Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

If you don't want BOM then please don't worry about them! We don't want people to read anything they don't want to.

Similarly there are 14 of us on the team, if searching tags or the selection isn't for you, please just say. We should be fine with some people not getting involved.

The task list is set for the whole 10 weeks so if you do a task in the first week you won't be able to redo it

Samantha wrote: "Imke -- I love doing a yearly re-read of HP as well. It's definitely one to get me out of a reading slump.

Me too! It's two years since I last read HP, maybe I'll do a re-read for Wheelathon :)

Tonya wrote: "My favorite road trip would be... in the works. So far, my road trips have been utilitarian in nature and I look forward to the one I have planned that I call my "book tour". There are several locations that are in books - I plan to take 2 weeks and visit those places and do certain things while I'm there (i.e. First Beach and Forks in Washington)."

That is a great idea! I'd love to do a roadtrip visiting locations from my favourite books. Except since I almost only read crime novels, that might be a lot of creepy places.

Vikki wrote: "Favourite travel... well I haven't travelled far, and I've loved the few places I have been. But I think I'd have to pick Iceland, I was there in January 2020. It had been on my wishlist for a very long time. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the Northern Lights, but it was a very memorable trip as that's where we got engaged. I loved spending time in Reykjavik and getting to see more of rural Iceland when we did the Golden Circle tour. Definitely want to go back to see more places we hadn't time to see this year."

I used to live in Iceland and it is the perfect place for road trips, both short and long ones. The northern lights, the amazing scenery and the hot pots and pools are definitely what I miss the most since moving.

Sophie wrote: "There were penalties as a team if you read a lot over in the last tower teams, but they aren't in place for this. Think the mods know that everyone's reading is all over the place with all the chan..."

I'm so happy there are no penalties this time.

My reading is extremely varied. I used to easily read 100-250 books per year, and this year I've only read on average 3 or 4 books per month. I'm aiming for at least 6 books per month for the challenge.

Sophie wrote: "If you don't want BOM then please don't worry about them! We don't want people to read anything they don't want to.

Similarly there are 14 of us on the team, if searching tags or the selection is..."

Seconded! The BOMs are great for extra points, but forcing yourself to read them when you don't want to is never fun. I'm definitely guilty of doing so in the past and it always made the challenge less fun.

maria helena wrote: "Vikki wrote: "Favourite travel... well I haven't travelled far, and I've loved the few places I have been. But I think I'd have to pick Iceland, I was there in January 2020. It had been on my wishl..."

Iceland is on my list of places I'd love to go! All the pictures seem so magical.

Sophie wrote: "Iceland is on my list of places I'd love to go! All the pictures seem so magical."

It is a wonderful place. Now I enjoy it vicariously through books set in Iceland. I have a big pile that I've collected, ready to be read :)

maria helena wrote: "Sophie wrote: "Iceland is on my list of places I'd love to go! All the pictures seem so magical."

It is a wonderful place. Now I enjoy it vicariously through books set in Iceland. I have a big pil..."

I recently read Burial Rites which is set in Iceland and was so atmospheric. Love it when books really make me picture a place.

Tracking Spreadsheet is up and running here

Massive thanks to Cat for letting me use her teams as a blueprint. If there are things you'd like to see on there please let me know and I'll try to figure out a way to add them.

The SS looks nice, Sophie. What do you want us to put in the "Status" field?

Planned or read would be great so that I can keep track of where you've all got to!

Sophie wrote: "I recently read Burial Rites which is set in Iceland and was so atmospheric. Love it when books really make me picture a place."

I loved that one!

Sophie wrote: "Tracking Spreadsheet is up and running here

Massive thanks to Cat for letting me use her teams as a blueprint. If there are things you'd like to see on there please let me know and I'll try to fig..."

The SS looks great!

Sophie, if there is something you want to add but can't figure out how to, let me know. I'm obsessed with spreadsheets :)

Thanks MH! Between you and my husband hopefully we'll get there

I hope I didn't sound like I was ordering a tracking spreadsheet. I figured one of the captains would do one when they had time. It was more a comment on about claiming letters in the spell out. It's just easier if we say all the letters a book works for then they can be moved around.

