Play Book Tag discussion

Please vote for the tag you would most like to read for May at the following link:

https://forms.gle/A5MPQnygvxpprxPy8

Here are the lists of books for each tag:

2016:https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9...
Antarctica: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...
short stories: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

Remember, you may cast up to a total of 10 participation points for your choice. Everyone gets one vote for free so please vote even if you don't have any participation points!

You can see how many participation points you currently have in the spreadsheet below.

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

Happy voting! Please cast your votes by 12 noon EST on 4/22.

Hi Anita,

Would the Antarctica shelf also work?
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

Hmm. You seem to have linked to the LISTOPIA list for 2016 vs the shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

Voted

Book Concierge wrote: "Hmm. You seem to have linked to the LISTOPIA list for 2016 vs the shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/..."

maybe because 3/4 of the book on the list were not published in 2016 😂

It was a relatively easy choice for me. There is one choice that I am hoping to avoid.

There seem to be two Antarctica shelves, one is misspelled. I do it all the time.

My goodness! Only one possibility for me really where there are options on my TBR. Voted.

Anyone else here see a distinct similarity between the absurd choices popping up for monthly tags and The Randomizer on the Food Network's Tournament of Champions?
🤣🤣🤣

Theresa wrote: "Anyone else here see a distinct similarity between the absurd choices popping up for monthly tags and The Randomizer on the Food Network's Tournament of Champions?
🤣🤣🤣"

I hadn't thought of it before, but that is funny!

Joanne wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Hmm. You seem to have linked to the LISTOPIA list for 2016 vs the shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/..."

maybe because 3/4 of the book on the list were not publis..."

It looks like these are books that people read in 2016, not necessarily were written then.

Antarctica is actually where I was planning to fly in May but a number of people have already used it and wouldn't be returning.

Ooh, I really like two of those shelves, and there's one that I'd rather not get. I'll come back to vote a little later once I think of how I want to order/weight my choices.

To check, if 2016 were to win, how would we be using the tag for Fly the Skies? Would it be the year of publication, or just the tag as usual?

Theresa wrote: "Anyone else here see a distinct similarity between the absurd choices popping up for monthly tags and The Randomizer on the Food Network's Tournament of Champions?
🤣🤣🤣"

I'm glad you called the choices absurd, because I'm struggling to find a tag that would make me happy.

Holly R W wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Anyone else here see a distinct similarity between the absurd choices popping up for monthly tags and The Randomizer on the Food Network's Tournament of Champions?
🤣🤣🤣"

I'm glad yo..."

With you there Holly-really do not want to skip a monthly tag, but I only have one that I even would vote for. And it's not Antarctica-let's get away from tying the tag to the PBT fly challenge-I hate that every month a country/ continent is in the mix.

Wow- for someone who dislikes short stories, I have read more than half of the books on the first page of the tag. Maybe I should rethink that declaration!

Tracy wrote: "Wow- for someone who dislikes short stories, I have read more than half of the books on the first page of the tag. Maybe I should rethink that declaration!">

Exactly Tracy! Short stories get a bad rap IMO.

Jen K wrote: "Hi Anita,

Would the Antarctica shelf also work?
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/..."

Either shelf works, but I'm the person who made the erroneous misspelling. I've fixed it!

TEODORA and BOOKNBLUES,

Please recast your votes. For some reason, your votes on the main questions (which tag do you want), were both blank. I'm guessing there might have been a bug or something. I've deleted your votes so you may re-cast them.

Book Concierge wrote: "Hmm. You seem to have linked to the LISTOPIA list for 2016 vs the shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/..."

Yes, I did that on purpose. You are welcome to read any book you want from the tag list, but most of the people use the tag as "I read this book in 2016", and when we use the year tags, we generally mean "the book was published in 2016". That said, if you read a book on the shelf, it counts. I just wanted to give a better list for those who try to actually read books that fit!

Joanne wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Hmm. You seem to have linked to the LISTOPIA list for 2016 vs the shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/..."

maybe because 3/4 of the book on the list were not publis..."

Same will probably be true of the Listopia .... since it is also crowd-sourced.

If short stories wins, what will be the minimum page count for it to count towards both the tag and fly/pursue?

