The questions answered below mostly pertain to being part of this Goodreads group, while the website FAQ (linked to above) gets into more detailed questions people have about the challenge itself.
If you have a question that isn’t covered in the Start Here post or this one, please do visit www.readjewishly.com/faq for more questions and answers. If you still need help, leave your question here, we will be happy to help you out!
Please be aware that many of the Goodreads-specific actions discussed below must be done in a browser, not the app. You can still access it on your phone, just visit the Goodreads website using your phone browser (Safari, Chrome, etc.), not the Goodreads app.
1. Where exactly do I post in this group and when?
If you want book recommendations for the challenge, or have books to recommend to others: Post in the relevant Genre Challenge or This & That Challenge threads.
When you want to talk about books throughout the year: Post in the Book Chat thread.
2. How many books do I need to read? Do I need to read one book for each prompt in the This & That challenge?
There are two ways to complete the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, which can lead to some confusion about how many books to read to complete the challenge.
If you choose to do the Genre Challenge, you pick your goal: 4, 6, or 8 books.
The This & That Challenge has five pairs of prompts. You can either read to fulfill 5 prompts, one from each pair, or 10 prompts, both from each pair. However, it's up to you whether you read 5 or 10 books, one for each prompt, or if you read a smaller number of books that fulfill more than one prompt each.
3. I'm confused about how the Challenge Plan works. Why do I need to bookmark it?
The Challenge Plan is how you will track your progress on the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge. In the first post of the Challenge Plans thread you will find a template to copy and paste into your own post. You'll return to your post and edit it as you finish books for the challenge. Some people like to use the plan to record possible reading options and then return to update when they've read, others only update when they've finished a book. (This is all explained in more detail in the first post of the Challenge Plan thread.)
Because the list of Challenge Plans may get long over the course of the year, it's best to bookmark your own personal post in the thread so you don't have to hunt for it to update it. Using a browser, go to the Challenge Plans thread, then click on the date/time link on the right side of your own post’s header. Bookmark that page for easy access the rest of the year.
4. I see people linking book titles to the book listing on Goodreads in their posts, how do I do that?
You can only do this in the desktop version of the Goodreads site. To access it on your phone, visit Goodreads in your phone browser, not the mobile app. Then you need to choose "Request Desktop Site" in your browser. (This is accessed with the three dots in Chrome and the Aa next to the url in Safari.) Then when you're making a post or commenting on a thread above the comment box on the right you will see a small link that says “add book/author”. Click the link and search for the book or author you wish to link. Once you find it, click “Add” and a link will be added to your comment. You can also choose to add an image of the book cover that links back to the book listing. This can be a great visual way to track books in your challenge plan!
6. If I am doing the This & That Challenge, do I have to complete the prompts in a certain order?
Not at all. You can read for the prompts in any order you like, including using one book to fulfill multiple prompts.
7. What do I do if I’m having a problem with the Goodreads website or app?
In a browser, visit the group home page. Just under the introduction paragraph, click on “Edit Membership”. Once the new page has loaded you will see the option to leave the group.
9. So many group notifications! How do I change or stop email and website notifications?
When you joined the group Goodreads asked how you wanted to get emails about group discussions, but you may not have known what you were getting into! Unfortunately the default settings in Goodreads are pretty email and notification heavy. Luckily it's still possible to adjust these. It can be confusing though so we'll try to walk you through it step by step.
In a web browser, click on your profile pic (top right). Click on “Account settings”. Select “Emails” from the options at the top. If you want, you can go to "Event Notifications" and uncheck "Sends me a message." This will keep you from getting an email notice when the JGC mods send out a group broadcast. The message will still appear in your Goodreads inbox. (This will also prevent you from getting email notices from any other messages sent to you on Goodreads, not just from this group.)
The sections for "Comment and Action Notifications" and "Newsletters and Other Mail" don't pertain to groups like this one, but if you're inundated with Goodreads emails and notifications these can be good to adjust to your liking.
