Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Team POP



• Judy (Captain)
• Christina (Co-Captain)
• Aoife (Co-Captain)
• Christene Paula
• keli
• Alyana
• Robin
• Sanz


Challenge Status Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Team Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

.

WHEELATHON 8


⏰ COUNTDOWN TO START: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Word round 1: VUVUZELA
Color round 1: GREEN

📝 PLANNING SPREADSHEET: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
📈 OFFICIAL SPREADSHEET: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
📊 ALL TEAMS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...



ℹ️ The basics

- Starts on 7 October and runs for TEN weeks (ending 16 December)
- Start / end time for each round: 9pm UK time
- Each round is 2 weeks.
- Each round the mods will “spin the wheel" and assign each team a word
- The team's task is to read books to spell out the word, gaining points per letter tiered by the book length (see below)


‼️ Rules

- Minimum 100 pages.
- Audio books are allowed. For page numbers, use the "default" GR book page numbers.
- Books with MPGs Childrens / Kids / Poetry / Play / Graphic Novel / Illustrated / Photography / Art (or which have "Illustrated" in the title or an "Illustrator" contributor in the metadata) must have at least 30,000 words (arbookfind)/ audiobook over 3 hours (audible).
- Any book in any language will count.
- "Re-reads" are allowed, if it has been six months since you have read the book.
- Only books read during the specified round can be used ("read date" is what counts, not the day you start.) Books cannot be "banked" from previous rounds to use later in the challenge.


🔠 Spell-out rules

- book / series title*
- author first/last name
- FICTION ONLY: character name**
- If listening to the audio book: audio narrator first/last name
- If you are reading a translation: translator first/last name
- Note that non-fiction books don't have characters!

* if the first word in the title/series is a definite or indefinite article you can ignore them if you prefer
** characters must be significant to the plot. you can use first, last or nickname.


❇️ Bonus points

Each round teams can gain 5 bonus points if a book used in the spell out...
- is at least 50% the colour cover associated with the team's word (max. 25 points)
- meets the bonus criteria for each round (max. 50 points)


FULL RULES

BOM

Points
- Writing a day's worth of discussion questions = 40 points
- Participating in a current BOM (participating in discussion) = 20 points

Writing DQs is a great way to help the team out with massive bonus points! It's super easy - just volunteer in the discussion thread before the BOM starts and you have a chance. If you're worried about writing DQs, it really isn't as scary as it might seem and you can always ask your teamies for help! Christina and I have lots of experience writing DQs :)


October
16 Oct: How to Sell a Haunted House - Discussion thread





November
2 Nov: Starter Villain - Discussion thread
16 Nov: The Violin Conspiracy - Discussion thread

BONUS ROUND 1

(view spoiler)[

During Round 1, books with one of the musical instruments on the list below in the text earn an additional 5 bonus points.

- only 1 bonus word per book
- max. 10 bonus words (50 bonus points)

You can find the same instrument multiple times. Plurals and possessives OK, but no other variants (bagpiping bagpipers without mention of their bagpipes are of no use!).

Instrument list:

Accordion
Bagpipe
Banjo
Bassoon
Cello
Clarinet
Drum
Flute
Guitar
Harmonica
Harp
Mandolin
Marimba
Oboe
Piano
Piccolo
Saxophone
Trombone
Trumpet
Tuba
Ukulele (or Ukelele)
Viola
Violin
Xylophone
Zither (hide spoiler)]


BONUS ROUND 2

During round 2, we'll be travelling to musical cities around the world for 5 bonus points per location.

- only 1 bonus word per book
- max. 10 bonus words (50 bonus points)
- must be at least 50% in the listed city
- we can only visit each city once

City list:
Austin, USA
Berlin, Germany
Bogotá, Colombia
Brazzaville, Congo
Chengdu, China
Chicago, USA
Detroit, USA
Havana, Cuba
Johannesburg, South Africa
Kingston, Jamaica
Liverpool, United Kingdom
Manchester, United Kingdom
Melbourne, Australia
Milan, Italy
Montreal, Canada
Nashville, USA
New Orleans, USA
Paris, France
Seoul, South Korea
Shanghai, China
Sydney, Australia
Tokyo, Japan
Toronto, Canada
Varanasi, India (also known as Benares)
Vienna, Austria


FULL RULES

SHELVES

Judy: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Christina: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Aoife: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Christene: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Robin: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Alyana: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Keli: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Sanz: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...


📝 HOW TO PLANNING / TRACKING SPREADSHEET

Enter the books you're reading in the "Books" tab and enter a reference code in Column L to claim a letter in the spell-out (check the "Round 1" tab for codes).

This will auto-populate your book info in the "Round 1" tab. The "Round 1" tab is pretty much the same as the official spreadsheet and gives us a visual overview of how many times we're spelling out the word, which makes it easy to see what letters we need to complete more of them!

