Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Hello Team 4! Welcome to your 3rd read-a-thon of 2018! This topic is just for you to discuss your strategy and progress throughout the week. Make sure to take a moment to read over the rules of the challenge here before you dive in.

Team Roster:
Laura (mod)
Emily
Tammy
Liz
Samantha
Joan
Michelle
Ana A
Samantha
Hilde
Jody

BOARD ONE - FINISHED!!

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Note: Tasks with a 🍁can be overlapped with the other tasks

BOARD TWO

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✔1. Read 3,000 pages total (max 500 pages per team member)🍁
✔2. Read a book with trees or a plant on the cover
3. Complete 30 books total (max 4 per team member)🍁
✔4. Read a book with a red cover
✔5. Read a book that fits a “reject” prompt
✔6. Read 5,000 pages total (max 1,000 pages per team member)🍁

7. Every team member shares a favorite book to movie adaptation
✔8. Read a book with a child/elderly main character
✔9. Read 7,500 pages total (max 1,500 pages per team member)🍁
✔10. Read a romance book (or a book with a romance element)
✔11. Read a book that you borrowed from the library
✔12. Read a book with F-A-L-L in the title
13. Read 10 picture or children’s books (3 per member)

✔14. Listen to 30 hours of audiobook (max 5 hours per team member)🍁
✔15. Listen to 45 hours of audiobook (max 9 hours per team member)🍁
✔16. Read a comic book or graphic novel
✔17. Complete every readathon game (Wednesday through Monday)
✔18. Read a book set in a country different from your own

✔19. Read a book with a beautiful cover
✔20. Read a non-fiction book
✔21. Finish a book or story in one sitting 🍁
✔22. Read 6 books that count for the AtY challenge (max 2 per member)🍁
23. Every team member participates in the 2019 list making process
24. Complete 40 books total (max 8 per team member)🍁

Yay Team 4! I'm really excited about these prompts. They look difficult enough to keep us challenged, but still accomplishable.

I'm starting A Visit from the Goon Squad tonight, so I can commit to #21: A book with a female main character. It will also count as an ATY challenge book (Women's Prize nominee).

Exciting, the gameboard looks like a lot of fun! :)

I have just started Med livet foran seg (The Life Before Us) that can fit a number of prompts, for instance:
- letters R E A D in title
- authorn born before 1950
- author published at least ten books
- orange cover (the cover on my edition is not available at GR unfortunatly, but it looks like this: Cover
- published in language different than English (originally in French: La vie devant soi)
- Reading for ATY

Looking forward to starting tomorrow, I am a bit behind, so this will be a good chance to try to catch up a bit!

Emily, since you are the queen of excels, maybe we need one to keep track, what do you think?

Hilde wrote: "Exciting, the gameboard looks like a lot of fun! :)

I have just started Med livet foran seg (The Life Before Us) that can fit a number of prompts, for instance:
- let..."

Haha! I can certainly set one up! I'll poke around on some of the previous challenges and see what they did and put something together. I haven't been in a group that's used a spreadsheet, so if you have any suggestions or changes, let me know.

Great! Here is one example that Marina set up for our team for the first read-a-thon this year: Example Pink Team

Here's what I put together! I have it for View Only right now, and I will update it as people post (unless you want to handle it, Laura, since you are the mod).

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

Wow, you are fast! Looks great :)

Hilde wrote: "Wow, you are fast! Looks great :)"

I'm off work for the weekend and really enjoying my chair and my glass of wine haha!

Ah, nice - perfect Friday evening. Mine consisted of the same, except that it is almost over now (European time zone), so off to bed soon.

Looks like we have two Samantha's if someone can change one on the spreadsheet to Sam I can use that one.

Looking forward to a week of fun reading and games!

Changed it, Sam!

I was trying to figure out how to differentiate and I was about to go with Samantha (Kitten) and Samantha (Yoga) 😂🤷🏻‍♀️. This way is better.

I'll plan out some books tonight to work on throughout the read-a-thon. I'm excited to get some extra reading in! I just hope my husband doesn't hate me during this. haha!

Go ahead & put me down for #8: published in August or September of any year.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon - this one should be a fairly fast read for me.