Under "Group Email Preferences" you will see all your groups listed. By default you are set to follow all the discussions in a group when you join it. You can choose to get a digest (email containing multiple posts that comes daily or weekly) of new posts from the group, an individual email with each new post, notifications on the Goodreads site only (they will appear when you click the little bell symbol to the left of your profile pic), both emails and notifications, or nothing.
Below this section, you can choose from a dropdown if you want your email digests to come Daily or Weekly. Below that is a very important checkbox. If you keep "When I leave comments on other items, follow discussions by default" checked, you will be subscribed to every thread you comment on. If you want to be able to comment on threads and not receive notifications about them, uncheck this box. The other checkbox, "Email me when one of my groups is about to start reading a book," isn't relevant to JGC because we don't read books as a group.
After you make your adjustments on the Email page, if you don't scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Save email settings" your changes will not be saved!
If you want to get notifications for just a couple of the conversations here, rather than for every discussion in the group - maybe just Announcements and Book Chat, for example - then follow these directions. It's convoluted, but often worth it to have notifications that are tailored and actually useful. Under "Group Email Preferences" go to the listing for Jewish Genre Reading Challenge and choose the option "None." Don't forget to save your change! Then go to the actual Jewish Genre Reading Challenge group and click on the conversation you want to follow. Scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of the page. Click on "Notify me when people comment." It will now say "You are following this discussion (instant email)." Click "Edit" right next to that. A pop-up will show up to let you choose how you want to be notified: digest, instant email, or notification on the Goodreads site. Choose your preference. It updates instantly, there's no need to save.
You will have to do this each time you find a conversation in the group that you want to get notifications about. If you change your mind, you can now change notification settings either by clicking Edit at the bottom of the discussion page and choosing a new setting OR you can now access this discussion and its notification settings through the Email page in Account Settings. (I know, it's nuts, we're sorry, we didn't build it this way.)
There is a detailed FAQ on our challenge website at www.readjewishly.com/faq.
The questions answered below mostly pertain to being part of this Goodreads group, while the website FAQ (linked to above) gets into more detailed questions people have about the challenge itself.
If you have a question that isn’t covered in the Start Here post or this one, please do visit www.readjewishly.com/faq for more questions and answers. If you still need help, leave your question here, we will be happy to help you out!
Please be aware that many of the Goodreads-specific actions discussed below must be done in a browser, not the app. You can still access it on your phone, just visit the Goodreads website using your phone browser (Safari, Chrome, etc.), not the Goodreads app.
1. Where exactly do I post in this group and when?
When you first join the group: Post an introduction in the Member Introductions thread and a challenge plan in the Challenge Plans thread.
If you want book recommendations for the challenge, or have books to recommend to others: Post in the relevant Genre Challenge or This & That Challenge threads.
When you want to talk about books throughout the year: Post in the Book Chat thread.
2. How many books do I need to read? Do I need to read one book for each prompt in the This & That challenge?
There are two ways to complete the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge, which can lead to some confusion about how many books to read to complete the challenge.
If you choose to do the Genre Challenge, you pick your goal: 4, 6, or 8 books.
The This & That Challenge has five pairs of prompts. You can either read to fulfill 5 prompts, one from each pair, or 10 prompts, both from each pair. However, it's up to you whether you read 5 or 10 books, one for each prompt, or if you read a smaller number of books that fulfill more than one prompt each.
3. I'm confused about how the Challenge Plan works. Why do I need to bookmark it?
The Challenge Plan is how you will track your progress on the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge. In the first post of the Challenge Plans thread you will find a template to copy and paste into your own post. You'll return to your post and edit it as you finish books for the challenge. Some people like to use the plan to record possible reading options and then return to update when they've read, others only update when they've finished a book. (This is all explained in more detail in the first post of the Challenge Plan thread.)
Because the list of Challenge Plans may get long over the course of the year, it's best to bookmark your own personal post in the thread so you don't have to hunt for it to update it. Using a browser, go to the Challenge Plans thread, then click on the date/time link on the right side of your own post’s header. Bookmark that page for easy access the rest of the year.
