Play Book Tag discussion

We are down to the last month of 2019 (!!) and it is time to start looking forward to our 2020 reading year. Including our official PBT Challenges!

So, what do the admins have in store for you for the coming year?

The Surprise Challenge!
This year, the moderators have hand-crafted one of the challenges. For now, it is remaining a secret, but you have already started helping us with the planning process by suggesting tags for each state.

We'll officially announce the surprise challenge when we announce the other challenge that you all will vote on! Which, brings us to....

The Challenge Voted On By YOU!
The second challenge will be vote on by you. Please review the descriptions of the challenge options below, and then rank your top choices at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y7JHSJN. Your top choice should receive a "1" ranking, second choice a "2" ranking, and so on. You must rank all of the options.

Every member can rank the options! No Participation Points necessary to do the initial ranking. The top vote getter will be our second official PBT Challenges for 2020.

You will also see in the survey that, in case of a tie, you can cast up to 10 Participation Points for your #1 ranked option. Go ahead and fill that in now but if there is no tie or the tie does not include your top ranked option, then your Participation Points will not be used.

Need a reminder of how many participation points you currently have? Check out the spreadsheet. Please be sure that you do not cast more votes than you have.

Voting will remain open until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Saturday, December 14th.

Questions about any of these? Feel free to ask!

Note for voting transparency: The admins will also be voting as well. And, while we do not actually accrue Participation Points, we are gifting ourselves 10 points each to be able to use on the tie-breaker. We are guessing no one will have objections to this....

Now, on to the challenges!

PBT NFL (Non-fiction Linking) ***New Challenge Option***

Members will sign up to play this challenge and the admins will randomly order them. The first person will read a non-fiction book to start off this challenge, and then the next person will read a non-fiction book that links to the previous one. Then, the third reader must link their book to the second, etc. The links between the books do not all have to be the same and we encourage you to get creative!

A link could be any other person or topic referenced in the first book. Or it could be a book by the same author or with the same word in the title or written in the same year or winner of the same prize or narrated by the same person—you get the idea. A member can be as creative as they want with identifying the links, but they need to specify how each connects to the next.

All players will earn Participation Points for how long your chain is! You will need to commit to reading your book in two weeks from the time the previous review is posted. If this option is selected, we will provide more details on scoring, how members can be added later in the year, and how we will handle members who no longer want to play.

PBT's Keeping Up With the GoodRead-ians ***New Challenge Option***

Each year, PBT members are often surprised that they have not read more of the GoodReads Awards books. So, let's remedy that! The GoodReads Awards have been given for 11 years (2007-2019) and you can navigate to each of the lists through this link: https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward... (You'll see the years listed on the left).

The goal of this is to read 10 books associated with the GoodReads Awards, and you can do this in one of two ways:
• Read each of the GoodReads Awards category winners in a single year of your choice.
• Pick a category and read the winner from each year of the GoodReads Awards.

You will earn 10 Participation Points for completing the challenge, but you can complete it more than once using different GoodReads Awards categories!

PBT Decade Bingo ***New Challenge Option***

The admins will make BINGO cards for each person who signs up. We will assign random years to each card so that each square has a year. B will have random years from 1970-1979, I 1980-1989, etc. through O.

Every two weeks, we will announce a randomly selected year. If that year is on your card, then you then read a book that was originally published that year. Once you post your review, then you get to fill in that square! Participation points will be awarded for different BINGO configurations.

For this one, you do not have to read a book for the year as soon as it is announced and you do not have to read every single year that is announced. You can be strategic if you like!

Long Book Challenge ***Revisiting an Old Favorite***

Read one long book a quarter. What is a long book? A book that is 600 pages or more. But, if you REALLY challenge yourself, then you'll get more participation points!

600-650 pages - 1 point
651-700 pages - 2 points
701-750 pages - 4 points
751-800 pages - 6 points
801-850 pages - 7 points
851-900 pages - 9 points
901-1000 pages - 15 points
>1000 pages - 25 points

Plus 5 bonus points if it fits the tag for any of the 3 months of the quarter.

So exciting. Great ideas.

I voted.

Voted...and it was a tough call-these are all great and I had a hard time deciding on the top 2~Much thanks Mods for all the hard work.....and I am shaking with anticipation for the SURPRISE!!!!

Very creative! I really need to think about these before I vote. They all appeal to me.

I'm excited by the surprise challenge. I'm sure I'd enjoy any of the challenges we can vote on and as much as I dislike the year tags the Bingo challenge sounds interesting.

I voted. Interesting choices - we are very lucky our Mods have so much creativity!!

First and fourth place choices were easy, but I'd be happy with most of these.

Note for Outlander fans considering the long book challenge. The official page numbers for some books in the series might be much lower than the edition you read.

