Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Linda C wrote: "What do we do with the Wobble shelves? Should we be putting the books we are reading there or what? Don't remember if this was already covered somewhere."

I think Beth asked this question earlier and I totally missed answering it. Sorry guys!

You need to add your book to the wobble shelf along with whatever other shelves you want to use. The spreadsheets have a script that runs and pulls the books based on your wobble shelf once it's marked as read. That just makes it easier to update the spreadsheets and the captains don't have to hunt down books for 15 or so people.

If you open our team spreadsheet (link in top post) you'll see a tab for each team member. This will be populated with books as people complete them, these are populated by the spreadsheet script. You can look at my tab, I have one book on there.

You can either put them on there when you start reading them (this is what I do because it's just easier to remember that way) or when you are done and mark them as read. They won't pull into the spreadsheet until they are marked as read/finished so having them on the shelf as currently reading or want to read is fine.

Hopefully that makes sense. If not, please let me know.

Alright Team,

the mods have created a BOOKS READ thread for our team so our chat thread doesn't get clogged up with these types of posts and should help the captains not miss posts on finished books.

There is a link here and I added it to the set of links I have in a top post.

But please use this discussion thread to share books you really enjoyed (or didn't, warnings are useful too!). Again discussions about books is one of the perks of challenges like this :)

Flying Squirrels Books Read Thread

Judith wrote: "Linda C wrote: "What do we do with the Wobble shelves? Should we be putting the books we are reading there or what? Don't remember if this was already covered somewhere."

I think Beth asked this q..."

So I finished a book and put it on my wobble page as read. How long before it shows up on the spreadsheet? Do I need to do anything else?

One of the captains needs to run the script, which I just did. It pulled your book into the spreadsheet just fine so you are good to go.

For some reason the overall tab isn't updating correctly, which is a captain/moderator issue. As long as your books pop up on the individual tabs, there is nothing else you need to do

If you put a book in the books read thread and for some reason it doesn't pull into the spreadsheet, one of the captains will let you know. And hopefully will be able to tell you why it didn't pull into the spreadsheet (like the date read is blank).

OMG. My day started so good. Lots of morning reading. But then I couldn't find my car keys. Have been looking for hours. No, I don't have a spare. So we will see?. In the morning I may have to ride a bike to the dealership, hopefully they can make me one.

Holy Crap! I hope some magical elf finds your keys while you sleep and puts them on your kitchen counter or something.

Fingers crossed it all works out :/

Just finished my first Wobble book!

Wow, we have some speedy readers! Nice going, guys!

Wow, we have some speedy readers! Nice going, guys!

Angela wrote: "Wow, we have some speedy readers! Nice going, guys!"

I was just so excited to get started and I ended up reading the whole day :)

My first book I had to stop and take a break crying and just leave it for awhile, but it is easy to get into, so good, but intense. So then I started The Headmaster's Wife - already halfway through. This one is going quickly. Interesting twist in the middle, now I have to keep going. Also started my audio while in the bath - Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right - I am already getting pissed, but anyone interested in politics - it is a must read - well researched. Learning a lot about the Koch brothers

Judith wrote: "Holy Crap! I hope some magical elf finds your keys while you sleep and puts them on your kitchen counter or something.

Fingers crossed it all works out :/"

Thanks Judith. This is so frustrating. Just gotta wait until tomorrow, or hope they magically appear.

I just finished On the Island. I ended up really enjoying it. I found the characters quite likable, and I'm always a sucker for a survival story.

Sarah wrote: "My first book I had to stop and take a break crying and just leave it for awhile, but it is easy to get into, so good, but intense. So then I started The Headmaster's Wife - already..."

What did you read that made you cry? I'm a sucker for a good emotionally turbulent book.

Amy wrote: "Angela wrote: "Wow, we have some speedy readers! Nice going, guys!"

I was just so excited to get started and I ended up reading the whole day :)"

That was my plan! Then grandma surprised the kiddos with new bikes, so I spent the afternoon helping my 5 year old figure out how to ride it. Hoping to finish up tomorrow!

Angela wrote: "Amy wrote: "Angela wrote: "Wow, we have some speedy readers! Nice going, guys!"

I was just so excited to get started and I ended up reading the whole day :)"

That was my plan! Then grandma surpri..."

That must have been fun Teaching your kids though. Probably worth not reading for a day :) What book are you reading?

Linda, did you enjoy Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival? It looked really interesting and I've added it to my to read list.