Can hardly wait to see what kind of "pursue" items our moderators come up with for "2016" .... LOL

Jenny wrote: "If short stories wins, what will be the minimum page count for it to count towards both the tag and fly/pursue?"

I believe "short stories" means a book of short stories. I don't think page # rules will change

Jenny wrote: "If short stories wins, what will be the minimum page count for it to count towards both the tag and fly/pursue?"

All challenges have a 150 page minimum.

This vote was as easy as falling off a log backward.

annapi wrote: "Jenny wrote: "If short stories wins, what will be the minimum page count for it to count towards both the tag and fly/pursue?"

All challenges have a 150 page minimum."

I thought that was the case, but wanted to check! ;-)

Anita wrote: "TEODORA and BOOKNBLUES,

Please recast your votes. For some reason, your votes on the main questions (which tag do you want), were both blank. I'm guessing there might have been a bug or something...."

Voted again. I hope it took this time.

All good options, but I do have my eyes on one that I hope and think will win :)

I still haven't even touched a 'gothic' book yet... eek!

forsanolim wrote: ".To check, if 2016 were to win, how would we be using the tag for Fly the Skies? Would it be the year of publication, or just the tag as usual?."

It would be the tag (shelf) as usual for the game.

.Same will probably be true of the Listopia .... since it is also crowd-sourced.

Usually the best of lists on Listopia go by publication year . . .they are crowd sourced, but in a different way then the shelves which are done by people's personal indexing of their own shelves (as opposed to trying to create a useful list).

I randomly checked 10 or so books; all published in 2016.

Booknblues wrote: "..Voted again. I hope it took this time..."

All good!!

OMG, what? Already? Good lord this year is just flying by. Every month I see this thread I am always like "already!?"

I am leaning toward short stories.
I have a bunch of good ones.

Voted. Checked the actual shelf as well as the list for 2016 and found many more that will fit both tag and fly the pbt skies, as well as some of the other challenges I'm doing.

Oh no! Not another year... :-(

OK friends - there are two of these that are workable for me. I too was worried that Antartica would take hold because of Fly the Skies, but you all need to remember that the place you travel to, has to be tagged 5 times. This will shorten the Antartica tag significantly. I have absolutely nothing, nothing at all for Antartica, and i truly hope it isn't picked. Because I want to read something off my TBR, or that I would really enjoy.

So in the past, our group has hated the year tags, I tend to love them! But here is why 2016 is so incredibly great for me personally. Because I joined Goodreads/PBT in 2016. Early, like February 2016. So..... I never had a TBR before that. That started my TBR, and I was flooded instantly before I understood how out of control that could get. So 2016 is all of my oldest and first books. I have tons, and a few in my top ten oldest.... I would be more than all set. Short stories, I could live with. I found enough to work with on my TBR. But I had a sweet memory. One year we had short stories as the tag, in December, and there are so so many Christmas short stories. That was a great pairing. But there are two Alice Hoffman Short Stories. One that's high on my TBR. I'm great.

So can i remind you all again that Antartica has to be tagged five times to be used for Fly? No matter which spelling......

For those like me who don't care for short stories, if it wins, there are genre versions. For instance, many romances, mysteries and fantasy/sci-fi series have "between the numbers" stories that are then collected in a book. Or they are just extra stories about the characters. I tend to think of short stories as the ones in New Yorker where nothing much happens, and those are the ones I don't care to read.

I like that there is one choice for those who want to stretch themselves a bit, and one very broad choice. And one for those who really want to stretch.

Coincidentally I was looking at short story compilations last night. There are many I'd really like to read. Jen K read one for the Gothic tag this month.

If you look farther down the list, you can find many short story anthologies with stories from many different authors. This is a great way to find new literary authors, or new authors in a favorite genre (such as crime, urban fantasy, gothic, sci-fi, romance, horror, etc.).

I'm sure I can find several books published in 2016 to read. I wasn't reading much that year.

For Antarctica, I really liked Migrations, and of course Bernadette, but there is only one other book that interested me,

I can't believe we're half way through April already!

I have good choices for all of these tags, but short stories comes out on top for me -- I've been reading and enjoying a lot of short story collections the past year or so.

