Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Do you love a particular topic, feature, or challenge in our group? This is the place to give us some positive feedback!

I love the Goodreads 101. I had no clue how to post a pic but now I've finally got it.
I also learned some other fun stuff to use to make my reviews more aesthetically pleasing :) So thank you for that topic!

You guys are doing a great job coming up with new challenges. I love how there's nothing stagnant about this group. Great job, mods!

I didn't know if you noticed Sans but I came up with a new challenge if you want to have a look at it when you get the chance.

I like the fact that we have a Goodreads 101 as well. It was helpful to me when I was starting out.

I really appreciate how much more organized this group has gotten. I like the different challenges, particularly the variety and flexibility of most of them.

I like that we have a place to share information about free books or great bargains or even just to swap. I am glad we have a References by Preferences. I just wish that it could be developed but I suppose it'll eventually get there as we read more books. lol.

I'm really happy about the Writing Reviews Challenge. It does make me want to spend a little extra effort in writing reviews.

Reading challenges I particularly like are: Serious Readers, Read-With-Me, and the "Classic" Home for the Holidays challenge. I hope we have another "Classics" Reading Challenge soon *hint, hint* :)

Love how this group is run. I especially love the Serious Readers Challenge. I'm not to good with the other challenges, but I try.

Curse you Gabrielle! Far too many awesome challenges and you make me want to sign up for another one.

It's going until March of next year, so if you you get bored or run of challenges you'll still have time to be a part of it.

So I'd like to say thank you to all of you wonderful members who have posted a comment, challenge, a discussion topic, a reading log, etc. Without all of you we'd just be a bunch of moderators talking to ourselves. Would we still have fun? Heck, yeah, but not as much fun as we do with all of you. So thanks for making what we do that much easier and enjoyable.

I want to say how much I love the community in this group. I'm in several groups and have tried may others, but none are as active as this one. I love how helpful everyone is, how willing everyone is to discuss just about anything, and how everyone seems to go above and beyond to encourage people in their challenges. This is by far my favorite group I've found on goodreads :-)

Also, thanks to all those that create challenges as you are helping to feed my addiction (in a good way) and these challenges have actually got me back into reading after falling out for awhile.

I too enjoy this group. It's very well organized and fun. I've discovered a lot of great books reading the posts.

*Runs away crying* You guys are too sweet. I love this group and all of our members. Thanks for making it the best group ever guys.

Yeah I'm really into this group too! Even though I'm constantly overwhelming myself with challenges this group is never boring!

I agree, this is one of my favorite groups too. I found a challenge on another group and wished that I could find more and I found this one and have been on 9023984 times a day ever since :) I also love the sense of community and friendship from everyone on here. Its so nice to talk to other book lovers and get good ideas and do fun things with them, especially because I have very few "real life" friends that like to read!

Getting in on the group hug here. This is my favourite group by far as well. I love that we actually talk about books and reading.

((((HUGS!))))

Yall are the best! Like Kristina, I don't have any friends who like to read. Ok, wait. Let me be honest. I have NONE. Every time my boyfriend comes home from work and sees me reading he says, "NERD ALERT!" It's a joke between us so it is all good. He even funds my addiction sometimes. :)

The lack of "real life" reading friends is why I turned to Goodreads. This was the first group I joined and even though I am a member of others, this is the only one I am active in. I love it!

I know how you feel Rachel I had more reading buddies in high school then I do now so it feels good to have someone other than my mom around me who loves to read!

Sing it, sister! My mom is the only person I know in RL who also reads smut. >_< Not great when I want to talk about erotica or m/m. She don't like that stuff. ~_~

Yeah, my mom's not real keen on the m/m stuff either. There was a time when I had just gotten Strawberries For Dessert by Marie Sexton and my mom said that she was going to read over my shoulder just so she could drool over the cover.

I've been trying to intrigue her enough so that maybe someday she'll read at least one m/m book in her life. :)

That'll never happen to my mom. She found one of my m/m fanfics years ago, threw up, then burned my notebook. ~_~ Yeah, not feeling the tolerance in my house.

Oh man, I'm sorry for you Sans. She actually burned your notebook? 0_0 Um, just a little speechless here.

Yeah, she did. I was raised in a veeeeeeeery religious house. My views on alternate lifestyles are a dirty secret that my folks pray I've grown out of. Which is why all the m/m and a good portion of the erotica I own are on my Kindle. With password protection. ^_^;

Very good idea, thankfully I was raised not to really mind when it came to alternate lifestyles. Although my dad and my outside family are the only ones who don't know of my love for m/m novels.

I think my dad's aware of my love for yaois though.

It's a little strange though; and this is sort off topic; when I was growing up my mom sort of liked the fact that I read what she called "real books." which mostly consisted of romance novels.

While my dad didn't mind the fact that I read mangas he just couldn't seem to understand why I liked reading romance novels. There was some contradiction there I think.

My parents preached you should hate the lifestyle, not the person, but I just don't see the distinction or understand why gender and labels made some people less kosher than others. I don't know if that makes me narrow-minded or them. *shrugs* The only people I don't like are the ones who are intolerant and hateful to people who just want to live their lives the way they think is best.

That's interesting. I made fun of my mom for a few years because she read "smut" (I was focused on fantasy and manga at the time). Now smut is about all I read. My dad just quietly helps me build new bookshelves when my floor gets too crowded and borrows my history books. ^o^

Poor Sans! My mother could have cared less what I read and still doesn't care. She would be totally cool with m/m and beyond. Ironically enough, my mother sent me to private school until my senior year. We were the most unreligious family ever. I got to watch all of the Rated R movies I wanted, listen to whatever on the radio, and read anything. It was very sad when I was the only one in my high school reading Harry Potter. I felt sorry for all of them. They missed out on a wonderful thing!

