MobileRead Book Challenges discussion

Is it 2017 already???? LOL

So. While it is early, we decided it would be a GREAT idea to start working on our 2017 Group Challenge. In order to make another challenge that works for everyone, we want everyone to join in and help create it!

Homeinmyshoes will be the Challenge Czar for 2017 and will post some of the pertinent items we will need to make this happen.

List of Nominated Categories
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1) (*)(3) a book written by an author from Newfoundland (HomeInMyShoes)
2) (*)(2) a book first published in the year you graduated from high school (HomeInMyShoes)
3) (*)(1) a book you choose because of the cover (HomeInMyShoes)
4 (3) reread a favorite book you haven't reviewed and review it (MrsJoseph)
5 (2) a book with an orange cover (MrsJoseph)
6 (3) a book that reminds you of "home" (MrsJoseph)
7 (2) a book about music (HomeInMyShoes)
8 (1) a book that was banned (Orlok)
9 (3) a book that takes places over 24 hours or less (Orlok)
10 (1) a book about Zombies (Orlok)
11 (*)(2) a book you found at a garage sale (HomeInMyShoes)
12 (2) a non-fiction book about science (DoodlePanda)
13 (1) a book from the Goodreads recommendations page
14 (3) a book about a book (DoodlePanda)
15 (2) a book that takes places somewhere you've always wanted to visit (DoodlePanda)
16 (1) a book with a number in the title (DoodlePanda)
17 (1) a book you've put off reading for years even though you really do want to read it (Orlok)
18 (2) a book that takes place under the sea (DoodlePanda)
19 (3) a book with a character with your name (DoodlePanda)
20 (1) a pulp/noir book (HomeInMyShoes)
21 (1) a book that takes place on a boat (Christa)
22 (1) a book in which most of the main characters are retired (Christa)
23 (4) a book that takes place in in-land Florida excluding the Everglades (Christa)
24 (2) a book involving a hurricane (Christa)
25 (3) a book that involves going on a fun outing and getting lost (Christa)
26 (3) a haul of books: 2017 purchase; 3 or more books; < $5US (MrsJoseph)
27 (2) a book written by an author from Iceland (HomeInMyShoes)
28 (1) a book with at least two people on the cover (MrsJoseph)
29 (2) a book with a robot as the main character (MrsJoseph)
30 (1) a book written in the first person (MrsJoseph)
31 (2) a book from a pretentious or presumptuous list of books (HomeInMyShoes)
32 (2) a book with a season in the title (HomeInMyShoes)
33 (3) a book with a cover for every color in the standard 8-box of crayons (Nyssa)
34 (4) a book with a title beginning with every letter of the alphabet (Nyssa)
35 (3) a book based on another authors work (Dazrin)
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36 (2) a book about something I'm not supposed to be interested in (MrsJoseph)

Legend
(view spoiler)[
(*) - favorite selection
(#) - difficulty (1-easy; 2-moderate; 3-hard; 4-difficult; ?-unknown)
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Czar. Hmmmm. I like that. :P

Welcome to the MobileRead All Your Book are Belong to US reading challenge for 2017.

We have lots of ideas brewing for potentially what the final shape of the challenge will be. If you haven't looked at my thread in a while there ar esome ideas brewing for a chose your own adventure style or just plain categories or a maze you navigate or even potentially some sort of RPG where you advance your character in preparation for a final battle with Tyra Banks' Modelland. 570 pages of Tyra's writing. I almost attempted it this year for my book written by a celebrity. I ran.

The first thing we are going to need is categories to populate our challenge. Hopefully everyone interested can add some categories as the final challenge should be as crazy and wide-ranging as the people here. So a few rules to try and ensure that everyone gets a say in the categories:

1) only nominate up to five categories every week. This should give everyone a chance to pipe in with some of their own options
2) mark up to five of the categories you nominate as your favorites. In the unlikely event we have too many categories and need to do some trimming it would be nice to not trim all of the ones people really liked
3) if possible let us know how hard you think a category is. I know that finding a book from some place like Samoa is exceedingly difficult so I'd mark that as extreme whild finding a book from the United States is easy. I'm going to suggest the following scale: easy, moderate, hard, extreme, unknown

That's it, happy category hunting everyone. Just post them here when you think of them. We'll probably lift the category limits in a couple of weeks so that everyone gets a chance to get some in.

As czar I will happily add my first round of category nominations to give an example. Feel free to explain a category if it needs it.

I'd like to add the following categories:
- read a book written by an author from Newfoundland (moderate to difficult) (favorite)
- read a book first published in the year you graduated from high school (moderate) (favorite)
- read a book you choose because the cover is terrible (easy) (favorite)

-Re-Read a favorite book that you haven't reviewed and review it (easy)

-read a book with an orange cover (moderate)
- read a book that reminds you of "home" (difficult)

I'm going to say "a book that reminds you of home" is difficult. At least in concept. I think I'm going to like the discussions on why the book fits for that one a lot.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I'm going to say "a book that reminds you of home" is difficult. At least in concept. I think I'm going to like the discussions on why the book fits for that one a lot."