For instance, Echo in the Bone, has editions with 830 to 1184, and takes a whopping 45 hours on audio. So you could earn (6-9?) points rather than 25 for the longest version.

@Nicole R - The 800-850 page range is missing from the chart.

These all sound fun! I particularly love the NFL challenge, very cool.

Applauding all of the hard work out incredible PBT mods put in every year. All of these sound fun!

Hi Nancy, we did not put any restrictions on the page count for the Long Book Challenge, so your statement is not accurate. When we have a special requirement, then we are sure to state it!

We tend to be more flexible when it is a personal challenge where your page count does not impact others. The Long Book Challenge is totally individual and your points and reading do not influence the points and reading of others.

This is unlike the Trim challenge this year where we gave points for most pages read in a quarter, thereby necessitating a standardized method for page count to keep it fair. I am betting this is the basis of your assumption, which is quite rational given that it is likely the only PBT Challenge you have been here for with a page count component. But, that challenge was more the exception for us than the norm.

For the Long Book Challenge, if it is selected in 2020, you would be able to report the number of pages in the edition that you read. Also, if you listen to the audiobook, you would have the option of reporting the number of pages in the print edition. I tend to count the edition that I most likely would have read if I had not listened to it on audio, but, again, that could be up to the individual person.

Thanks for the heads up on the page range! I will fix that now! I will throw in a new 801-850 page range that will be worth 7 participation points.

That was relatively easy in that two are much more suited to how I like to read now than the other two; if one I am not interested in wins, I'll pass and think about the surprise one :) :) :). I am probably still going to be reading very close to the rebellious reader theme I've had this year. I've read a few books I dislike, but not nearly as many.

BUT, if all goes according to hopeful planning I may be up for more challenging reading lists by 2021.

Nicole R wrote: "Hi Nancy, we did not put any restrictions on the page count for the Long Book Challenge, so your statement is not accurate. When we have a special requirement, then we are sure to state it!

We ten..."

That's great news. Thanks.

Questions:

On the NFL - I see that each person has two weeks to read the book from the time the previous person posts their review, but how much lead time will we have to select and obtain the book before that? Will we know the order of the line at the start? Or at least know that we will be next at bat (sorry I'm mixing my sports).

Since we're rewarded based on the length of the chain, can I assume we're encouraged to collaborate and help one another by sharing preferred books from the beginning? Will we have multiple teams working on their own chains? That could be fun.

On Bingo, is speed a factor? e.g. the first person to complete a line gets bonus points? Personally I'd rather take my time, but it's also fun to yell BINGO!

On the gr Awards - This is the least attractive to me because the gr awards are decided too early in my opinion, and it would be hard to pick a year with 10 books I haven't read. I'd rather have a choice to read the nominees, but that's just me.

NFL—we’ll have the person before you post their book title as soon as they know what it is so you will have 1-3 weeks lead time most likely, depending on the speed of the reader in front of you. We’ll also likely post the order in advance so you at least know where in the chain you are.

Bingo—speed is a bonus factor. We will not stop when the first person gets bingo but the first person will be a bonus prize.

GR awards—it is not just this year’s awards, it is all years. Also, we realize that many people have read at least some of the books. If this option is selected, there will be additional details when we make the official announcement.

Back to NFL—I guess really people could plan farther in advance if they wanted. Theoretically, once the first person selects their book the whole chain could plan at that point.

However, that will NOT be a requirement and people are free to change their mind up until their time to start reading. If strings of reader choose to plan in advance then they are free to.

Nicole R wrote: "Bingo—speed is a bonus factor. We will not stop when the first person gets bingo but the first person will be a bonus prize."

Perfect. I really like the time flexibility of the Bingo game. I have at least one book on my To Read shelf for every year from 1970-2019, except for 1975. That's one advantage to a large tbr!

NFL - If we have teams, I suppose we could arrange to skip over someone who is unavailable (having a baby, traveling, etc.), and move them back in the rotation?

Will you have any more information on point potential for some of the options before the deadline?

Thanks!

Hmmm. Not sure how to vote. Will have to give this some thought.
And there is the complication of my existing commitment to reading the full Proust Remembrance of Things Past as part of a monthly discussion group through June. Since it is multiple volumes with independent books within each, all long, the Long Book Challenge seems an easy fit...depending how the reading for discussion group falls.

I am not much of a NF reader...don't have many in my TBR Towers which I strive to shrink with these challenges.

As for Keeping up with GR - not me. Very few of the books I haven't read are books I actually want to read and/or are in my TBR Towers which I strive to shrink using these challenges.

Harrump. Maybe I should look at this again when I am less cranky after dinner.

I voted. Great job on a variety of challenges, admins! I have a couple of favorites, but like the varying possibilities in all of them, so didn't offer up any points in case of a tie, because I'll enjoy participating in any of the above.

And very much looking forward to the reveal of the surprise challenge!