I'm also finishing up The Hate U Give, which will count for #13. I still have most of the book to read.

Liz hahaha. I sent my husband fishing tomorrow, so I have allllll day on the couch with my books.

I'll add it as pending on the spreadsheet. Just post when you finish it and how many pages it was (or hours, if you're listening).

The Girl Who Drank the Moon could also go under #19 if needed.

Emily wrote: "Liz hahaha. I sent my husband fishing tomorrow, so I have allllll day on the couch with my books.

I'll add it as pending on the spreadsheet. Just post when you finish it and how many pages it was ..."

Will do. I'm also hoping my kids will give me some peace. haha!

PSA: If y'all want to post your planned reads, I'll add them in light blue to the spreadsheet, and when you say that you've finished it, I'll turn it to black text and mark a prompt as done! For all of the books, just say which prompts work for the book your on, and we can figure out what to pick for which prompt from there.

Also, when you finish a book, make sure you post how many pages you've read and/or hours you've spent listening to the audiobooks so we can track that as well.

Laura, I hope it's ok that I'm doing all this! I totally don't mean to step on your mod toes, and if you want to take over the spreadsheeting, you're more than welcome to.

How many pages or what percentage of a book do you need to have left in order to count it for the prompts?

I think they said as long as you have 100 pages left, you can count it.

I checked out Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 on audio, so I'll try to start tomorrow and plow through it this weekend. That's one for non fiction. I've been struggling with The Eyre Affair and am at the 50 page mark. I should be able to knock that one out for sci-fi/fantasy. I have about 20 books checked out right now so I can try to fill in some gaps! Good luck, team 4!

I have 103 pages left of A Time to Kill. Does this count as an orange cover?
If so, I won't read anymore of it until tomorrow.

Tammy wrote: "I checked out Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 on audio, so I'll try to start tomorrow and plow through it this weekend. That's one for ..."

Bleh. I hated The Eyre Affair! It had so much promise, but I just did not like it at all. I understand your struggles with that one.

Liz wrote: "I have 103 pages left of A Time to Kill. Does this count as an orange cover?
If so, I won't read anymore of it until tomorrow."

Liz, I'd say that definitely counts as an orange cover. I'll check with the mods to make sure I'm correct on the 100 page rule!

Emily wrote: "Liz wrote: "I have 103 pages left of A Time to Kill. Does this count as an orange cover?
If so, I won't read anymore of it until tomorrow."

Liz, I'd say that defin..."

If I'm already too far into the book, I'll just finish it tonight. I'm dying to know what happens! haha

Tammy & Emily, I had a hard time with The Eyre Affair as well. It has good reviews, but I think I gave it 2*. I was personally not a fan.

Liz wrote: "Emily wrote: "Liz wrote: "I have 103 pages left of A Time to Kill. Does this count as an orange cover?
If so, I won't read anymore of it until tomorrow."

Liz, I'd ..."

Girl, go ahead and finish that book! There will be other books with orange covers that will be read!

Emily wrote: "Changed it, Sam!

I was trying to figure out how to differentiate and I was about to go with Samantha (Kitten) and Samantha (Yoga) 😂🤷🏻‍♀️. This way is better."

Thanks for updating!!

You’re totally fine, Emily. I’m actually traveling this weekend so it’s really helpful to have the extra hand. I can update the main board as we mark off squares though.

I haven't completely decided what I'm going to read this week. I'm actually off this week and should be able to read a lot.

I have to finish up The Last Town
Thinking about reading The Haunting of Hill House
Ironically they both seem to be orange covers.

The Last Town could count for a book a part of a series #12 or #10 an author that has published at least 10 books. It would also count for a thriller #18. I still have 200 pages of it left to read.

The Haunting of Hill House could count for #4 or #7.

I'll have to plan out what else to read.

Hill House could be a thriller, too. It's a pretty quick, fun read.

I’m currently reading Siege and Storm so that could count for 12,13, or 19.

Good morning, team 4! It's officially Saturday morning where I am, and breakfast is in the making.

