Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

New Year, New You! Are you still sticking to your New Year's Resolutions? For this team challenge, you're going to be working together to check as many of those goal boxes as possible!

Each book read by an individual may only be used for one prompt per team challenge. Don't forget about your bookmarks! You get some for every 1000 pages read (or 15 hours of audio listed to).

THE CHALLENGE

Read Those Books
- Earn one bookmark for every 1000 pages read as a team.
- Earn one bookmark for every 15 hours of audio listened to.

Money
- Earn 2 bookmarks
- A book featuring a rich person
- A book where a financial event is important (inheritance, bank failure, depression)
- A book with a green cover
- A book with a number in the title
- A self-help book (financial or otherwise)

Health
- Earn 2 bookmarks
- A book with a character who has a physical illness/disability
- A book with a character who has a mental illness/disability
- A book with a birth or a death
- A book involving doctors, nurses, or a hospital
- A book featuring food on the cover

Career
- Earn 2 bookmarks
- A book set in a workplace
- A book where a character changes jobs
- A book with a retired character
- A book with a blue-collar/hands on worker
- A book with characters too young to work

Family
- Earn 2 bookmarks
- A book with a family gathering
- A book with a family secret
- A book with a large family
- A book with a family conflict
- A book whose title starts with a letter in the word FAMILY

Hobbies
- Earn 2 bookmarks
- A book featuring a hobby you might be interested in
- A book involving sport
- A book involving music
- A book involving reading and/or writing
- A book involving camping/hiking/hunting

THE TEAM
Captain: Sophia
Captain: Robin P
Kathy
Chrissie
Kellie Lyn
Shelley
Martha
Errlee

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

Welcome, everyone! Leden is Czech for January, in case you wondered. Each team name is a different translation of the month. I would guess it's pronounced as the English word "laden", as in "this team is laden with talent!"

You will notice that after the tabs for the different categories, there is one for Plans. Feel free to put books into any slot they might fit. It was only this last Readathon that, after several years, I realized that there is a dropdown in the light blue row, where you can select TBR, In Progress, or Complete. It is set up right now to put your name and the book titles in white print, because black won't show up well against the dark blue.

Of course, we don't always know what elements feature in the book until after we read it.

Hi Robin - I’m totally useless when it comes to spreadsheets but I will do my best.

In the meantime, not a lot of the books I’m reading/planning on reading seem to fit the prompts so might have to rethink my reading.

The goal is to get one of each book correct? I could slot in Carrie Soto is Back for sports, and I have 2 that would meet the retired prompt - The Bullet that Missed or Killers of a Certain Age (sorry I’m on my iPad at the moment so don’t think I can link).

I’ll get on my computer in a bit and try to slot these into the spreadsheet plans but just thought I’d give a heads up for now.

Errlee wrote: "Hi Robin - I’m totally useless when it comes to spreadsheets but I will do my best.

In the meantime, not a lot of the books I’m reading/planning on reading seem to fit the prompts so might have to..."

That's all fine. I am actually not great at spreadsheets myself, but I am glad to just add your books anytime. I bet some of the books you planned to read will still fit somewhere. The team can help brainstorm on where they will fit. One goal of the Readathon is to help members get through books they want to read. So you shouldn't have to choose others just to fit the game. "Creative" interpretations of the prompts are often possible.

Looking forward to reading with all of you!

Hello to team members. I think I've figured out how to do the spreadsheet. I'm currently reading two books that I won't finish until the challenge starts and I'm picking up one from the library today. I need some help in deciding where one of the books I'm reading fits. Is this the thread where we will be discussing our books?

Yes, if you aren't sure where your book could be placed, go ahead and post it for suggestions.

Thanks, Robin.

The book is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow- I already have a book for disability and for work. I'm not sure this book fits under another category.

Never mind. I found a category under Career/Workplace setting.

Hello everyone, I am excited to be reading with you this week. I have several audiobooks and a few ebooks to choose from this week. I will be starting with Criminal which can go for mental illness/disabiltiy (severe dyslexia), book with death, involving a nurse, blue-collar (policeman), and family secret. Since there is a serial killer in it, I suppose it could stretch for hunting as well, but eww! Hope to have it finished in the morning so I can get in a couple of audiobooks while on the road with kids. Happy reading all.

I am tied up all day Saturday so it will take me a while to get started.

Hi team, I'm excited to read/spreadsheet with everyone! I'm starting with Small Game: A Novel and I'm partway into Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empires which coincidentally both have camping in them, a thing I never do in real life.

Morning everyone - I’m up and ready to read! Should be finishing The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman this morning - could slot in for the retired character prompt or a death.

Errlee wrote: "Morning everyone - I’m up and ready to read! Should be finishing The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman this morning - could slot in for the retired character prompt or a death."

Retired character is probably better, I think we'll find lots of books with a death.

And done. I’ll put it in the spreadsheet next time I’m at my computer

I marked The Bullet That Missed as completed on the Plans part of the spreadsheet - should I put it into the actual Career part of the spreadsheet (retired character) or should I wait until we know for sure that's the prompt to use it for? Or should a captain be doing that?

I'm listening to Vanity Fair. I'm at about 40% so it'll be a few days till I finish. Also reading The Bodies in the Library. Hopefully will be finished by late tomorrow. I've marked them on the "Plans" tab.

I am at the 50% mark in Factory Girls and have 3 hours left before I'm finished (according to Kindle). I'm hoping to do a few 1-1/2 hour sprints and be finished today. I also have this book marked in the Plans tab.

