Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Tricia wrote: "where's the countdown?"

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see one outside of what's listed on the challenge overview: Starts on 15th May at 9am UTC.

I think it's safe to say Happy Games everyone!

Yes, Book Games has officially started!

There are countdowns for each round and the mini challenges for each round in the spreadsheet on the summary tab.

I meant to make one and post it a link to it and forgot. Sorry!

Judith wrote: "Yes, Book Games has officially started!

There are countdowns for each round and the mini challenges for each round in the spreadsheet on the summary tab.

I meant to make one and post it a link to..."

Ah, I just missed it. It's hard to see it on my phone and I can't access sheets on my work computer lol.

Yeah, that's why I meant to make one outside of the spreadsheet and I completely forgot *face palm*

Happy reading, everyone

Mary wrote: "Does anyone else have a feeling this catch-all defense wall of books is going to come into play at some point during this challenge?

It's such an odd thing to throw in. It's either giving us a bu..."

yea i definitely agree since it is separate from shelter

I'm confused what the round 1 prompts are? I am having a hard time finding it.

Right now it just putting books in various resource piles.

New things including a mini challenge for each Round will be popping up.

Here are the resource piles and some suggestions on how to decide where to put them. Note these are very open ended and that way on purpose:

Category ideas
These are suggestions. Trust your gut and don’t overthink placement.

🏹 Weapons
weapon on cover
grey or metallic colour on cover
weapon named in the book
letters of weapon in title
author or main character initials in weapons
features a character who is a blacksmith
battle in book


🏹 Shelter
shelter on cover (i.e. a building)
red, purple or pink on cover
a character you'd like to shelter with
shelter letters in title
author or main character initials in shelter
features a character who works in construction
finding / making shelter critical element in book

🏹 Food
food on cover
yellow, orange or white on cover
food or drink named in the book
food letters in title
author or main character initials in food
features a character who is a cook
cover is a "feast for your eyes"


🏹 Defense
defense on cover (i.e. a wall, a mountain or a river)
green, blue or brown on cover
books can be heaped into a wall to form a defense
defense letters in title
author or main character initials in defense
features a character who is a soldier/police officer/public defender
siege in book

Normally I try to figure it out on my own but I'm at work and don't have a lot of time but what does "mini ref" mean?

That column will make a lot more sense when mini challenges and other things are released.

The mini challenge will have tasks on a separate tab and all will have a code. Like M1, M2, M3 or whatever the code is.

If the book you are reading works for task M2, on the Round tab in the mini ref column, you enter M2. We have formulas that will auto-populate all the necessary info on Mini challenge tab. So information only needs to be entered in one spot instead of two.

For right now, just leave it blank

Judith wrote: "That column will make a lot more sense when mini challenges and other things are released...."

Makes sense. I thought I missed something lol.

I'm confused about what the shelter letters in title or food letters in title means? Is that literally the letters f-o-o-d in the title? Or does it mean letters that make up any food?

Both would be acceptable actually. There is a lot of creativity and flexibility allowed in sorting the books into resource piles.

Which I know can be confusing as our criteria is typically a lot more specific. Some of that will come later for mini tasks, etc. But we wanted people to not have everything they read be completely task driven for the entire game.

I'm confused by the rule that the books have to be at least 100 pages. If that's the case why even have under 100 pages: 0 points? Is that strictly for any audiobooks over 3hrs but under 100 pages? And if so is it still worth adding those to the spreadsheet if the page count points are zero? Or should audiobooks meet BOTH requirements (3+ hrs & 100+ pgs)
I'm asking because I'm about to listen to the novellas of a series I'm reading and need to know if I should even bother adding them. Thanks!

It's just doubling down on the less than 100 pages and if someone looks at the formula calculating page points.

If the book has a page count and is over 100 pages (as long as it's not middle grade/children's) you just use the page count.

The minimum of 3 hour length and be used to confirm a children's/middle grade book has enough words to count (as these tend to have a much lower word count per page). Or if the book is audio only and does not have a physical book published with an actual page count.

