The Reading Challenge Group discussion

If you want to discuss things not book related, feel free to post here. It's a friendly discussion over anything and everything!

Hi my name is Julie or jools as my friends call me. Been a member of Goodreads for a few years and love it. I am from the UK but now a expat living in Dubai.

Dubai must be an amazing place to live!

Hi, Holly - thanks for the invitation! It looks like this will be a cool place. :)

And hi, Jools, nice to meet you! I'm Faye, I'm from Canada, and I'm crazy-passionate about my books. 2014 is going to be an awesome reading year for me, I can feel it. :D

That's quite alright, Faye! I thought it would be a cool group to try set up, I know it's going to be a challenge though! (no pun intended!)

I wish I could live in Canada. It's the one place I really want to visit. Perhaps I'll go during my second year of Uni...

I have the same vibe about 2014! It's a lot of big changes, but should be an amazing year, reading and otherwise.

Do you already have a uni picked out? We have some great ones here, if you're still in the application process. That would be a perfect way to experience the country.

I haven't lived here all my life - I spent part of my childhood in England. Both are great countries, and I miss the UK a lot sometimes, but I wouldn't trade being Canadian for anything. :)

Holly wrote: "Dubai must be an amazing place to live!"

It is pretty amazing and hot!!!!

How does everyone rate Goodreads in a tool in helping you find your next read.

I personally love it and its a great feeling when you find a little gem of a book you would normally overlook. I usually come across this during the yearly voting process.
Things that I hate is false reviews and rating books that obviously have not been released!!!! I am one of these people who is always flagging and reporting such things. (I should work for goodreads with the amount of monitoring I do)

I've found a lot of relatively unknown classics that I never would have heard of if I hadn't joined good reads. The groups are a really lovely way of finding good books, and I really love it. It's especially good for working out if you want to read a book, and that's what I love reviews so much, especially if they have charismatic writers!

I am rather set in my ways though. My mind strives to read the classics, and most of them I either own or get out of the library, so the prospect of me finding something new and wanting to read it is relatively new!

My to-read list has gotten approximately one mile longer every year since I joined Goodreads, if that's any indication!

I like skimming through reviews of a book before I decide whether or not to read it, as I'm not usually very adventurous when it comes to authors or genres I haven't tried before. I like to know a little of the content and what I can expect style-wise before I give something a try, and Goodreads is excellent for that. I have very few people in my life who read what I like to read, and the ones who do look to me for recommendations rather than the other way around, so discovering Goodreads was like a dream come true, haha! My kindred!

Welcome to my world, Faye! Most of my peers prefer Big Brother and Facebook to classics, and even books in general... Most of them don't even understand that Big Brother actually originated in 1984!

It also frustrates me when people in my classes are so ignorant about literature, and there's me with my bag heaving with the book I'm currently reading, and a few others I've gotten out the library!

Yes, kids, Big Brother isn't just a TV show... LOL

Some people actually seem offended when they find out that someone is a big reader, like the fact that you read a lot is somehow insulting to everyone else's intelligence. I've found that there are certain people I should never mention books around, because all I'll get in return is their list of reasons why they don't read, and then another list of reasons why their list of reasons makes them a better person than I am. For example, "I'm too busy to read. You know, you really ought to get out more, and LIVE life rather than reading about it." Um... I'm living life just fine, thank you, and reading is my favourite part of it. :P

Holly: Dubai is a place to be! It's pretty great, but it can get overwhelming, even for a person that has lived there all her life!

Canada is amazing. It's so calm and serene. In Toronto, as far as I know. My grandparents live there, so I visit them every summer.

:)

Two members from Dubai now!

That's awesome that you visit Canada every year, Fatima. Toronto has some amazing sights and tourist attractions!

Hi every body , i'am anew member in the group , It looks like this will be a lovely place ,Oh i forget , my name is malk and i'am from Egypt :)

Welcome to the group, Malk!

thank u my dear :)

Hey everyone! I'm Ruchi, from India:)

Hi, Ruchi! It's good to have you here. :)

hey all! ^_^ cool book club.

Btw, I can't believe Christmas will be here in a week. Man this year has flown by so fast! ^_^

I completely agree. It seemed like yesterday I was picking up my exam results. And that was back in August!