I'm about halfway through my paranormal selection of The Gift and unfortunately not enjoying it any more than I did the first one. Much as I like YA books, I think this one is just a little too YA for me. I've got it on Audiobook and won't be back to hoeing squash until Monday so I'll finish it up then and probably won't bother with the rest of the series.

Wow you guys are doing great!

Hope you find your keys after a night of sleep Sarah!

On the Island really surprised me too Shanna - didn't expect to like it as much as I did.

I finally finished the book that I started before Wobble so am starting a book for Historical (Whitney, My Love) & started an audiobook earlier for Contemporary (Tiny Pretty Things - some really unlikable characters in this one). Won't be able to read as much this weekend but hope to be done with them by Monday/Tuesday so I can work on some of the new tasks once posted.

Angela wrote: "Sarah wrote: "My first book I had to stop and take a break crying and just leave it for awhile, but it is easy to get into, so good, but intense.

- but it deals with some difficult issues of abuse/sexual abuse and trauma and may not be for everyone. It is intense and disturbing and beautifully written. It is an amazing book. I already know it will be my first five star read this year.

We have finished the 2 main books for Contemporary (Judith & Shanna) so any Contemporary books read from this point are for the bonus!

You girls are so fast! Yesterday was busier than I thought (and today is the worst day of the week to read. I Work with sales, and Saturday is always the busiest day! ) Hope to finish the first one by tomorrow (;
I know that I'm the slower reader here, and the wobble mods put me here considering this. I think by the end of the wobble I'll really improve my reading speed/skills.
I'm really excited :D

Well doesn't that just stink. I had a book that looked really good out of the library for Historical The Survivor and it's only been tagged by 6 people total in anything. Bah! I'll put it off til the end of Wobble I guess. Turned out to be second in the series anyway.

Do we post our finished books here?

There's a thread here that we are supposed to post our finished books, in the format that they are showing. but you can post them here too if you want so we can see what you thought of it.

Going to read The Boy Who Drew Monsters for mystery. Took a while scrolling through my books to find one labeled mystery.

Read Redemption Road 417 pages for C3 - Alliteration I love John Hart, his books are set in my area and his mysteries are intriguing. I was definitely not disappointed in this one.

Read Dreamwalker 346 pages H3 for 5th in series. Great easy to read urban fantasy/paranormal book. Love series that pulls in Native American mythology. And more action than romance. YAY those are rare.

Next on list
Blood in Her Veins: Nineteen Stories from the World of Jane Yellowrock by Faith Hunter 542 pages for E5 Faith is in Name List
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft 370 pages for B9 Audiobook narrated by Stephen King. (listening to this on trip home tomorrow)

Since there seems to be confusion...


Each member needs to read a book for a Primary Task
A Primary Task is one of the 2 books required for both Hits & Misses to call square complete.

What this means is:

--- Each team member must read at least ONE book during Battleship (2 weeks event)
------ This is not 1 book per guess chances (4)
------ This is not 1 book per week
------ This IS ONE book, for any ONE Primary Task during Battleship
--- Team members may not COMPLETE a book for a Bonus spot, if they have not Completed a book for a Primary spot
------ Team members may START books for Bonus spots but may not get the points for those books until they have Completed their Primary spot.

Thank you for the clarification!

If everyone needs to read a primary before books will count for bonus, we may need to update the top note on who is reading what to avoid overlap.

I can try and do that in a little while since I can't do that on the app. I thought I had most of it and then when the discussion of bonuses came up it got really confusing because some people seemed to be switching what task they were reading for.

But with a set of books already read, it should be a bit easier to sort out.

updated wording

Rachel wrote: "You girls are so fast! Yesterday was busier than I thought (and today is the worst day of the week to read. I Work with sales, and Saturday is always the busiest day! ) Hope to finish the first one.

Rachel - I don't always have the time to read a lot and never as near as some on here. I signed up for one book a week, however sometimes in these challenges I end up reading more.

I don't know what primary tasks were even left to take?

We'll also be getting a new set of primary tasks on Monday when we make our next set of guesses.

I should of said this earlier but things have been a bit crazy.

I was thinking first come for our first set of tasks because so many were chomping at the bit to get started. But, to make things fair for the next set I was thinking people who didn't get first pick on Thursday get first choice from the next set.

And if a book you were reading intended for a bonus read works for a new task, especially a hit, we can use it there instead. As long as we haven't logged it in the spreadsheet we can move it. So far only primary task books have been logged.

