them. They can have multiple genres and you'll receive a point for all of them.

So if you read a Historical Fiction Romance Thriller, you'd get 3 points.

@Nell, it should be the original publication date.

@Zee, see the NOTE above under section 8. This explains how you can add the "date added" to the view of any of your shelves. Each shelf can have its own columns, but you can change the standard columns that GoodReads decides.

I like this challenge. I can use much from my TBR.
For time period does 2000s mean any year 2000-2013 or only the first decade?

Would you consider this cover (dog in snow)
a winter scene?

Thank you!

Anything set in 2000-2999 (for science fiction buffs).
Yes, I will accept that cover --- looks like a good book!

JoLene wrote: "Anything set in 2000-2999 (for science fiction buffs).
Yes, I will accept that cover --- looks like a good book!"

Thanks, JoLene

This looks like a lot of fun :) First challenge I've done with this group, to report the books we read do we message someone or post here?

There will be a scoring thread that I will open a day or so prior to the challenge start date.

Sounds like great fun! I have a couple questions, for clarification -
(1) - Regarding the Genre category: So, we might read a book that does not meet this group's criteria for historical fiction (for example, it might be heavy on magical realism, or it might be an alternative history novel, or it might be published less than 50 years after the events of the story) - but for this particular challenge we can claim the point for Genre: Historical Fiction as long as Historical fiction is listed as a genre on the Goodreads page for the book, is that correct?
(2) - From message 10 above - ...They [a book] can have multiple genres and you'll receive a point for all of them..., but in the rules: ...Categories and items can be repeated as many times as you want throughout the course of the challenge, but cannot be duplicated for a single book... which might imply that you can't duplicate a category for a single book (e.g. can't claim points for multiple genres for one book.) So, just checking on this for clarification.

Thanks!

Great job of choosing items and tasks related to calendar/seasonal themes, and to anniversaries of historic events occuring in January!

Sue wrote: "(2) - From message 10 above - ...They [a book] can have multiple genres and you'll receive a point for all of them..., but in the rules: ...Categories and items can be repeated as many times as you want throughout the course of the challenge, but cannot be duplicated for a single book... which might imply that you can't duplicate a category for a single book (e.g. can't claim points for multiple genres for one book.) So, just checking on this for clarification."

What this means is that if the book would meet the same exact criteria you can only count that point one time, but you can use as many different tasks within a section as you meet.

For example:

Scoring section: Titles
The title (can include sub-title unless specified) contains the following:
the word “January”
4 or more words in the main title(does not include sub-titles)
A noble title (Example: Princess, Count)
An adverb ending in -LY
A punctuation mark

If you read a book called "The Princess, The Duke, and The Count" you could score the following:
- 4 or more words
- A noble title
- A punctuation mark (comma)
Total: 3 points for this section

But you COULD NOT duplicate points for having multiple noble titles (Princess, Duke, Count) or multiple commas.

Does that help?

Sue wrote: [...]but for this particular challenge we can claim the point for Genre: Historical Fiction as long as Historical fiction is listed as a genre on the Goodreads page for the book, is that correct?"

Yes.

Another helpful link for the Jane Austin character point is
http://www.pemberley.com/pemb/admin/r...

Please clarify if Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War would get a point for punctuation in title but not for more than four words. Is that correct?

Can I get clarification on the Jane Austen task. Do you mean the main character in the book has the same first name as a character from Jane's books or the author first name is the same as one of Austen's characters?

@Holly -- yes you are correct.

@Jayme -- sorry, that wasn't clear. It is a main character has the same first name as a main character in an Austen novel.

@Sue -- I clarified the meaning in the instructions -- thanks for asking.

Thanks, JoLene and Becky, for the clarifications. Becky, your response in message 20, with an example that illustrates the types of multiples that you can and can't count is really helpful!

Glad to help, Sue! :)

I want to join I just finished a book last night. I can definitely wait until Monday to start another. But I am confused about the challenge. Maybe I need to reread the rules a couple of times..lol

Under bookcover - What do you mean by "something from a farm"?
One bookcover has an orchard; another shows rows of crops on a farm. Does either meet this category? Are you looking for farm equipment?

@Tai, do you have a specific question that you are confused about? You can look at one of the previous mini-challenges to understand how it works or ask a specific question here.

@Nell, the picture on the cover needs to depict some that you would associate with farming. It can be crops, farm animals, or farming equipment. I will also accept an orchard, so both of the books you mentioned would work.

Can I claim a point for the Jane Austen character task if I read a Jane Austen novel?

Yes you can!

Started my first book for the challenge this morning!! Does the colon in this title count as punctuation?

The Map of Lost Memories: A Novel

Yes, and thanks for the reminder that I need to create the scoring thread :-)

Hi, I would like to join this challenge.

However, I do have a couple of questions
Is a parentheses - punctuation?
How do I handle the name and title when the {add book/author} does not bring up the book?

I think I have 13 points for the completion of my first book (I had today off with a long strand of time) but I have not put it up as the questions might change the number of points. Thanks for your help and the great challenge!

How do I handle the name and title when the {add book/author} does not bring up the book?


Try typing in the ISBN from the copy you read, then click on 'other editions' and the most popular should be the first one on the list.

Yes, I you can count the parentheses.
When using the add book/author, sometimes you can find by using the author name instead.....you have to click on the tab that states author to search this way.

I made a clarification on the rules --- the series name does not count for any of the title categories. The name of book will be the name as it appears in the book link generated by GR.

From the rules: For the time period and locale setting categories, action must take place at the specific setting at some point during the book.

I'm halfway finished with 11/22/63 and am getting ready to start scoring it. It is a time-travel book and some of the book takes place in 2011, some in 1950s (also 1960s). Do I give myself 2 points for time period (2000s and 1950s)? Also some of the book is in US-TX, do I get a point for that as well, even if over half of the book is not set there? When I read the rules the words "at some point" could mean one paragraph or the whole book, right?

Yes, for this challenge, it does not have to be the whole book. You can take the points for both time periods and also TX. Hope you are enjoying that one as much as I did -- I readit last month.

Yes, I'm listening to it on audio and the narration is excellent!

This may be a silly question, but how can we tell if the author is a "Goodreads Author"?

When you look up a book, it will say next to the author's name.

Sorry another question, for the Book "There and Back Again" which is also known as "The Hobbit", would that count as a title with 4 words? Or would it just count as The Hobbit?

I just posted and was not sure whether I can claim additional points for these categories.

The book I read was in my physical TBR but was not added to my GR list until I started reading it. Are you only counting digital TBRs?

The book was published in 2012 and set in present day. Does the 2000s time period mean 2000 to 2009 or any book published this century?

@Rebbecca, we go by what is listed in the GR database and if you look up "There and back again"' the title of the Hobbit comes up.

@Nell, the TBR bonus points only work if you have been using the "to read" list for managing your physical books as well. Otherwise there is no way for us to verify. However, the 21 century points are for anything in the 2000' including the near future.

Is the '&' in Angels & Demons a punctuation mark?

Yes.

Ok, need to ask, sorry. For genre, on the book's page, right hand under Genre is what we use, not what is listed in book details of the actual book? And if this is so, can we go to "more shelves" which is part of it and use what is listed there?

Second :) rereads are ok, but what if we started a book, forgot what was happening and reread it? My example being 11/22/63. Thanks!

Kristine --- yes, you are correct about the genre section location and you have to stick to the main page because this is the ones that have the top votes. It is not in the book description.

I did the same thing with 11/22/63. Did you change your start read date on your bookshelf to when you re-started? If so, this is fine ---- otherwise, we don't have a good way to verify.