Do tell!

Go for it Arya! I don't mind

That sounds pretty interesting. I found Percy Jackson alright, although I couldn't really be bothered to finish the series. I'll put it on my TR list though!

I'm sorry to say I haven't read it either! I've added it to my to-read list though :)

What did you like about it so much?

It sounds really good! And thanks for telling us about it - I tend to be quite wary of debut novels, because they can be so hit and miss - so it's great to get recommendations like this!

Hmmm... comes in, raves about a book, then deletes profile and comments... anyone else smelling a sock?

*goes to look more closely at the reviews of Hourglass, sees that more than one person I follow have panned it*

Hmm... maybe I won't be reading it after all.

EDIT: actually that was the wrong Hourglass i was looking at. Found the right one. There is one glowing review from our recently deleted friend, and that is all. I still won't be reading it, because I am really not a fan of dishonest tactics being employed in promoting a book. If the author was in any way responsible for that sock, then they just shot themselves in the foot. I'd have given the book a chance in other circumstances.

Wait, what I miss? We had a sock?? I didn't even get notifications that anyone named Arya posted anywhere...

Well, I don't know when they joined the group.. but Arya's only posts that I saw were in this thread and in the introductions thread - both places she talked about how amazing this Hourglass book was, a few people said things to the effect that we'd read it.. and then *poof* gone. Profile deleted, comments too.

On a completely unconnected topic, I foolishly followed a link to Amazon UK's 12 days of Kindle sale and promptly spent a fortune I don't have on books I won't have time to read for weeks, if not months! Oops. ;)

I've included the link, because I suspect others can be trusted to keep their heads (unlike me!), and there are some good bargains to be had.

hey hey! ^_^

Hello everyone! Chiming in from southern Utah ;)

Hey Glady! I'm here from TN. ^_^

CHRISTMAS TOMORROW!! I HAVE SO MUCH WRAPPING TO DO!!!

We're having a white Christmas here, which is kind of rare in this part of Canada, oddly enough. What about everybody else? What's the weather like where you are? Anybody else getting a white Christmas this year?

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! :)

it usually rains here faye but it was cold today. :)Merry Christmas to you too!

Ick, I hate getting rain on Christmas! You know, I've never understood why they call an un-snowy Christmas a "green" Christmas - they always look brown to me, especially when it rains!

me neither but that's how it is in the south.

Happy New Year everyone!!! Having a rocking 2014:):) Full of fun, happiness, prosperity and of course, books;)

Hey ruchi! U too. Happy reading! :-)

hey all. I hope everyones reading is going good. how is everyone? i'm good. ready to get to my next 2014 read later.

I'm reading my 1st book of 2014 from a Nook and I'm a little annoyed you you can't change/adjust the reading panel's brightness. What a flaw especially if I wanted to read at night or something -___-

I got a tablet I read on and the brightness is fine to read on for a used one.

I'm loaning this nook from my local library but the brightness is okay if you're reading during the day or around another light source. It seems like such a silly design decision to have an option to adjust brightness for the control panel but not for the reading panel. you're weird b&n

Good day everyone. Publishing a novel is one of my "hidden" lifetime goals. Why? Before this opportunity came up, I prefer reading books than writing one. Well, that decision changed.


I joined a writing class months ago and the class will start this January. We will be writing steamy ones so I'm really excited!

Anyway, I'm planning to set up accounts various sites such as figment, wattpad and amazon. Can you suggest other sites where I could introduce my future work (hopefully!) and also myself?

thank you

cool Alexandria! ^_^ good luck.

Hey all! What's up? how's everyones reading going? just curious. I'm doing well on my general 2014 reading challenge and the bible one I started last week. Hope to find my next read for my regular reading challenge soon. Two is good so far.

Faye wrote: "Yes, kids, Big Brother isn't just a TV show... LOL

Some people actually seem offended when they find out that someone is a big reader, like the fact that you read a lot is somehow insulting to eve..."

I just hit them with my book.

Just had some homemade crockpot hot chocolate and it was delicious. Got the recipe off the frugal girls website. :-)

Michael wrote: "I just hit them with my book."

LOL Good strategy! A little hard on the book, though. ;)

hey all! :) how's everyones reading going?