I have decided to listen to The Sense of an Ending for my next audio, will probably start it later this weekend. It can count towards number 7 or 10. I'm excited for this book, so many people seems to like it 😊

Good morning Team 4! It's Saturday morning here too - hi Hilde! - and I'm drinking my tea (I'm trying to get off coffee ... a week and counting and everyone is still alive, so I count that as a win). Getting ready to start the weekend and read! We've finally got some relief from the heatwave we've had here (thankfully I wasn't here for most of it, but the apartment was SO hot and stuffy when I got back, thanks to the weeks of heat), so it's perfect reading weather.

I'm currently working on A Room of One's Own which I should finish today. It could count for 7, 20 & 22 (as I'm reading it for my AtY challenge. I'm also listening to Dad Is Fat, so I should be able to contribute some hours to our audio challenge.

Hello, Team 4!

I'm currently reading Shadow and Bone and will most likely finish it tomorrow. It could fall under any of these:

12. Read a book that is part of a series
13. Read a children’s or young adult book
19. Read a fantasy or sci-fi book
21. Read a book with a female main character
22. Read 3 books that count for the AtY challenge🍁 (1 of 3)

You can put mine down for series since it's the only blank one according to the spreadsheet, and as an overlap for #22, AtY challenge since I'm reading it for book with a body part in the title. :)

Edit: I only took a good look at the spreadsheet now and noticed that the titles repeated for every possible category that it could fall under, which is a good idea to better adjust to what the other members are reading.

Jody wrote: "Good morning Team 4! It's Saturday morning here too - hi Hilde! - and I'm drinking my tea (I'm trying to get off coffee ... a week and counting and everyone is still alive, so I count that as a win..."

Quitting coffee, that's ambitious, lol. Good luck:)

I'm so glad the heatwave we've had this summer is over. Three full months with 30 degrees and sun every day was waaaay too much for me, not used to it being from the north! It was a real struggle to sleep inside the apartment, so, so hot!! (Lovely outside when I was off work though). Now we're back to 18/19 degrees and sun, much better :)

I started the morning with a nice pot of tea and reading a beautiful poem from Charles Bukowski. Thought I should share it with you:

the bluebird (Bluebird)
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whisky on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.

then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

• Charles Bukowski

Also, just completed one of the games (The Kick Off).

Good morning! I was up all night with food poisoning (blegh), so it looks like a long couch day with lots of crackers and gatorade and reading and naps is on my agenda.

I'll update the spreadsheet now!

Emily wrote: "Good morning! I was up all night with food poisoning (blegh), so it looks like a long couch day with lots of crackers and gatorade and reading and naps is on my agenda.

I'll update the spreadsheet..."

Hope you feel better!

Joan wrote: "Emily wrote: "Good morning! I was up all night with food poisoning (blegh), so it looks like a long couch day with lots of crackers and gatorade and reading and naps is on my agenda.

I'll update t..."

Thanks Joan! Spreadsheet is updated!

Just a reminder that we all need to post a recommendation and read a poem.

I recommend The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir. It was surprising and subversive and the main character (Essie) is just a kick-ass teenage girl who is willing to go to great lengths to get out of her situation. I flew through it!

I can read a short story. I’ve been reading Lauren Groff’s short story collection, Florida. The short story I will read is called Yport.

Michelle wrote: "I can read a short story. I’ve been reading Lauren Groff’s short story collection, Florida. The short story I will read is called Yport."

Great!

I've read 100 pages

Got it!

I just came across this poem on Facebook, posted by one of my student's parent who dropped her off at college today. I thought it just so lovely.

On Children
by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Lovely poem, Emily - thanks for sharing :)

Hope you are feeling better today, I've only been food poisoned once, but I thought it was over... not fun!

I just finished The Last Town.

I would recommend this series to anyone that likes thrillers. It starts with Pines. I read Pines a couple of years ago. I don't know why it took me so long to read the other two.

- can count for orange cover, thriller, part of a series.

Day 1: Tammy's Saturday Afternoon Update

1) I've read 100 pages of The Eyre Affair.
2) I've read several poems from a book titled "The Lords and the New Creatures" by Jim Morrison.
3) I've listed to my two hour max audio book "Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy"

Coming soon:
- I plan to read a short story once I finish one of my books.
- I believe I'll be able to do my 5 hours of audio today.
- More to come, gang!