You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

I think it's time to revise/rewrite one of our first annual challenges. For 2025, we're going to make lists utilizing the alphabet.

As always, the first badge will be the challenge and is designed to be inclusive of all readers. Everyone will do Badge One in order to complete the challenge. If you need more to slate your thirst, there are additional lists for additional badges.

Badge One - Themes

Badge One will be based on Themes. We are not doing a full alphabet so as to accommodate all readers and their ability to complete books. We want everyone to be able to complete a badge. Badge One will be for 15 books.

📍B - Books about books
📍C - Childhood
📍D - Dogs
📍F - Fantasy
📍G - Ghosts
📍H - History
📍L - Love
📍M - Mythology
📍N - Nature
📍P - Pirates
📍R - Religion
📍S - Survival
📍T - True Crime
📍V - Villainy
📍W - Women


Need Help?

General Rules:

Please read very carefully!

1. For the main challenge, you must complete Badge One - Themes.

Note: Each book is exclusive to one task. You may not repeat tasks and you may not read the same book for 2 different tasks. The same rule applies to subsequent badges.

Note: Tasks are based on the edition you read.

2. You MAY combine books with the Monthly Challenge, as well as with monthly group reads, topplers, and buddy reads.

3. The challenge is from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025. You must start and complete your books within the year AND within the time that you start the challenge. If you are late starting the challenge, you may not count books prior to your start date. For example, if you start May 1st, you may only count books read between May 1 - Dec 31. We'll determine your start date when you set up your personal reporting thread (see below).

4. Books may be any format (audiobook, ebook, hardcover/paperback).

5. Books must be at least 175 pages long based on the edition you read.

In the case of ebooks, the edition must be at least 200 pages. This ruling allows for the the approximation that an ebook will emulate a hardcover or paperback due to the way it is formatted. They are getting better at matching page lengths these days.

If reading an audiobook, your book must be a minimum of 6 hours long.

6. Books may generally be any genre unless specified in a task. Excluded from this challenge will be picture books, graphic novels, or manga. If the task relates to Genres, the specified genre must be listed on the main book page.

7. If a task refers to the title, the subtitle or series title doesn’t count unless specified in a task.

8. If a task refers to the cover, it will be based on the cover of the issue you read. The object required on the cover needs to be prominent (large) on the cover and easily identified.

9. If a task specifies a country as a setting, the book should be set in a minimum of 50% of that country unless otherwise specified.

10. Compound words/Imbedded words/Plurals: When a task requires a specific word in the title, it must match the required word as close as possible unless specifically stated in the individual task. It may not be included as a compound word or imbedded in another word. In the situation of plurals, you may add an "s" or "es", but you may not change the word to a plural form if it's different from the required word. Eg - If the word specified is Mouse, you may not use Mice. If reading a book in a language other than English, the word must be a direct translation.

If the task requires a name, that name must be exact in spelling. eg. Peter is a different name than Peters.

11. Author names: If a task requires that you match initials or specific names for the author, it's easy to figure out when the author has two names. but becomes tricky when there are 3 names or initials. If the task specifies first and last name, then we will literally go with the first name and last name listed. Eg. We would ignore the Jackson in Harriet Jackson Brown. If her name was hyphenated (Harriet Jackson-Brown), we'd go with Jackson. If her name was listed as HJ Brown, or H.J. Brown, we'd go with H Brown. In the case where there are more than one author, either author may be used.

12. Order of Books read: Each badge must be complete before you start another badge. If you are working on Badge One, you may not jump ahead and read a task from another badge.

You may change or swap books from one task to another within the badge you are working on providing you mark your tracker clearly so that I understand what you are doing. Once your badge is received, those books are not swappable.

13. You will need to start your own reporting thread in this folder to track your progress. There will be a thread set up to report your success in completing the challenge and to request your badge. In order to receive your badge, you must request it in the request thread. It's not enough to state in your personal thread that you've finished a badge.

To set up your personal thread, Click here.
- For topic, include your Name as part of the Title. eg. George Fumbles His Way Around Earning Badges.
- Select Challenges: Year Long 2025.
- Fill out the comment field and save.

A couple of suggestions regarding your personal thread. Link to this thread for easy reference instead of copying all the instructions to your thread. It's lengthy, and you'll want to save space for your own planning and tracking.

Reporting

Each time you complete a book, you must report it in an individual message in your personal tracking thread. Do not combine reports in a single message, or reserve messages and then go back to edit. Each book gets it own message written at the time you report it. The reason is that a new message generates a notification (and my attention). An edited message does not and I will miss it.

Please refrain from saving up reports and then doing a mass update. Take pity on me and report no more than 3 at a time. Best practice is to report after completion of each task.

Report each book as follows:

1. Challenge Progress: Identify where you are in the challenge – Badge 1, book 1 (2, 3, 4, etc.)
2. List the Badge number and Task number.
3. Link to book read. Link to the title and not to the cover of the edition you read. You may do both if you prefer,
4. List the number of pages of the edition you read, or the number of hours if audiobook
5. Give a very brief summary of the task.
6. State how the book fits the criteria. Any requirements must be included in this section (you must link to the link if it's a cover task.)

Sample: I’ve read 5 books in the Badge 1 section:

1. Badge 1, Book 5
2. List 1, Task 1
3. Link – Ghost Story
4. Listened to Audiobook, 22:33 hours.
5. Read a book with a theme of Ghosts.
6. As the title indicates, this is a ghost story. "Ghosts" also show on the main book page as a genre.

Requesting a badge:

When you finish a badge requirement, you will need to post in the Year Long Reporting Thread as follows:

WoF Name ________________

Badge Requesting (One, Two, Three, etc)
1. List, Task
2. List, Task
3.
4…… etc.

Sample:

WoF - Janice

Badge One completed
1. Task 1, Ghost Story
2. Task 2, Pretty Girls
3, Task 3, The Golden Goblet

Continue listing all books required for the badge.

Keep your reporting in the request for badge thread neat and concise with no extraneous wordage. This makes it easier for me to verify.

You may use gifs in your personal thread to your heart's content, just not in the request badge thread.

Badge One Help will be in this thread.
General Help & Discussion will be in this thread.