I just wanted to say that I like the Indie Books challenge so thanks for that. :)

@Kristina: Aside from my sister, I don't have close "real life" friends who love to read either - or at least, not friends who like to read what I like to read.

@Gabrielle: It's funny that your mother considered romance novels "real books". I've always been lectured by my parents to read "real books", by which they meant the classics such as the ones added to Britannica's Great Books collection. I think my mother, at least, knows that my sister and I read romance, but she doesn't say anything.

I think my mom considered romance novels "real books." because because they didn't have pictures or speech bubbles in them like the mangas do, that probably the only reason she considered them "real books."

I think I may have said this before, but I'm constantly amazed at the creativity for these challenges. Great job on keeping the fun going, Mods!

Gabrielle ~ Bhlack Benehvolence ~ wrote: "I think my mom considered romance novels "real books." because because they didn't have pictures or speech bubbles in them like the mangas do, that probably the only reason she considered them "rea..."

I'm just happy when my kids want to read. I don't care if it's manga or comic books or magazines. Any time I see them reading instead of watching TV or on the computer makes me happy!

I can understand that even though I'm not a parent yet.

Sans wrote: "I think I may have said this before, but I'm constantly amazed at the creativity for these challenges. Great job on keeping the fun going, Mods!"

No kidding. Great job, mods.

I'm also constantly amazed at how little willpower I have to resist joining more challenges - err, no, I'm not. I have no willpower, whatsoever. :D

Kristina wrote: "I agree, this is one of my favorite groups too. I found a challenge on another group and wished that I could find more and I found this one and have been on 9023984 times a day ever since :) I also..."


I agree with you, Kristina. This is an awesome group and a friendly community. I, myself, do not have many friends that read as much as I do. I have been welcomed here with open arms and that means alot to me. I hope and pray that this group never ever dies...I just LOVE it here...It is sooo warm and cozy!! Thank you all!!!

--Andrew G

Andrew wrote: "Kristina wrote: "I agree, this is one of my favorite groups too. I found a challenge on another group and wished that I could find more and I found this one and have been on 9023984 times a day eve..."

Same. This is the first group I joined where I really felt at home and in a friendly community. I have joined other groups with friendly members but they are larger and I still feel out of place. I'm very happy to be here. :)

Does anyone here cry or laugh out loud while reading a book while out in public? I do. I do not care who is watching me. If the book makes me cry or laugh, I will whether I am home alone or out in public. I hope I asked the question right...hmmmm....I am an emotional person who "wears his emotion on his sleeve". I think that is a correct saying. Nothing attracts me more to a book than emotion. If a book can make me become emotional, either good or bad, then it is a great book. What do you all think?

I agree that any book that makes you feel something (er, other than urge to do violence to said book - I've read too many of those lately), is a good thing. If an author can touch your emotions and make you react, they're doing their job. At least, as long as you don't spend the entire book wanting throttle the characters. Then the author did something very, very wrong. ^o^

I agree with both of you although I'm also one of those people that usually wears their emotions on there sleeves, if I come across an amusing part in a book I'm reading in public I either snicker quietly or bury my head in my book and laugh in the pages.

Still not very subtle but hey I like a humorous book!

I try to snicker very quietly or duck my head to hide the wide grin that's splitting my face. Occasionally what I am reading is too funny and a more audible chuckle slips out. Then I have to close the book and look away to hide the silly, wide grin I can't keep off my face.

I don't like books that make me cry so I try to avoid them. When I cannot or did not realize I'd be affected like that, tears will prick my eyes. I close the book and do my best to blink back tears - and save the rest for when I'm alone or at home.

Agree with Sans - if you spend the entire book wanting to throttle characters, the author definitely did something very, very wrong. :)

I do the same with funny books and I agree with you, Niquae, that I try to avoid books that will make me cry. Not working out so well these days. Iron Kissed made me cry while I was in public last week and I almost started crying at my chiropractors office today because of Lover Avenged. >_<

Oh Sans, I feel for you. That is something I'd probably do to. I usually don't read in public. Agree with both you and Niquae. I love it when a book moves me somehow even when I can't help rating it a tad bit lower than I should because it may have touched a spot that caused me to dislike it. I rated Iron Kiss a star lower because of it and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo down 2 stars for the emotions it invoked. I also agree that if the book makes you feel like throttling someone than the author did something very very wrong.

Lisarenee wrote: "I also agree that if the book makes you feel like throttling someone than the author did something very very wrong."

Oh, Lisa, you think so? I think if an author evokes strong emotions, good or bad, and he intends to, then he's doing something right! :-)

Karen,
Well, I suppose that can be true also. I guess it depends on the throttle issue. Does that make sense?

Yeah... I think I know what you mean. There have been books I've read where I've absolutely hated a character or two and would not only want to choke the life out of the character but the author as well, thinking, "why on earth would he/she write such an awful character!" Is that kind of what you mean? :-)

Kudos for being responsive to suggestions and ideas. :)

I liked the newsletters. I found them to be a nice, personal touch from the group mods.

I like that the group reads were staggered this month in order to make it easier to read them. I also like the buddy read format with the 50 pages a day. Keeps me on track instead of always feeling in a rush to finish so I can read the thread without seeing spoilers :-P

I'm glad you liked the change, Jex. I love it!

Niquae & Jex,
Thanks for letting us know. We keep trying to improve the group and we love hearing everyone thoughts about what we try. It let's us know if we're getting it right.

Just wanted to say that the newsletters look great. :)

Thanks

I love this group - you guys do a wonderful job. My favorite is definitely Team Towers. Wish this could happen more than once a year.