All could work for me but I would also be excited for short stories. I've read some great collections this year so far and still have a long list that I would like to read.

Things We Lost in the Fire is tagged both short stories AND 2016, so I'm all set if I decide to go to Argentina next month.

I was thinking I might read Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories this month. It's Southern Gothic. There is a surprisingly long waiting list for it. It's short stories, so if I don't get it in time this month I might be able to use it for next month's tag.

OOPS. The first time I typed the title, I wrote the Mae West quote by mistake (she swaps two of the words). LOL 😉 (I need a blushing imoji)

Amy wrote: "OK friends - there are two of these that are workable for me. I too was worried that Antartica would take hold because of Fly the Skies, but you all need to remember that the place you travel to, h..."

Amy, I am using Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which has been tagged Antarctica by 173 people. Not my usual cup of tea but I'm willing to try it for the game!

LibraryCin wrote: "Oh no! Not another year... :-("

I had the same reaction, Cindy! :)

annapi wrote: "Amy wrote: "OK friends - there are two of these that are workable for me. I too was worried that Antartica would take hold because of Fly the Skies, but you all need to remember that the place you ..."

I was surprised to see it has so many Antarctica tags, but it was a huge best seller, and I suspect many people have used it for challenges like ours. It's a really fun book, though some don't like the snarkiness. I also loved Migrations, which is more in line with my current tastes. It's not as much fun, but I liked the intensity. Both have ecology themes which I like. It had just 8 antarctica tags. Neither book is really centered in Antarctica, so I might eventually read another book for that continent.

Yes, Bernadette (which I read) fits, as does Migrations. But I guess those of us who have read Bernadette are sort of left with Migrations. I still think the list gets a lot shorter when you are looking at 5 tags.

Maybe Short Stories will win, and that will make everybody happy.

Amy wrote: "Maybe Short Stories will win, and that will make everybody happy."

There are many of us who are not short story fans. That is my third and we did it once before, but more than three years ago.

I do have a book, I want to read which is short story, so I won't be devastated like the last time. And there are those books that are in a kind of short story format, but that really form a novel, like The Tsar of Love and Techno

Amy, I don't think Antarctica has a chance, but you never know. I became active in gr in 2017, so like you, there are probably a lot of 2016 books I haven't read yet.

Bnb, The Tsar of Love and Techno sounds great. That's one of the many on my tbr. I like it better when the stories work together in some way, but if they don't, I need to spread them out.

Chess Story is a longer classic short story (about 100 pages) that you might like. It's too short for the challenges, but I don't think anyone would mind. Or you could combine a couple and count them together.

There might be other ways to interpret the tag. I noticed that Anne Napolitano wrote a book about Flannery O'Connor, who was a well known short story writer. I might read the bio along with one of O'Connor's collections, and count them both.

A Twist in the Tale is the book that got me hooked on short stories. They all have clever twists at the end. Archer has many more like this.

David Sedaris is a good starter too, especially on audio. He's funny and wry.
Naked

Read Tsar too.... Also excellent. Honestly, there isn't much for Antartica for me, but you know me. I wouldn't complain. I would find something. I voted for 2016.

NancyJ wrote: "Things We Lost in the Fire is tagged both short stories AND 2016, so I'm all set if I decide to go to Argentina next month."

Good catch!

Now I just need to see what kinda mileage I would get going to Argentina.

For once I wish I could vote. Short story fan here!!

I hope if 2016 wins, we actually read books published in 2016. Otherwise, the shelf is meaningless - I mean any book published that year or prior could have been read in 2016. I understand people naming their shelves 2016 since they want to track their books read by year, but for the rest of us? Makes no sense.

Antarctica is full of adventures. I am a big fan of books set in the Extreme Cold. As a reminder, you don't actually have to read a book with 5 tags for the monthly challenge (that only applies to Fly the Skies), just a book that has to do with Antarctica, and it doesn't even have to be on the list Anita linked. I doubt it will win, but I had to make a case for it. :-)

I am not a big fan of short stories, but I've actually read a few this year that have been excellent (by Anton Chekhov & James Joyce). Like some of you have mentioned, I tend to more enjoy novels that are knitted by short stories (Olive Kitteridge or Girl, Woman, Other come to mind).