Remember that captains might move your claimed books around to different spots if we think they might more useful in another place 😉

.

.

.

.

.

.

Hello everyone!

I’m Judy (she/her) from/in Germany and I’ll be your captain for this round of wheelathon! I love the wheel, it’s my favorite team challenge (I think!) but I had to miss it last year, so I’m more excited than ever for this round! (As you can see by my blatant overuse of exclamation marks…!)

I work in online sports journalism for large organizations of sometimes questionable competence so while I’m technically a huge morning person, sometimes this forces me to be out and about until way past my bedtime. I’m currently back to living with my parents due to Circumstances™️ (i.e. a transcontinental move) but fingers crossed we’ll make progress towards changing that over the course of wheelathon, but at least it means I’m around the two cutest cats in the world (no offense!) every day :)

I see there are lots of familiar faces around this time from just a few short weeks ago – welcome back Alyana and Robin, I hope you’re not sick of me and Christina yet!

Since our theme is music… what’s your favorite band/artist? Any recent discoveries you’re loving? Or do you not listen to music much? (Totally valid, too! That used to be me but then things changed!)

This will be my second year running with Carly Rae Jepsen as my top artist… she’s just got so many good albums, what can I say!

Please share your wheel shelf with your intro - mine is https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

A bunch of the important info is in the posts at the top of the thread already, more to be added soon

Hi everyone, I'm Christina (she/her) and in Austria. I work as a waitress in my mum's restaurant so weekend is when I'm the busiest and work all day every day basically, but I usually check my phone pretty regularly, and I'm on my laptop most nights. Since my work hours are quite different from most people's my sleeping pattern is quite out of whack too, but I like it this way tbh. Contrary to Judy I'm NOT a morning person at all haha. - funnily enough the only times I'm ever up early is when I'm traveling to a foreign country for concerts lol. which leads us to:
this beauty in message #1. it's definitely due to me talking about her in the Green Room thread that we ended up being Team POP, and with Delta Goodrem as our mascot. She's an Australian singer/songwriter, actress (new movie Love is in the Air just got released on Netflix yesterday!) and she used to be a coach on The Voice Australia for several seasons. She's HUGE in Australia, but not too many people know her anywhere else. Last year she got to open for the Backstreet Boys on the US leg of their tour, and this year she did her FIRST EVER European tour after being in the business for more than 20 years already. It's wild I've now seen her 4 times in the last 11 months, and not at all before that despite being a fan of hers for over a decade. Her shows truly are some of the best I've ever been to, and that's actually not me being biased for once. The energy she brings to the stage is so infective, there's no way you could ever leave her concert not feeling full of joy even if you don't know her or her songs beforehand.
Here's a link to her full London show last month in case you wanna check her out, and yes she's a complete dork too :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8soDR...

My other absolute favourite artist is Ilse DeLange who I had no idea existed until she and another guy took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014 as The Common Linnets - now my favourite band, but sadly they've been taking a break since 2017 to focus more on their solo careers again. I've had had the chance to see both The Common Linnets and Ilse solo way more times than I can count at this point though, and I'm still my happiest and most comfortable in their crowds, and in Delta's too 🫶 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3VCx...

Anyway, here's my shelf https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Back to your heart now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7i3R...

I know it's Bop and not Pop but I just remembered this song exists and now I can't stop laughing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnZI...

Hey everyone!

I'm Aoife (ee-phaa as a guide!) (she/her) and I'm from & live in Ireland. I work as an R&D engineer and spend a lot of my days sitting in front of my computer so I get a lot of audiobooking done during work. I moved into a new place about a month ago so I should be fully available in the evenings since I won't be running to viewings anymore

I would say I'm now a morning person since all my jobs have moved to starting early in the morning, so I've had to learn to be sociable at very stupid times but I do love just staying up way too late a lot of the time.

I really love music but listen to such a weird mix of stuff it never follows similarities (Niall Horan & Issues are both on the same playlist). Current new find is The Last Dinner Party who I saw live at a festival not that long ago and only have 2 songs on Spotify but filled a full 45 min set! With Confidence were my top artist of the year last year which was released a month after they announced they were splitting up and pop punk was my top genre!

My shelf for the challenge :)

Hi team! I'm Christene and so excited to start this challenge. Here's my shelf: z-wheel-a-thon-8

Hi Team! I'm checking in!

Hi Judy!🤔I was wondering how we all got on the same team again!

Hi Christene Paula! We made it on another team together! Hopefully the books for that challenge will work for this one too. 😁

My shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

HI Christene! Nice to meet you! :)

And good to see you again Robin, it really hasn't been long has it ;)

Christina wrote: "me talking about her in the Green Room thread that we ended up being Team POP, and with Delta Goodrem as our mascot. ..."