If the books are less than 100 pages, you can just leave them off the spreadsheet as they are too short to count for the challenge.

Everyone needs a little help from a friend (or sponsor).

Supply drops consist of books read by the sending team to be used in a way chosen by the receiving team within specified criteria.

Teams have been paired up for the duration of Book Games and are allowed to send up to 3 supply drops each to their partner team per round. This is not required - your team could decide to not send any supply drops. But if that's your team's choice, your partner team could decide to do the same.

Paired teams are allowed to coordinate with requests for books which would be most helpful to the receiving team. However, the sending team ultimately gets to decide which books are sent as supply drops.

Sending Team

The sending team chooses up to 3 books to send to the recipient team each round. These can either be 3 random books or books that meet specific needs of the recipient team.

The books can be sent any time during the round and the books do not have to be sent at the same time. That being said, it would be most helpful to the receiving team if the supply drops were received early enough in the round to decide how best to use the books for their team.

The sending team logs the supply drop books on the respective round's book log, puts the books in an appropriate resource category, and receives page points for the books sent. However, the books sent for supply drops cannot be used for other tasks. The appropriate code for supply drops is added to the mini reference column.

Supply drop books cannot be sent until they have been read by the sending team.

Receiving Team

The receiving team can choose from a variety of options on how to use the supply drops. But once used, they are locked in and the supply drop books cannot be moved to a different spot.

Supply drops can be carried over into future rounds but can only be used for mini challenge tasks in the round they were sent.

- Mini Task: Supply drop books must work for the mini task they're being used for. This includes the read date being within the timeframe of the mini challenge.
How to log this on the spreadsheet: add the book to the appropriate round's book log, enter 0 for the page number, select "Supply Drop" as the resource category, then enter the appropriate mini reference code.

- Additions to resource piles: Supply drop books must meet a requirement of the resource pile.
How to log this on the spreadsheet: add the book to the appropriate round's book log the same way you enter any other book read by your team, select the appropriate supply drop code in the mini reference column.

- Protecting supply piles: Supply drop books must fit into that category AND have some type of shield/defense. These would need to be separate. So if you want to use a supply drop book to protect your defense supply pile, the book needs to fit into the defense category in 2 different ways.
How to log this on the spreadsheet: add the book to the appropriate round's book log, enter 0 for the page number, select the resource category you'd like the book to protect in column F and provide the reason why the book meets that pile's requirements in column G. Then add the appropriate supply drop code in the mini reference column in column H and provide the reason why the book meets the defense resource criteria in column I. Protection (column G) and defense (column I) must be two different reasons.


Team Pairings

District 1 & The Capitol
District 2 & District 13
District 3 & District 12
District 4 & District 11
District 5 & District 10
District 6 & District 9
District 7 & District 8

Not much to do with this now, but as supply drops will be a thing for the rest of the game (3 per round), may be handy later!

Greetings District 8! District 7 here, looking forward to a bountiful supply drop partnership seeing as our districts are the perfect pair: we supply the paper and bindings for BOOKS! :)

Teddie wrote: "Greetings District 8! District 7 here, looking forward to a bountiful supply drop partnership seeing as our districts are the perfect pair: we supply the paper and bindings for BOOKS! :)"

Heeeeyyy, Teddie!

Another wanderer from Team Entwives, aka District 7, waving hello! :)

Melindam wrote: "Another wanderer from Team Entwives, aka District 7, waving hello! :)"

:)

For those that want to go say hello to our supply drop partner team, they can be found here, District 7

I will say all the info in the supply drop about how to enter in a spreadsheet, ignore that's really for the captains.

I probably should of put that under spoiler tags. Oh well, too late for that!

Hello from district 7! Let us know if you want benches for your textiles or any other wood based products.

Hello from District 11. Were here to help :)

Hello back to all the other district members! Hopefully we can all channel our inner Haymitch (without getting too sloppy). Happy reading!

Hello to all the visitors!

Since I'm new to this game and I learn best from watching/mimicking others I've just been reading and hoarding my books waiting for someone else to start logging but nobody is so maybe I should just wing it and start logging lol

You can add to the spreadsheet whenever you are ready, there are a bunch of completed books already.