I don't mind helping to search some books team members have read to see if they work for tasks if someone is just not into doing that. Of course that will only work if Amazon and Google books search cooperates.

I'm not really into the BOM that much either. I hate writing questions. I also won't read something horrendous like tentacle porn or something for extra points. But if the BOM chosen looks good to me and I can get it from the library, I'll join.

I don't plan to go crazy finding books for tasks. But I do find it entertaining to find them. Especially when I can find a weird one.

Mary C wrote: "I'm not really into the BOM that much either. I hate writing questions. I also won't read something horrendous like tentacle porn or something for extra points. But if the BOM chosen looks good to me and I can get it from the library, I'll join. ”

I completely agree with you Mary :)

Don't worry Mary, I didn't take it that way! Has been on my list of things to do and unfortunately kept getting bumped by other things.

I tend to work on the same basis for BOM. Will go slightly outside my comfort zone but only if it's available from my library. Trying hard to avoid buying books at the moment.

There's a lot of weird tasks in the 200 but also some that are more straightforward so should be a good mix for people. I don't mind how you want to record which ones you've done on that sheet (i.e a note saying done or the name of the book)

Mary C wrote: "I don't plan to go crazy finding books for tasks. But I do find it entertaining to find them. Especially when I can find a weird one."

Luckily a lot of the tasks are quite general and easy to find books for. I think the spell out letters and tags are really difficult this first round. I managed to find a book that fits a letter, a task and a tag and it feels like a huge achievement. Now I just have to wait for the challenge to start...

The selection of letters we've got isn't going to be straightforward this round! 2 Us, 2 Is, 2Zs and a Q each round will get use lots of tricky letter points though!

Well done for finding something that fits all 3!

Please remember that at the end of the 2 weeks we can only have one incomplete spell out so the letters need to stay pretty balanced!

Sophie wrote: "Please remember that at the end of the 2 weeks we can only have one incomplete spell out so the letters need to stay pretty balanced!"

My goal is to get one U, one B and one I done. That’s all I think I can commit to finishing within 2 weeks.

I’m usually quite the mood reader, but with all these tricky letters, I’m trying to plan ahead for when the challenge starts.

Managing that many would be great!

Think I'm going to have to go on a search soon

I know I have one book in my to read pile that will work for Q. I've actually been keeping it for something like this as Q is one of those hard letters. Authors surname begins with Q, I'm happy to read it in the first 2 weeks

That's fab!

I've just realised there's a lot of books by Meghan Quinn on kindle unlimited that I can normally read in about 2 days so can fill in various of those

I've also got at least 2 that will work for both U and Z

I read three U books early this year all of which were pretty great if anyone needs a recommendation:

(though this ones a sequel)

I also read which had a Q character

Upon picking up each of these I told myself to wait and read it for an SIO challenge. And did I listen to myself? no

And I think Cat or someone else in the cafe mentioned the Ty and Zane series (a fun m/m romantic suspense series)which works for Z and U. First book being Cut & Run

Victoria - My fiance lives in a town 35 miles so it was definitely going to be considered non-essential travel. At least we can finally spend some time together again. Hopefully you'll be able to get to Iceland next year instead - definitely worth visiting! I'm waiting on my refund for 2 UK flights that were cancelled. They're certainly not rushing it... Took ages before I could even apply online.

Sophie - we only got engaged at the end of January and the wedding won't be for a few years , so we haven't started planning much so far. Would be difficult to start as we can't go to see venues etc with the current restrictions.

maria helena wrote: "Sophie wrote: "I recently read Burial Rites which is set in Iceland and was so atmospheric. Love it when books really make me picture a place."

I loved that one!"

I also loved it. It was the first book that sparked my interest in Nordic literature. A couple of Icelandic authors whose books I love are Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Ragnar Jónasson - definitely recommend them if you haven't read them already

If anyone is interested in Ty and Zane, Sonia has sent me copies of them that I can pass on. The first for are currently about £100 each!