I have really enjoyed the Trim TBR and Horizons challenges this year, and have almost sorta kept up with them ;) But admit that each one being a book a month in addition to the PBT Tag and F2F book made for a lot of commitments each month, so I like the fact that some of the above challenges are quarterly, or a relay team, or don't have a specific timeline. Very cool! :)

Fun to get a say in the choice! Very creative ideas, thanks! Oh and I absolutely love surprises.

I'm excited about voting for our new year! I've been so absent lately but am planning a great comeback for the beginning of 2020. I had already planned on a year of not setting myself a set amount of books, and getting to a few of those tomes that I avoid because they slow me down. The long book challenge is perfect for me!

So the NFL Challenge is completed once you have read your book?
You only need to read one book for this challenge for the whole year?
That's not going to lower my TBR pile by much!! ;-)

Voted. My #1 went to the challenge guaranteed to diminish most books from my TBR Towers. My #2 went to the one that fits certain existing reading commitments for 2020. I put at #3 the one that could be good for me and #4 is the one I really do NOT want to do.

I a lso didn't throw any extra votes for a tiebreaker...deciding to let the results be whatever happens.

I voted. Sounds like the challenges will be a lot of fun!

NFL—there are no teams, it is just one big group! And we will keep cycling through the lineup throughout the year, so how many books you read will depend on how many people sign up and how quickly they read.

When people sign up, if there are a ton of people, then we may consider splitting into more than one group but they would not compete against each other. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

We do not have a Participation Points estimate for each of the challenges, but they will all be roughly the same. You should vote based on the challenge you are most interested in...

Voted......I can't wait to see what the winner is. I'm really looking forward to the surprise challenge based on the tag suggestions too. The Admins of PBT are amazing!

We are so glad you all are excited!! We love planning challenges and watching them progress over the year. They are fun and, I have to admit, it is a high bar to surpass the popularity of Trim and Horizons this year—those were hits!!

Voted. Looks like all will be fun.

Nicole R wrote: "GR awards—it is not just this year’s awards, it is all years. Also, we realize that many people have read at least some of the books. If this option is selected, there will be additional details wh..."

Oh, good, this makes that one much easier :)

All great options - they made it really hard to choose. And thanks so much for all the effort and energy to make these challenges such a lot of fun!

Three cheers for our awesome admins!

It's so hard to decide!

I'd like to get caught up on the Outlander series, so the long read challenge is very tempting. I don't have many at the richly rewarded 1000+ page level (25 points), but quite a few at the lower end.

The 600-700 page books are worth only 1 or 2 points. If we read two or three of them in a quarter, would they all count? (At their individual point levels. I'm not asking if two 600 page books would yield 25 points.)

Long Book Challenge—the admin’s will discuss and get back to you whether you can read more than one long book a quarter.

The goal of the challenge is to pick up that really long book you have been avoiding because of its daunting length! For some people, 600 pages may be daunting, for other, 1300 may be. So it defeats the purpose of the challenge a bit if you can simply read a bunch of books at a length that you are comfortable with and can easily get through.

I have another question about the long reads. It wasn’t my first choice, but just curious:
What’s the judgement about audio books?
Would they be equal to the printed books? (For me for example it’s much much easier to get through 1000 pages book as audio)

Regardless
You guys are absolutely awesome!
Loved this year’s challenges, love the new ones, and loved the decathlon from last year

Long Book Challenge—I think my comment about audiobooks is buried in the discussion above...

Yes, you would get the equivalent page count for the audio you listen to. I mentioned that I often use the page count in my personal tracking of the edition that I would have been most likely to read if I hadn’t listened to it on audio.

And I do not know about you, but it takes me longer to listen to a book than it would to read it! Lol. So you definitely get the page counts! And, it would be interesting so have you list how long the audio was too...

I do the LBC personally every year (CRUSHED it this year thanks to Harry Potter. Lol) so whether or not this is the official challenge, I will definitely be doing it again. AND, I think I am going to get to the next Outlander Book, Echo in the Bone, on audio! It feels like it is time...

Sorry I must have missed it

It might take me longer to listen, but it’s definitely easier for me :)
I tend to do few long reads anyways and will read some next year.
(This year I just listened to ‘The way of kings’ and ‘Words of Radiance’. Both over 1000
Next year I’m planning on Dickens ...
I just prefer other challenges (the bingo - not surprisingly)

No worries! There is a lot of action on this thread so it is easy to not see every single post! Lol.

I don’t know that audio is easier for me per se. It is certainly easier to fit in time for it because I can listen while doing other things, but I have to concentrate to stay focused and there are many times that I truly hate that I cannot flip through the pages to refresh my memory about what had happened with a certain character.

For me they each have their pros and cons and I enjoy each for their own reasons! I am most looking forward to the next Outlander on audio because I hear the narrator is phenomenal.