Or you can put the info in the thread and I’ll move it to the spreadsheet later

The last time I checked there wasn't anything added. But as long as some are there I will start to add mine

Were you looking at the tracking sheet or the team sheet?

Only captains have edit access to the official team sheet.

The tracking sheet is where you add whatever books you’ve read/are reading

Krissy wrote: "The last time I checked there wasn't anything added. But as long as some are there I will start to add mine"

Hi! So there's the spreadsheet that everyone adds to (tracking) and the one that only the captains add to (team). Make sure that you are clicking on the tracking spreadsheet, aka link 2 on message 5 of this thread.

That's what it was! I had the wrong link bookmarked. Glad I finally said something. Playing different challenges through the last decade or so I have always hated the ones with spreadsheets. Mainly because I'm on my phone and it's always a struggle but I do see how they are the easiest way to keep these bigger more detailed challenges organized. But it would also help if I made sure I was doing things correctly lol.
Well now that all that is figured out I'll add my books tonight after work. Thanks!

Oh no! Sorry you got confused.

If it’s easier for you just to put the info in the thread, I can get it to the spreadsheet. I can work whatever works best for you

I read my first book, A Fragile Enchantment which I'm sad to say that I didn't like at all. I found the writing, characters, and plot annoying. I am lucky, however, because I get Fairyloot and I had skipped my Fairyloot edition of this since I'd had it preordered at a discount from my indie. So I spent like $16 instead of $40! Even better since they used the UK cover for the Fairyloot edition which I find creepy in a way that it was not meant to be.

I had the author's next book on my tbr but I just went and deleted it.

Ohh good to know, I have that on my tbr. Though not sure why I added it. The cover?

Oh no! I have that audio on hold in libby because it's a new release and I loved the cover. How disappointing 😞

Judith, I might just go that route (adding books here) since I struggle with the spreadsheets but I'd hate to add more work to your already full plate

No worries, it’s fine. I don’t mind

Last question. When choosing Food as the resource because a food item is in the title does it have to be the food item letters in order or can you scramble letters to make the food item. For example Rice:

1. The Years of Rice and Salt
2. Eight SeConds to RIde

Either is fine

I just finished my first 5 star book of the challenge so I wanted to recommend it if you like mystery/thrillers. It's One Perfect Couple, Ruth Ware's newest release (comes out this Tuesday the 21st) and it was amazing. I would highly recommend it.

Melanie wrote: "I just finished my first 5 star book of the challenge so I wanted to recommend it if you like mystery/thrillers. It's One Perfect Couple, Ruth Ware's newest release (comes out this..."

ohh, thanks Melanie!

I haven't had any 5 star reads so far this challenge.

But I would recommend avoiding The Survivalists. It started out find and interesting but then just dragged and became a disappointing read. And the GR rating is under 3.0 which is generally not a good sign. I didn't realize it was that low until I started reading it

Sofie,

Can you add The Hunger Games to your challenge shelf please?

Thank you!

Sarah,

Can you add This Skin Was Once Mine to your challenge shelf please?

Thank you!

Oops, I shall! I spaced out yesterday after I read it lol

Judith wrote: "Sofie,

Can you add The Hunger Games to your challenge shelf please?

Thank you!"

So sorry about that! It should be on there now!

Finally finished the book I started before the games started. Starting book 1 now!

Well I certainly noticed this line:
- Protecting supply piles: Supply drop books must fit into that category AND have some type of shield/defense. These would need to be separate. So if you want to use a supply drop book to protect your defense supply pile, the book needs to fit into the defense category in 2 different ways.

Hmmm.... so it sounds like there might be raids happening on our supply piles at some point in the future. If that's true, should we consider any strategies for how we're accumulating supplies right now? And will only supply drops work to protect our supplies? Or can we use our own books?

I'm letting Lexi and Sarah handle the lead on supply drops as I am one of the creators of this challenge who knows what's coming.

I will say we can't use our own books for protecting piles, only supply drop books.