I'm glad they're allowing travel the 35 miles now! Are you allowed closer than 2 metres or is it still v odd?

Nothing wrong with waiting for a while! No rush on it.

Sophie wrote: "I'm glad they're allowing travel the 35 miles now! Are you allowed closer than 2 metres or is it still v odd?

Nothing wrong with waiting for a while! No rush on it."

It's still 2 metres with people from different households. So very strange. But better than not being able to see each other in person at all. And meeting people from other households should only be outside.

Victoria / Sophie
Can I just check if 1 of the tags is meant to be creepy or spooky? It's on 1 of the overall spreadsheets and a post here as creepy but on the tracking spreadsheet as spooky.

Creepy! I tried to do the tags from memory which was obviously a mistake...

For the task “Read a book recommended by someone in a different team“, do you know if there will be a separate thread for those or can we read books recommended in the Terminus Cafe and other teams’ threads?

Vikki wrote: "maria helena wrote: "Sophie wrote: "I recently read Burial Rites which is set in Iceland and was so atmospheric. Love it when books really make me picture a place."

I loved that one!"

I also love..."

Their books are great!

Terminus cafe or by asking in other teams' threads. The idea is that it should get teams chatting!

Recs of the same authors by 2 people... Will have to see if I can get hold of them to try!

Meeting up outside with 2 toddlers and trying to convince them to distance was interesting!

I'm glad you can see each other and have slightly more normality at least. I suppose this is why love letters were more of a thing before phones!

I have popped over with my fridge from Ireland to ask for recommendations from you lovely people I like literary fiction / mystery thrillers and historical but am happy to consider anything I have looked at Aiswyra's list but it is too far off my beaten
track I am afraid.
You can message me or we would always be happy to see you on our team page - Team "round Ireland with a fridge"
anyone wanting a book recc from me try
Hideaway Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters The Giver of Stars or The Great Alone

I recently cancelled Kindle Unlimited and Audible Romance to cut back on expenses. I might reactivate audible romance if I need to. I think they had a bunch of Julia Quinn books.

You know it never occurred to me to check the letters on the genre books I found.

I'm having an issue with my right side in my neck, arm and shoulder. Using the computer seems to really aggravate it. That might put a damper on my searching for books.

I have some library downloads I need to focus on first. Hopefully they work for at least one letter.

I did copy/paste the tasks into a spreadsheet for myself. Just so I can put a book in if I come across one that doesn't work great for the current letters.

Mary C wrote: "I did copy/paste the tasks into a spreadsheet for myself. Just so I can put a book in if I come across one that doesn't work great for the current letters."

Great idea Mary!

I’m sorry to hear about your issues with your right side. Be careful and don’t spend too much time in front of the computer if it makes it worse.

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

a list of books that I assume work for U and Z spell outs.

Do we use the default edition for number of pages if we listen to audiobooks?

Marie (UK) wrote: "I have popped over with my fridge from Ireland to ask for recommendations from you lovely people I like literary fiction / mystery thrillers and historical but am happy to consider anything I have ..."

I really enjoyed Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters and The Great Alone if anyone fancies reading them.

Mary C wrote: "I recently cancelled Kindle Unlimited and Audible Romance to cut back on expenses. I might reactivate audible romance if I need to. I think they had a bunch of Julia Quinn books.

You know it neve..."

Ouch poor you! As MH says, take it easy!

Those lists look great. I'll add them to one of the posts at the start when I get a few minutes.

I just checked out 2 U and 2 Z books.

I have more prospective ones but with 14 players on the team, I'll stick with 2 each for now.

My library is connected to Hoopla. I just searched the word Zoe and it's a goldmine of audio books for that. But I only have 7 more borrows left in June available to me through the app so I just bookmarked them for now. There's no wait lists there.

Hubby will be resuming his 2nd job as a bartender at our Elk's lodge soon which will mean more reading time for me. He usually works there Wed and Saturday nights.

We were supposed to go to Cancun for a week in July but that's been pushed to October for obvious reasons. Fingers crossed we can still go this year. We go every other year with 3 other couples plus few single friends.