I'm later to this than I had anticipated as my teenager wanted to stay up late and talk to me and you just can NEVER say no to that.

I'm currently half way thru What Happened to the Bennetts which could work for character death, character too young to work, and as I read along, apparently family secret/conflict

Also, as this is my first attempt at a Team Reading Challenge, please let me know if I am missing some aspect of it. I've put a few books in the spreadsheet and am keeping track of pages read.

Do books previously started count?

I believe books in progress count as long as you have 100 pages or more left when the read-a-thon started.

Excellent. Let's go see What Happened to the Bennetts. Still almost 200pages to go.

Yes, Errlee is correct, if there are 100 pages left, it's fine.

Errlee wrote: "I marked The Bullet That Missed as completed on the Plans part of the spreadsheet - should I put it into the actual Career part of the spreadsheet (retired character) or should I wa..."

Yes, you can put it in the Career section.

I finished the novella The Pearl and put it under "a financial event is important". The whole story hinges on how the pearl can make someone rich (or not).

Also finished Ruslan and Ludmila, which is a humorous fairy tale. It could go under physical disability since there is a dwarf and also the heroine is a Sleeping Beauty figure, magically sleeping (is that a disability?) The only other one is family conflict, since 2 brother are at odds, but we have several for that already.

Would we say has a green cover??

Chrissie wrote: "Would we say has a green cover??"

I just checked the website TinEye which is what some book groups use for challenges like this and it says it's blue.

Errlee, anyone can add books to the category pages! I went ahead and added The Bullet That Missed for you so we're up to date.

Today has turned out to be a comfort book kind of day so I finished Squire and started Lady Knight. I've put Squire under "green cover" for now but we can move it around later, and I've highlighted the categories we've filled so far to make it easier to see which ones still need to be filled.

I finished A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Oh William! this morning.

The first one could go in either title beginning with a letter in FAMILY, or character too young to work. Will slot it into the family category for now until we see what we need.

And Oh William could be for family secret? Again, I'll put it there for now.

Question - are we trying to get 2 bookmarks per category as well? The bookmarks confuse me a bit.

Good morning all, yesterday did not go as planned! I finished Criminal finally. I put it under Health as a character with a mental illness/disability (dyslexia). I am starting Quidditch Through the Ages and Tokyo Dreaming both are short so hope to finish today.

Oh...quick question--Are we moving our finished books to the completed tab or just leaving them on the plans page?

I'm not sure either. I've marked my two books as 'complete' in the plans tab but maybe the captains are in charge of deciding which book counts for which prompt??

I finished The Bodies in the Library and marked it for "a book featuring a hobby you might be interested in." (The library held first editions of Golden Age Mystery Writers.)

I think we can move our columns to complete. The plans tab gets pretty full if we leave them.

Please do move any completed books to the correct columns on the final sheet. If there's any issue later, things can always be moved around.

Finished Lady Knight and Small Game: A Novel today! Small Game I put under "camping/hiking/hunting" but I'm not sure where to put Lady Knight, which is a medieval YA fantasy about war and refugees and evil mages. For now I'm putting it under "birth or death" but if we want to be silly about it we could also put it under one of the career options.

So it has a bottle of tequila on the cover...do we consider that "food"?

Sophia wrote: "

So it has a bottle of tequila on the cover...do we consider that "food"?"

Not sure, we probably can find one more obviously food. Is there somewhere else this one can go?

I finished A Trip to the Stars. I put it under doctor, nurse, hospital. One of the main characters works as a nurse & technician in a hospital.

I asked this the other day but think it got lost in the thread -- are we trying to get 2 bookmarks per category as well? So 10 total? The bookmarks confuse me a bit.

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Errlee wrote: "I asked this the other day but think it got lost in the thread -- are we trying to get 2 bookmarks per category as well? So 10 total? The bookmarks confuse me a bit.


Yes, we are trying to get 2 bookmarks for each category. So 10 bookmarks to complete each category once. We might complete some categories more than once. :D

Thanks Kathy,

I just finished Carrie Soto is Back but I don’t think it slots in anywhere except sports, which we already have.

Errlee wrote: "Thanks Kathy,

I just finished Carrie Soto is Back but I don’t think it slots in anywhere except sports, which we already have."

Errlee,
You can put Carrie Soto is Back for a second set on the Hobbies tab. We'll probably get more than one done.

True, we have a lot of categories done after only 2.5 days!

I finished a short book, Tin Man and put it under family conflict.

I finished Vanity Fair and put it under "a book with a large family."

Good Eveing all, I finished The 9th Judgment and put it on the money tab at book with a number. I am going to start Peach Cobbler Murder next. Hope to finish either tonight or tomorrow.

I finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I think I can put it in Disability.

Started and finished Daisy Darker today and slotted it in for Family Secret because WHAT!?!?!?

Started 12 Tiny Things by Heidi Barr and will slot it in potentially for a book with a number in the title.

For some reason, my entry for title beginning with a letter in FAMILY was deleted (A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier)?

I added it back in - unless it was taken off the spreadsheet for a reason?

I am reading . I googled it and apparently those things he is holding are mangoes (which makes sense since the book revolves around food), so it could be used for that prompt when I finish it.

Also, not to be difficult, but I'm wondering what the point is of putting second books in for categories? My understanding is that we finish the challenge once we have one for everything - getting more than one book for a category doesn't really get us anywhere really does it? Or is is just a fun thing to see if we can do it twice :)