Hopefully that is fair to people. I'm trying to figure out the best way to balance completing tasks, different reading speeds, different reading tastes, and maximizing points while keeping things fair and fun for everyone.

Shanna_redwind wrote: "Linda, did you enjoy Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival? It looked really interesting and I've added it to my to read list.

I'm about halfway through m..."

Yes, I really liked it and it was a very fast read.

Angela is also working on a spreadsheet to help us track things easier that is separate from our team spreadsheet.

That should help everyone see which tasks are open for primary spots.

I had a question - do we have to read two books for every missed square, or can we skip some and focus on hits and bonuses - that would maximize more points.

So after finishing our first book this week our next is a bonus? Or are there still tasks we are working to complete?

We have to read 2 books for any task - for both misses and hits in order to get the points. We don't have to read for the misses if we don't want to but everyone needs to be the primary on at last 1 task so, especially with this round, we will complete more of the miss tasks. We're putting together a tracking spreadsheet so we can move books around to see where best to lock in the books and where they might fit best.

Erin we're still working on tasks. But after you finish your primary task book, if there are any tasks open for potential bonus (ie Contemporary book right now), you can read a book for the bonus.

Does that make sense?

Yes it does thank you!

I am going to start a contrmporary for the bonus unless you guys need me to read a different type of book. Let me know I am still getting the hang of things.

I think we need 1 more people for (or did I missed someone?) H-3 - read a book that is book 5 in a serie.
But i guess is not a problem you start contemporary for the bonus point

Beth wrote: "Read Redemption Road 417 pages for C3 - Alliteration I love John Hart, his books are set in my area and his mysteries are intriguing. I was definitely not disappointed in this one. ..."

Beth, I saw the books on your squirrely/wobble shelf, but the books don't have a 'date read' showing up. Without the books being marked as read we can't log them into the spreadsheet.

If you are only on the app, this could be part of the problem. Most of the time the app works just fine, but sometimes the app does weird things. You can try to re-marking them as read if you are on the app and hopefully that will fix it. Or you can log on to the computer and make the changes there.

Can mine be taken off the contemporary primary task? I didnt realize that people wouldnt be able to put their books in for the bonus or i would have waited to post it until the people who had contemporary for the primary had posted

Sarah wrote: "I had a question - do we have to read two books for every missed square, or can we skip some and focus on hits and bonuses - that would maximize more points."

no, we don't have to read 2 for every missed square. This time around we are working on more the missed squares because I wanted most people to get the primary slot requirement taken care of. And since there was only 4 hits, there wasn't many hit primary spots to go around with the size of the team.

As we take more guesses and get more hits, I think we will use less books on the missed spaces.

Shanna_redwind wrote: "Can mine be taken off the contemporary primary task? I didnt realize that people wouldnt be able to put their books in for the bonus or i would have waited to post it until the people who had conte..."

No, it was already logged on the spreadsheet. Once it's logged we can't move it. Don't worry, we'll find homes for the books. This is a bit of a learning process for everyone and things are flying fast and furious.

Cathy, Angela and I were talking and were thinking we'd keep books that could be used for bonuses on the side and not log them until the end.

That way when new tasks come up during the next 3 rounds of guesses, if any of those books can be used for hit squares, we can use them there and be a bit ahead of the game.

If they don't work for any of the new hit tasks, we'll go back and log them for bonuses. That way we can maximize the number of hit squares we complete and bonus points earned.

Two of the hit squares have 2 primary reads completed:
F5 & J1

I have moved these into a separate top post so people can track those hit squares open for bonus reads and those still needing 2 primary reads.

I've finished reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer for task D8, and was thinking of reading The Evolution of Mara Dyer next for task J1 since it seems like I can't read two books in the same task according to the rule "- Books for same task/square need to be read by different teammember".

However I am totally fine with reading a different book if this goes against whatever strategy we plan on doing, or if I'm breaking any rules I'm not aware of.

Storm wrote: "I've finished reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer for task D8, and was thinking of reading The Evolution of Mara Dyer next for task J1 since it seems like I can't read two books in the same task ac..."

Go for it!

Judith wrote: "Two of the hit squares have 2 primary reads completed:
F5 & J1

I have moved these into a separate top post so people can track those hit squares open for bonus reads and those still needing 2 prim..."

Don't we only need one primary read? Per player.

So does a person have to do a primary read in each round before they can work on bonuses or do they just have to read a primary on one round and then are free to do the bonuses on each of the other rounds?