4. I see people linking book titles to the book listing on Goodreads in their posts, how do I do that?
You can only do this in the desktop version of the Goodreads site. To access it on your phone, visit Goodreads in your phone browser, not the mobile app. Then you need to choose "Request Desktop Site" in your browser. (This is accessed with the three dots in Chrome and the Aa next to the url in Safari.) Then when you're making a post or commenting on a thread above the comment box on the right you will see a small link that says “add book/author”. Click the link and search for the book or author you wish to link. Once you find it, click “Add” and a link will be added to your comment. You can also choose to add an image of the book cover that links back to the book listing. This can be a great visual way to track books in your challenge plan!
6. If I am doing the This & That Challenge, do I have to complete the prompts in a certain order?
Not at all. You can read for the prompts in any order you like, including using one book to fulfill multiple prompts.
7. What do I do if I’m having a problem with the Goodreads website or app?
Goodreads help section: https://www.goodreads.com/help
8. How to I leave this group?
In a browser, visit the group home page. Just under the introduction paragraph, click on “Edit Membership”. Once the new page has loaded you will see the option to leave the group.
9. So many group notifications! How do I change or stop email and website notifications?
When you joined the group Goodreads asked how you wanted to get emails about group discussions, but you may not have known what you were getting into! Unfortunately the default settings in Goodreads are pretty email and notification heavy. Luckily it's still possible to adjust these. It can be confusing though so we'll try to walk you through it step by step.
In a web browser, click on your profile pic (top right). Click on “Account settings”. Select “Emails” from the options at the top. If you want, you can go to "Event Notifications" and uncheck "Sends me a message." This will keep you from getting an email notice when the JGC mods send out a group broadcast. The message will still appear in your Goodreads inbox. (This will also prevent you from getting email notices from any other messages sent to you on Goodreads, not just from this group.)
The sections for "Comment and Action Notifications" and "Newsletters and Other Mail" don't pertain to groups like this one, but if you're inundated with Goodreads emails and notifications these can be good to adjust to your liking.
Under "Group Email Preferences" you will see all your groups listed. By default you are set to follow all the discussions in a group when you join it. You can choose to get a digest (email containing multiple posts that comes daily or weekly) of new posts from the group, an individual email with each new post, notifications on the Goodreads site only (they will appear when you click the little bell symbol to the left of your profile pic), both emails and notifications, or nothing.
Below this section, you can choose from a dropdown if you want your email digests to come Daily or Weekly. Below that is a very important checkbox. If you keep "When I leave comments on other items, follow discussions by default" checked, you will be subscribed to every thread you comment on. If you want to be able to comment on threads and not receive notifications about them, uncheck this box. The other checkbox, "Email me when one of my groups is about to start reading a book," isn't relevant to JGC because we don't read books as a group.
After you make your adjustments on the Email page, if you don't scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Save email settings" your changes will not be saved!
If you want to get notifications for just a couple of the conversations here, rather than for every discussion in the group - maybe just Announcements and Book Chat, for example - then follow these directions. It's convoluted, but often worth it to have notifications that are tailored and actually useful. Under "Group Email Preferences" go to the listing for Jewish Genre Reading Challenge and choose the option "None." Don't forget to save your change! Then go to the actual Jewish Genre Reading Challenge group and click on the conversation you want to follow. Scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of the page. Click on "Notify me when people comment." It will now say "You are following this discussion (instant email)." Click "Edit" right next to that. A pop-up will show up to let you choose how you want to be notified: digest, instant email, or notification on the Goodreads site. Choose your preference. It updates instantly, there's no need to save.
You will have to do this each time you find a conversation in the group that you want to get notifications about. If you change your mind, you can now change notification settings either by clicking Edit at the bottom of the discussion page and choosing a new setting OR you can now access this discussion and its notification settings through the Email page in Account Settings. (I know, it's nuts, we're sorry, we didn't build it this way.)