Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

The board is up in one of the top posts on the first page. We won't know what the tasks are until we make our guesses.

The board is a 10 by 10 square.

How big is the Battleship grid? how many by how many? That could help in determining the placement.

I'd say to start with a square in the middle (D3, G3, D6 and G6 for instance) and then spread out, alway skipping one square, so that a checkered pattern is made

I like the idea of being sure we skip letters an numbers between each guess.

Another approach could be to go diagonally from A1 across to H10 (or whatever the bottom corner is).

But I think random guesses with a few spaces in between would probably be just as effective.

If we do the ones Tati suggested and then, say, B4, B8, I4, I8. That covers a wide part of the central grid. The last 2 could go somewhere in the top 2 lines and bottom 2 lines, 1 each.

just a suggestion

My strategy is usually to do diagonals like A2 C4 E6 G8 I10 then go other way with B1 D3 F5 H7 J9. But mixing random ones in may help too.

The first set of guesses will really be up in the air but will hopefully be a good starting point. I think the diagonal guesses is a good way to start.

Once we receive our hit/miss tasks, I think we should focus on the hits because they will give us the most points. Also remember that we will put in our next 10 guesses on Monday and then another 10 the following Friday and the last ten the following Monday. (40 guesses total) So we don't have to do something for each task. Also 2 different people (10 if we want to go for the maximum # for bonus points for hits) will need to read for those tasks so there's plenty to do/read.

So I think we have 2 good ways to approach the first set of guesses.

The diagonal approach that I'm going to call the Angela/Beth approach.

And the more random approach that I'm going to call the Tati/Linda C approach.

Which should we go with, like I mentioned earlier, I'd prefer to have input from everyone.

And Cathy makes an excellent point, we are making another set of guess on Monday so this is really just to get us started.

All I can say is... I have an approach! LOL

*giddy tapdance*

And to circle back to a point Rachel brought up about the number of books, Battleship comes out to reading 80 books if we do 2 per assigned task.

That does sound like a lot of books. However, based on what was submitted in the sign ups, our team reads just over 160 books per month. Which comes out to 40 books per week. It is the same for all teams.

I thought this might make people feel a little less overwhelmed about the prospect of that many books.

Also, we don't necessarily have to read for all tasks and based on the point system, we may decide to do something different, like focus on the hit squares. To a certain extent it may depend on what tasks we end up with.

FYI - hit squares I think are supposed to have easier tasks than non-hit squares.

In a few hours I'll be on my pc and I'll paint the 2 options and post here.
I'm inclined to the more random approach, but I need to see the options to decide

Here's a link showing the two approaches:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

I like the diagonal approach. Though if we went with the other one, I'd be inclined to move the E5 and I5 shots over to E8 and I8.

Here us another strategy using diagonals

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

I like the spaced X that Beth posted the link for. Seems like we cover a lot of space that way.

I agree with Amy. I like Beth's approach.

I also like Beth's X approach. I think the second more lopsided X will be better since it covers a broader area than first X does.

Storm is right, I didn't notice it before, but it does cover a broader area.

My favs are Beth second aproach, and Tati's first with a few alterations:
I would move all the 4 col to 2 and all the 6 to 8

I guess we could go with Beth's second approach then.

(Yes, I'm anxious LOL)

It looks like Beth's approach might be the winner.

I'm going to wait a little longer for those on the west coast but I'll enter our guesses and then we'll have our tasks and can plan what books to start tomorrow.

I can't wait!!

I'm on board for Beth's approach as well.

Around 2pm EST look for the goals and results of our first round of guesses.

Just one hour from now, then?

Where should we look?

In theory about an hour although I'm having issues editing the spreadsheet. So it's going to depend on how long that takes to get straightened out.

I put a link to the team spreadsheet in one of the top posts and I'll also post the results of our guesses in the thread so people don't have to keep going into the spreadsheet to look.

(I'm not the best with timezones - are they really necessary? LOL)

I think some other teams are having trouble with their spreadsheets as well, so it's not just us.

I'm next up in the 'spreadsheet issue' queue so hopefully it'll be a quick fix.

EST = -4GMT
São Paulo = -3GMT
(GMT is my to-go kind of timezone)

this is me right now waiting :D

Tasks are already up in the spreadsheet...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Yes, so the only spreadsheet issue was operator error . . .So that was a quick fix. LOL

Summary from Round 1:
Hits: 4
Misses: 6

And with the spacing of our guesses that means we found 4 different ships. I think we are off to a good start.