Yes it is. We thought you’d appreciate it 😊🥰

Christene Paula✨ wrote: "Hi team! I'm Christene and so excited to start this challenge. Here's my shelf: z-wheel-a-thon-8"

I feel like we're just stalking each other in challenges at this point 🤣

Aoife wrote: "Christene Paula✨ wrote: "Hi team! I'm Christene and so excited to start this challenge. Here's my shelf: z-wheel-a-thon-8"

I feel like we're just stalking each other in challenges at this point 🤣"

Ikr. Hahaha 3 challenges in October same team lmao

Hello hello again! Checking in here! :)

Robin (Saturndoo) wrote: "Hi Team! I'm checking in!

Hi Judy!🤔I was wondering how we all got on the same team again!

Hi Christene Paula! We made it on another team together! Hopefully the books for that challenge will wor..."

Hi Robin! I tried to request us to be all in the same team together 😉

Hi Judy and Christina! Nice to have you as captains again! :)

Hello Christene Paula, Keli and Aoife! :)

Promise to have a proper intro when I finish updating threads and my chores lol

Hello Alyana, lovely to see you again :)

Alyana wrote: "Robin (Saturndoo) wrote: "Hi Team! I'm checking in!

Hi Judy!🤔I was wondering how we all got on the same team again!

Hi Christene Paula! We made it on another team together! Hopefully the books f..."

Hi!! How are you? I know I've been seeing you around GR here and there!

Judy wrote: "HI Christene! Nice to meet you! :)

And good to see you again Robin, it really hasn't been long has it ;)"

NOOO, it really hasn't been that long ago! It's good to see you again too Judy! Hope things are going well for you😊

As you all know, I'm a little SS challenge, but will we have a planning SS like we had in ummmm...golly gee willikers...why can't I think...Tower Teams?

LOL I'm involved in way too many team challenges that I can't even keep them all straight any more. I'm addicted😂

Robin (Saturndoo) wrote: "As you all know, I'm a little SS challenge, but will we have a planning SS like we had in ummmm...golly gee willikers...why can't I think...Tower Teams?"

Yes we will, Christina is working on it right now :) it should be a bit easier to use since there's less additional challenges involved here!

hello again everyone! nice to meet you Christene (although I've definitely seen your name around in other challenges :)) and how fun to be playing with you again Robin, and Alyana of course :D

I didn't have a chance to finish the tracking spreadsheet yet since I'm still at work, but hopefully we're done soon,,,, we'll see lol.

So while we wait for keli to check in anybody else wanna tell us about their favourite artists or what you usually listen to? :) (besides audiobooks of course haha)

Christina wrote: "hello again everyone! nice to meet you Christene (although I've definitely seen your name around in other challenges :)) and how fun to be playing with you again Robin, and Alyana of course :D

I d..."

Not really into music nowadays, i prefer the music from the 80s to 90s and that gives you an idea how old I am lol.

Here is my shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Alyana wrote: "i prefer the music from the 80s to 90s and that gives you an idea how old I am lol."

See, you definitely would have felt right at home waiting for Delta's last shows to start. The playlist which was on each night was full of 80s tracks :D + her latest release (which coincidentally is also what the mods used for a photo in this thread! (thanks again lovies I do indeed appreciate it!)) has a bit of an 80s vibe too ;)

Christina wrote: "Alyana wrote: "i prefer the music from the 80s to 90s and that gives you an idea how old I am lol."

See, you definitely would have felt right at home waiting for Delta's last shows to start. The p..."

And I'm one of those people who listens to a song but that doesn't know the artist behind it. 🤦‍♀️

@Judy I'm glad you brought up Carly Rae Jepsen btw, after seeing so many captains talk about their love for (Heavy) Metal, Rock, Punk in the captain's group I was afraid I might have to feel 'embarassed' for being a Pop girly hahaha

@Aoife ever since you mentioned Niall Horan I had a song stuck in my head that's not even his lmao, it's Louis Tomlinson's 🙈😂 I don't think I know any of Niall's solo songs...

Heaven by him is a great song! I was never a 1 direction person but I really like Niall's solo stuff

Themed October BOM 🎃👻🕸
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Starting on October 16 - Discussion thread - official page count for all: 433
(ebook is available on scribd, possibly the audio as well wherever you are)

How to get BOM participation points
- Writing a day's worth of discussion questions = 40 points
- Participating in a current BOM (participating in discussion) = 20 points

Writing DQs is a great way to help the team out with massive bonus points! It's super easy - just volunteer in the discussion thread a couple of days before the BOM starts and you have a chance to get picked by the randomizer. If you're worried about writing DQs, it really isn't as scary as it might seem and you can always ask your teamies for help! Judy and Christina have lots of experience writing DQs, and the more team members volunteer to write DQs the higher the chances of one of us getting picked :)
(yes I did definitely steal most of this ^ from Judy's post above lol)

Polls for November BOMs open for 5 more days:
- Adult or NF: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2... (I nominated Murder in the Family but it needs at least 10 more votes to win so probably not gonna happen 😅😂)
- Themed (music): https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

Thanks for sharing the polls Christina, I always forget to look for them!

