EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

Welcome to the EVERYONE Has Read This But Me Spelling Bee discussion thread! This thread is for general discussion and questions. If you want to post a book for the challenge or read the rules, please do so HERE

>>This is the first of three challenges that will take place in our Summer of Challenges! We know everyone has different schedules over the summer, so each challenge will last only one month. If you know you won't get a lot of reading done while you are on vacation in June, you can skip the Spelling Bee and join July and/or August's challenges.

>>Because we have a new team of moderators, we thought it would help to get to know us better if each mod picked a 'hidden treasure' book to start off the Spelling Bee. These are books we recommend that have under 100,000 ratings on Goodreads.

Joanna's recommendation:
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Classic)
Lily Bart is an aging debutante who is expected to marry well in the American Guilded Age. It is a book that might be described as the opposite of a Jane Austen novel, though exploring some of the same themes. Lily has all the outward appearance of the right attributes to succeed but there is a rebellious side to her that thwarts her goals. The House of Mirth is a tragic and heartbreaking story but a worthy read.

Tori's recommendation:
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal (Non-Fiction)
Primatologist, Franz De Waal, takes us through an eye opening history of human research into animal cognition, all the while taking a critical look at the experiments that have led us to believe that animals are not as smart as their human neighbors.
This book is packed with fun facts and extensive research into the brains of many different species. The best part is that you don't need a degree in biology to understand it, it is written in simple language which makes it accessible to a large audience. I could not put this book down. It was very interesting and I learned so much!

Catherine's recommendation:
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (Fantasy)
"Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. Yet Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live.
When Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart."
If you're looking for a witty, dramatic, and intense fantasy series to start, I highly recommend trying out Black Prism as Brent Weeks does an amazing job of not only developing his characters, but doing so while adding wit, humour, drama, and plenty of twists and turns.

Betsy's recommendation:
Night Flying by Rita Murphy (Young Adult)
Georgia Hansen, and all the women in her family, can fly. But, this comes at a price, and one held and controlled by her grandmother. Just before she takes her first ‘solo’ flight, her ostracized Aunt Carmen comes back to town and shakes everything up about what Georgia thought she knew.
Even though this is classified as YA, the themes are universally true throughout adult life: how to deal with authority and expectations, having the courage to find your place as an individual as well as in a group, and all the subtleties that come along with love and passion in general.
The most important point for me is that the author does not patronize her readers; in no way is the story dumbed down or sanitized.

I have one question: Are we going to apply the same rule that we use in the Alphabet Soup Challenge:

"6.2. Reading books in a language that is not English

> How you score the book is up to you.

> You can use the original title, the title of the translation from English you’re reading, or the translation into English of the original title, when there is one.

> Similar article rules ("The", "A") apply. Use the edition you actually read, and link to that one.

Example: “El Cuento de la Criada”, translated to Spanish from “The Handmaid's Tale” can count as “C” or “H”, depending on which edition you link to in your comment."

ok, but what about the first part when it says you decide how you score it

Example: I'll be reading La colina de Watership and instead of posting it like that, could I post it as Watership Down or do I have to post the specific language I actually read?

thanks!

Is there a specific format I should post books to in the challenge thread?

I think it would be cool to see how people rated their books.

That's a good idea NancyJ.

We thought of this discussion thread precisely so that we could talk about the books we've read for the challenge.

We can use this space to rate our books and recommend them.

Is that what you are meaning, or do you mean to have a quick-view star rating next to the book in the challenge itself?

E.g.

member post:

Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
5 June
5*

moderator post:

N- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (read by Betsy 5*)
I
G
H
T

Either or both! A quick start rating is nice to see which books people in the group liked (to check them out yourself), and perhaps to see which people liked the same books you did. If there is room for discussion here, that's great too. Thanks for including my * in the list.

Catherine wrote: "Robin - For this one as long as you can link to the book in some way, we won't be picky. We'll done on completing a book already!"

Yay! Thank you for clearing the confusion! :-)

So, NancyJ, to start off the discussion, tell us about Ordinary Grace and what made you give it such a high rating.

Question that I didn’t see answered anywhere in the rules - if two people read the same book, would it count towards additional instances of the letter in question? I ask because I just finished “The Mothers” by Brit Bennett and I see another challenge participant poster it! I anticipate this coming up a lot as we all begin to finish the general June book club books :)

Hello Alex, that's fine. You can go and put up The Mothers on the challenge thread and it will be counted.