Tasks, bolded tasks are hits:
A-2 - read a book shelved as historical by at least 10 people
B-9 - read a book where the audio version is narrated by a famous actor/person
C-3 - read a book with an alliteration in the title
D-8 - read a book shelved as paranormal by at least 10 people
E-5 - read a book where the author's first name is one of the top 100 female/male names in England according to nameberry (http://nameberry.com/popular_names/En...)
F-5 - read a book shelved as contemporary by at least 10 people
H-3 - read a book that is book 5 in a series
I-7 - read one-word title book
J-1 - read a book shelved as mystery by at least 10 people
J-10 - read a book that is book 6, 7, 8 or 9 in a series

How are going to split them? Should the slower (saner) readers get first dibs?

Now, we need to decide who is reading what.

First we need 2 people per task for at least the hit squares. I'm going to let this be first post, first serve.

But different people have to read books for the same task, for example I can't read 2 books for A2 and have the task be marked complete.

People can either go after the miss tasks or they can go for bonus points on the hit squares. It depends on which strategy we as a team want to use. One option is to do a mix and get the miss tasks that are easier and leave the harder ones.

I'll use one of my reserve posts at the top to track who is assigned to which task.

If you don't think you'll be able to get your book read by the end of Battleship for a given task, please let us know so we can swap people out. Life happens, so don't be afraid to speak up!

I can read a book for J-1, a mystery.

I have books for most of these tasks, so I'll wait a bit for the pickier readers to make their choices, and then I'll see what's left.

(I'm not so sure about the narrator task and the alliteration task). I should be good to go for any of the others

Tati wrote: "How are going to split them? Should the slower (saner) readers get first dibs?"

Since this is the first go, I figured first come, first serve for the most part. We are going to end up with a lot of tasks so I figure slower (and yes, saner) readers won't sign up for one of the new tasks we'll get on Monday (guessing round 2)

I can read one for D8 Paranormal.

We start the books tomorrow, right?

That's a nice batch of tasks. :)

Looking good!

I can read a book for I-7: read a one word title book, and I can be the second perosn for J-1: read a book marked as a mystery by at least 10 people.

Yes, reading starts tomorrow.

I added a link to the countdown clock in the same top post I linked our team spreadsheet and a link to battleship rules.

I also found this if anyone is interested. I listen to a lot of audiobooks so I may try the audiobook challenge at some point if we have all of our hits covered.

17 Famous YA book Narrators

I can read J-10.
I'm planning to read The Vile Village, the #7 book of a Series of unafortunated events. I can finish this book tomorrow, so I can help with another task as soon as I finish (:

I have a doubt about another book.
On my TBR, i have The Dispossessed to read. It's the #5 book published of the Hainish Cycle BUT, it's a single book, and i'm not sure if Hainish Cycle is a serie or a group of books set in the same universe
So: This book count for H-3?

So for us to get points for a miss task, 2 of us have to read for it, right? That's not just for the hit tasks?

I can do D8 with The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

I found books on my tbr to fit all of those categories,(I doubt that will happen often) so I can fill in where needed.

For the audiobooks, does it have to be the audiobook? Or could I read a printed version?

Shanna_redwind wrote: "So for us to get points for a miss task, 2 of us have to read for it, right? That's not just for the hit tasks?"

Yes, I believe it's two per task, hit or miss. Two different people have to read for each.

It looks like Historical is not that popular... As I love the genre, I'll read one for that task :)

Until now we have:

A-2 - read a book shelved as historical by at least 10 people
Tati
B-9 - read a book where the audio version is narrated by a famous actor/person
C-3 - read a book with an alliteration in the title
D-8 - read a book shelved as paranormal by at least 10 people
Shanna and Storm
E-5 - read a book where the author's first name is one of the top 100 female/male names in England according to nameberry (http://nameberry.com/popular_names/En...)
F-5 - read a book shelved as contemporary by at least 10 people
H-3 - read a book that is book 5 in a series
I-7 - read one-word title book
Amy
J-1 - read a book shelved as mystery by at least 10 people
Angela and Amy
J-10 - read a book that is book 6, 7, 8 or 9 in a series
Rachel

Tati wrote: "For the audiobooks, does it have to be the audiobook? Or could I read a printed version?"

You can read the printed version