One day I might join you guys and check out this Outlander (took me ages to realise it’s not the same thing as Highlander)

Speaking of good narrator - Lyn Manuel Miranda is doing a cool job with The Brief and Wondrous life or Oscar Wao

Circling back to Nancy's question about the Long Book Challenge--

You can read more than one book a quarter for points just as Nancy described. For example, you can read two 600 page books and get one participation point each. You CANNOT add the pages of multiple books together to get more pages and more points (which Nancy explicitly stated was not her intent, but I wanted to reiterate it).

Basically you get points for pages per book, not total pages in books over 600 pages each quarter. If that confused you, just ignore it! lol

The baseline goal for the challenge will remain one book per quarter. So, if you want to participate but do not want it to dominate your reading, then you can still just aim for that!

Are you a slower reader and have a 1200 page book that you have been putting off but know that it will take you the better part of a year to complete? Dive into it! There is no requirement that you MUST read one book a quarter.

Nicole-With regard to the longs book-What about a complying of 2-3 books into one addition-specifically I have The Castings Trilogy (3 books) and The Once and Future King (4 books)-on my shelf, as shown in the threads-with all the books in one edition(I also have these additions on my real life shelf-)

You know I hate non-fiction (hate us too strong a word), and yet I voted for it first! The truth is, because of this group I have read so many really good nonfiction’s that I never thought I would love or enjoy. There are many of them sitting on my TBR, that I always hope the challenges would bring me to. I think it would be really fun to try to pick a challenge that leads to force pick something that will give me an opportunity to read them. I would even knock off a few of them this upcoming year depending on how long the chain is and where I’m at in it. Crazy, I even added three nonfiction books to my TBR last night.

Having hovered around PBT for a while now, there are certain challenges that some of us have been excited about that never got picked and are still have strong interest. NFL linking is one, and the long book is the other. I think I even put that second. I get daunted. Column of Fire is still on my list and it’s 1000 pages. I think if it weren’t for wanting to finish all the challenges every month I would be a little less frightened of Long Books. I read gone with the wind with this group, as well as the invisible bridge last year. But I also know myself, if the long book challenge wins, it might be about Kate Morton and Lucinda Riley. I’m pretty sure I put bingo fourth. Only because maybe I didn’t read closely and voted really quickly, but it all just felt too complicated to me. Like if it becomes the challenge I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I guess I just wanted to say having been here just a couple years, that whatever it is, you guys are going to love it and get into it. I’ve always been surprised at how much I have enjoyed the opportunity to grow myself, and whatever it is we’re all going to have a good time, and we’re all going to have a good time together!

Nicole R wrote: "Long Book Challenge—the admin’s will discuss and get back to you whether you can read more than one long book a quarter.

The goal of the challenge is to pick up that really long book you have bee..."

Well, I like to get more points for a 1300 page book than a 600 page book :) It takes a lot longer to do the first! There are a few very long books I have been putting off.

Joanne wrote: "Nicole-With regard to the longs book-What about a complying of 2-3 books into one addition-specifically I have The Castings Trilogy (3 books) and [book:The Once and Future King|43545..."

If Long Book Challenge is the official challenge voted on, then we will answer more specific questions like this at that time.

AJ wrote: " The bingo sounds fun but also maybe a bit hard to track.."

Luckily, the admins are in charge of tracking and, if that one wins, I have a plan....lol

Karin wrote: "There are a few very long books I have been putting off.."

This always happens to me too! I get caught up in reading for the tag every month and doing other challenges that have a monthly component, so I like that this challenge untethers from that a bit and gives me permission to pick up that long book that I know will take me 6 weeks to get through!

Nicole R wrote: "Karin wrote: "There are a few very long books I have been putting off.."

This always happens to me too! I get caught up in reading for the tag every month and doing other challenges that have a mo..."

Now the B I N G O song is him my head for some reason. I wonder if Amy or anyone else her knows how ear worms happen.

If we go by the monthly tag vote logic that the most talked-about selection often loses the vote, can we please stop talking about the long book challenge?

(I'm kidding. Mostly.)

Karin wrote: "Nicole R wrote: "Karin wrote: "There are a few very long books I have been putting off.."

This always happens to me too! I get caught up in reading for the tag every month and doing other challeng..."

Well, thanks for that Karin....now It's in my head (or ear) too!

Hebah wrote: "If we go by the monthly tag vote logic that the most talked-about selection often loses the vote, can we please stop talking about the long book challenge?

(I'm kidding. Mostly.)"

LOL!

I think a personal version of NFL has been an option the past few years (a personal chain, instead of a group chain). Every year it's an option I choose it and throw points at it. Historically it has never won, but my fingers are crossed for this year!

Mod's are always so creative, I love seeing the options, and I'm so impressed with what you guys come up with.

I've voted. And very curious what the states and tags will have to do with the surprise challenge!