We've completed our first title!

The Black Prism
Picking a random number between 1 and 13....12!

Our next title will be, The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl!

Cheryl, do you recommend reading The Space Merchants? What did you think of it?

Catherine wrote: "
What are you looking forward to reading this month?

I'm going to be reading And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini."

Aside from this month's BOTMs, I borrowed a copy of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame from the library. I remember being very fond of it during my childhood and am planning for a revisit after my finals are over.
I'm also reading and enjoying The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett at the moment—been hoping to read his work for a long time!

Speaking of Khaled Hosseini, I'm probably going to read The Kite Runner next month or in August, if I can squeeze it into my schedule. It's one of those books (again) I've heard of for such a long time (in this case, since elementary school) but never read before. :P

Sorry I have been slow updating this weekend!

We've finished our second title: The House of Mirth
randomly selecting a number between 1 and 15....5!

Our next title is a short one, Origin by Dan Brown! What did you think of it Kimberly?

I thought Origin was entertaining but I definitely prefer some of Dan Brown's other books (like Angels and Demons, The DaVinci Code, and Inferno). Origin was a bit predictable in the second half of the book. Ended up giving it 3 stars for being quite an average book.

Hello guys

I think my book in message 79 was missed mistakenly
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I see we are still missing Rs so it should help :D

Zainab wrote: "Hello guys

I think my book in message 79 was missed mistakenly
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I see we are still missin..."

I just took a look at the challenge thread, and I think it's the R in The Black Prism?
I might be wrong, though…

We're doing really well. We've finished our third title Night Flying and now on to our next title to complete. Randomly picking a number from 1 to 10... 7!
The Husband List was read by Michelle. Was it as fun as it looks?

This is such a fun challenge! It’s making me attack my tbr in a different pattern than I normally would :) but y’all keep beating me to my letters! Thanks to the mods for keeping it going ❤️

Great work everyone, we've finished our fourth title Origin (and very close to finishing the fifth and sixth titles-- keep going!)

Randomly picking a number from 1 to 10... 10!

Our next title is Wicked Gentlemen. Ivan, what did you think of this read?

We've finished our fifth and sixth titles Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? and The Space Merchants.

The two new titles to complete are Cannery Row and Old Man Odyssey.
Donna, was this your first Steinbeck novel?
What did you think of this quirky read, Satrina?

This is my first time participating in this kind of challenge. Since we are at the end of June, is it worthwhile to post a completed book that would just add to the extra letters? It would be a W title, and there are already plenty of those...

Will July come with brand new titles to work on? Or will the current titles we have been working on in June “rollover?” I have my eye on a book whose title begins with E, but it’s a little ways down on my list (a couple other books I’ve committed to for other book clubs/groups).

Thanks for creating this challenge! I like having another angle from which to tackle my TBR list!

Love your enthusiasm Kathi. Really glad you feel engaged by this challenge's idea.
If you want more of this type of spelling challenge, we do have a year-long run Alphabet Soup Challenge that is similar in style.

This summer we are doing 3 month-long challenges, this being the first one.
At the end of June (tonight!) the Spelling Bee Challenge will finish. There won't be new titles nor a rollover of the old ones.
But don't worry! You will have plenty chances to get involved with the other two challenges coming up, starting tomorrow with the July Genre Games.

Hi Betsy. Thanks for the clarification. I’ll be ready to try to shift gears for July then!

Thank you to everyone who got involved in this challenge.
We finished our seventh and final title The Husband List thanks to Kelb's contributions.

Now this challenge is over, we'd love to hear your feedback. What worked/didn't work for you? Did you find the idea enjoyable? Do you have any suggestions or things we should take into consideration when planning a similar challenge?

Thanks!

Betsy wrote: "What did you think of this quirky read, Satrina?"

Sorry, I hadn't seen this message. Well, it was an entertaining science fiction story about a man and his cyborg son on a quest in a really inhospitable planet but I felt there was a lot going on and the book had a lot of grammar and style mistakes, so this one wouldn't be a book I'd recommend.

I forgot to say that I really liked this challenge and wouldn't mind seeing it repeated on some other month.

this was a fun challenge!

It was fun to try to find books to match letters needed to finish a word. I enjoyed quite a few books that I probably would not have read if I was not participating in this challenge. Thanks again