Yup! That's why I put "home" in quotation marks. I figure that everyone might have a different definition.

But I'm not sure if that's easy, moderate or difficult.

ETA - difficult

Agreed on difficult although that will depend on the reader. My moniker is probably going to make this either easier or harder to rationalize. :)

I'm trying not to use up all of my category nominations for this week so fast, but:

read a book about music (fiction or non-fiction). Probably between easy and moderate.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "read a book about music (fiction or non-fiction). Probably between easy and moderate.

I'd go with easy - there are so many books that feature music in a significant way. Unless you plan to make it more specific.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "Agreed on difficult although that will depend on the reader. My moniker is probably going to make this either easier or harder to rationalize. :)"

I figure that makes it easier for the rest of us... "This was written by an author from (insert most non-English speaking countries here), I've never read anything from there before...so it reminds me of Home(InMyShoes' challenge)!"

Not sure if I will join, I don't follow many things here, but I will keep track of this as things progress. I am doing the SFE challenge and tracking it at MR though, so I might do the same with this challenge.

^We will more than likely end up having a couple of options for the challenge and like all challenges it is about getting us to find books in different ways or off our beaten path.

And feel free to contribute to the category brainstorming even if you might not participate in full.

read a banned book - easy

read a book that takes place over a period of 24 hours or less - difficult

read a book about Zombies yay! :) - easy

Brainzzzz...

Zombies might be in the difficult range for me next year, but I agree with easy. I was thinking about spending the year not reading anything from the United States, Great Britain and even my own country of Canada.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "Brainzzzz...

Zombies might be in the difficult range for me next year, but I agree with easy. I was thinking about spending the year not reading anything from the United States, Great Britain and ..."

But there are so many different zombie books...it isn't a thing outside the US/UK/Canada?

Okay, it only took a couple of minutes to potentially find something, but you have to remember that I have an extremely minuscule book budget and something like a Zombie Crime Thriller in Belgium is probably going to end up costing me $20CDN to read. Unless of course my library has it and they do. My library is ridiculous some days. In a good way.

Challenges end up being as much about fiscal awareness and sequence planning for me than anything. It's why I really try to get ahead of the curve becuase I don't have the flexibility to just buy the title I need to finish something I have to find it from the library or go find a different title.

I guess limiting yourself to books outside of the United States, Great Britain and Canada is going to make the challenges more tricky to fulfil. I don't have any such restrictions, however :P

It just makes my searches more fun. I managed to find a new author, a Belgian crime writer today which I find really entertaining. Finding books has always been just as much fun as reading them for me.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "Okay, it only took a couple of minutes to potentially find something, but you have to remember that I have an extremely minuscule book budget and something like a Zombie Crime Thriller in Belgium i..."

That makes a lot of sense.

I also do a lot of library borrowing, though, so I know what you mean. I currently have 11 books out with 3 on reserve. O_o

I just don't have your discipline. :(

Plus I'm moody as all hell when it comes to reading. So. I do skip a lot of stuff if I can't get the book for free. If I feel the need to buy the book, I try to go used first. Here in the US I can get some used books with Amazon Prime so no shipping And people don't really value books so I could get them really cheap. (books as low as $0.01!!!!!) But without Prime the shipping cost is $3.99 so I'm a little more hesitant there.

I also do book sales like library sales and the Goodwill.

I'm very price sensitive (I've been told its cause I read romance) so I comparison shop + use coupons when possible.

And I just have to use up my last category nomination for this week:

a book you found at a garage sale (easy)

It's easy to find a book, probably hard to find a good one.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "And I just have to use up my last category nomination for this week:

a book you bought at a garage sale"

OMG. That's a great one. As long as other used sites are eligible it'll be easy for me, lol.

As with all categories it is up to the participant to decide how to interpret it. I changed it from bought to found so it's not so limiting to those who may have moved entirely to eBooks and refuse to read paper. For those of us that still read a lot of paper I am looking forward to perusing the cardboard boxes around my neighborhood this summer for something to read next year.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "And I just have to use up my last category nomination for this week:

a book you found at a garage sale (easy)

It's easy to find a book, probably hard to find a good one."

I would have to change that to super-difficult. We don't have garage sales in the UK :)

Maybe could include from a second-hand bookshop (charity shops here have lots of second-hand books, as does our local church from time-to-time)?

Orlok wrote: "Maybe could include from a second-hand bookshop (charity shops here have lots of second-hand books, as does our local church from time-to-time)? "

I'm totally doing this. There aren't enough people who read around me/here but there are lots of library sales and Goodwill sales.