Hoping to have a bit more luck with the November BOMs cause I'm up for reading a lot of random thing especially for challenges (as you've seen...), I just hate scary things!!!

Christina wrote: "@Judy I'm glad you brought up Carly Rae Jepsen btw, after seeing so many captains talk about their love for (Heavy) Metal, Rock, Punk in the captain's group I was afraid I might have to feel 'embar..."

Hahaha yeah! 90% of what I listen to is either girly happy pop or what I call Sad Man Music (more or less whiny indie lmao)

Definitely planning to listen to your girl Delta soon!

🚨 ROUND 1 INFO 🚨

Our first word is VUVUZELA!

The associated cover color is green, which means we need 5 books with green covers for the maximum bonus

Additionally, in round 1 we'll get bonus points for instruments in the text. A full list is here. We need 10 books for that to get the maximum bonus. If you listen to lots of audiobooks or read mostly physical books, let us know and we can try to procure and search through ebooks to find more instruments!

📝 PLANNING SPREADSHEET 📝

Our planning spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... (also linked in the pinned posts at the top).


ℹ️ How it works:

Please enter the books you're reading in the "Books" tab and enter a reference code in Column L to claim a letter in the spell-out (check the "Round 1" tab for codes).

This will auto-populate your book info in the "Round 1" tab. The "Round 1" tab is pretty much the same as the official spreadsheet and gives us a visual overview of how many times we're spelling out the word, which makes it easy to see what letters we need to complete more of them!

Remember that captains might move your claimed books around to different spots if we think they might more useful in another place 😉

If you have questions or need help with the spreadsheet, just shout!

Judy wrote: "🚨 ROUND 1 INFO🚨

Our first word is VUVUZELA!

The associated cover color is green, which means we need 5 books with green covers for the maximum bonus

Additionally, in round 1 we'll get bonu..."

I feel like with VUVUZELA we have one of the, if not the hardest word out of all the possibilities, with only 6 different letters and most of them rather scarcely used in books.

Robin, I know you're up for the challenge, but what's everybody else's reading like? Do you like going on the hunt for specific letters or reading BOMs for bonus points even if it might mean reading outside of your comfort zone? Are you a mood reader and don't like to plan ahead at all?
Don't worry, either way is fine, let's just get a conversation going :)

I usually half plan half mood read my way through things! I'll have some stuff that I'll pick for the challenges, then I end up just reading whatever is suiting me in between them. I've been having trouble getting the BOMs from my library the last while and used my audible credits for other books I wanted but if I can get them, I love having set questions for boms. Much easier for me to get involved in lol :)

I have a few U books lined up for a different challenges that needs them for spell outs so I have a few for this first task!

Hi all, i thought i already left a message. Sorry. Don't know what happened there

My shelf is https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I'm a challenge reader right now. Though, I can be a mood reader, too. But i like reading for challenges as it gets me reading outside of my comfort zone. I recently had to read western mysteries and was surprised to enjoy them. Not a genre I would have picked up necessarily.

I read the Oct BOM not that long ago, so will be skipping that one.

I just finished flowers in the attic today. How perfect it would have been 😭😭😭 A V and banjo in the text.

I like to plan my books as much as possible. I do have my spreadsheet for my books and which challenges they are for. I stick to my tbr when I read books. When it comes to BOMs, as long as it's not scifi fantasy, dystopian, and the likes, I'm good.

I try my best to utilize all my book resources first. I only buy books if it's from my favorite author and for desperate measures lol.

Keli wrote: "Hi all, i thought i already left a message. Sorry. Don't know what happened there"

I thought this might have been what happened! We all know GR likes to mess with us sometimes... *eyeroll* -- Hi Keli :)

also, what even is a western mystery lmao. got some recs? :)

Aoife wrote: "I usually half plan half mood read my way through things! I'll have some stuff that I'll pick for the challenges, then I end up just reading whatever is suiting me in between them. I've been having..."

I don't know if you've tried scribd before but they have tons of ebooks and audiobooks if your library doesn't have eg How to Sell a Haunted House. I think they're still doing the free trial month if you sign up, and if you do it via a rec link (which I could give you) you'd even get two free trial months (and I'd get a free month too, for full disclosure lol)

Awesome that you've got a couple of those pesky U's!!

Christina wrote: "Aoife wrote: "I usually half plan half mood read my way through things! I'll have some stuff that I'll pick for the challenges, then I end up just reading whatever is suiting me in between them. I'..."

you beat me up to that referral link Christina lol