OMG. I can take a trip to the main library branch and peruse. soe excited!!!!! I can hang out there for hours. I totally plan on stopping at any personal sales that I see, too.

I feel like a kid in a candy shop. :-D

What? No garage sales in the UK? Really? None of the joys of sifting through someone else's rubbish? It's like legalized snooping on your neighbors here.

I am willing to accept flea market or goodwill sale or even used bookshop. Whatever really. In the end, the participant can decide how to make that work. I'm just going for the spirit of the category.

I would be in the same boat if the category were "a book from a used bookstore" as the only one we had closed down last year and I would probably have to use library sale to fit that.

Orlok wrote: "HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I would have to change that to super-difficult. We don't have garage sales in the UK :)"

We could arrange a time I could text you with options I find at a garage sale and mail the book to you. :)

Cost of book $0.25CDN. Cost of shipping $20CDN. Lol.

lolol

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "Orlok wrote: "HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I would have to change that to super-difficult. We don't have garage sales in the UK :)"

We could arrange a time I could text you with options I find at a garag..."

Hahaha! That will do nothing for my budget!

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "What? No garage sales in the UK? Really? None of the joys of sifting through someone else's rubbish? It's like legalized snooping on your neighbors here.
"

Actually we have something called Car Boot Sales. A bunch of people take their cars to a field (they pay a fee for this) and then sell their unwanted stuff (junk) from the boot (trunk) of their car. I have never been to one of these events, and never will. But I guess that's the closest to a garage sale that we have in the UK.

Pretty much a flea market. Sounds cool to me.

So... I'm not a 100% with it at the moment, and just want to clarify...
Are we all suggesting themes for the challenge? A limited amount each?

We are all suggesting themes, but only five per week. I've used up my five this week, but I expect I'll have a few more for next week. So get them in now and starting on Monday you'll get another five to suggest.

I doubt we'll get a flood of themes, but I wanted to give people a few weeks of time before there was a huge flood.

Ok, cool :)

Read a non-fiction book about science - moderate
A book from the Goodreads Recommendations page - easy
A book about a book - difficult
A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit - moderate
Book with a number in the title - easy

I'm not sure of the difficulty of these...

Nice random selections. Lots of variety there.

I'll go with:

science: 2 (not everyone's favorite subject, but there's lots of books)
recommendations:1 (easy to turn on and easy to peruse to find something)
book about a book: 3
want to visit: 2
number in the title: 1 (I can think of a half dozen without even trying)

I've switched up one of my recommendations.

A book you chose because of the cover

Switched from a book with a terrible cover. I don't want people to actually have to read a terrible book, but if you have to read something because the cover just said read this book (for good or bad reasons) then that's what I'm aiming for. This one came from my year in the life challenge where I was searching for 1980 and I found . I had to read it. It said everything 1980 to me in a bad way and then reading the blurb and the fact that it was by one of the giants of classic Science Fiction (The Stars my Destination and The Demolished Man.) How could I not read it?

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I've switched up one of my recommendations.

A book you chose because of the cover

Switched from a book with a terrible cover. I don't want people to actually have to read a terrible book, but if ..."


LOVE It.

I have a book I bought just because the cover was...terrible. Amazingly terrible:

MrsJoseph wrote: "HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I've switched up one of my recommendations.

A book you chose because of the cover

Switched from a book with a terrible cover. I don't want people to actually have to read a ..."

Lol, that cover!! xD

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "Nice random selections. Lots of variety there.

I'll go with:

science: 2 (not everyone's favorite subject, but there's lots of books)
recommendations:1 (easy to turn on and easy to peruse to find ..."

Seems good :)

It's so red and angry.

lolol

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I've switched up one of my recommendations.

A book you chose because of the cover..."

Like it.

A book that you've been putting off for years, though you know you want to read it really.

Find ___ books at the library instead of buying new. (where I want "blank = 3")

Orlok wrote: "HomeInMyShoes wrote: "I've switched up one of my recommendations.

A book you chose because of the cover..."

Like it.

A book that you've been putting off for years, though you know you want to re..."

Good one!

Hmmm...what have I been putting off for years? Probably that last stupid book from Hitchhikers that I refuse to read because Douglas Adams didn't even write it, but the completion devil in my brain is saying just read it already.

MrsJoseph wrote: "Find ___ books at the library instead of buying new. (where I want "blank = 3")"

Can I mark that complete now? I'm pretty sure there is no number less than fifty you could put there that I wouldn't hit.

So... I guess we get 5 more suggestions now that it's a new week?

Here's a couple more from me:
A book that takes place under the sea - medium/difficult
A book where the main character has the same name as you - difficult?

That last one can be modified to one of the characters having the same name to make i easier I guess.

For sure. I'm just trying not to use all of mine up before mid-week.

HomeInMyShoes wrote: "For sure. I'm just trying not to use all of mine up before mid-week."

I don't have a very good imagination, so I'm not worried about running out :P