Chat

This discussion thread is for us to discuss anything we want to on any theme.

Thanks Carol, Sergei and Eadie for help in copying across content from Leafmarks on this group tonight. We have made great progress in an evening. 😊

You're welcome!

More than welcome. Glad to help.

Many people who came over from Leafmarks were using the Group 'What Are We Reading 2016' to track their reading. I know this group has moved over to Goodreads so I thought I'd set up this group so that anyone that wants to can track their reading. Hopefully this group will be made up of a small group of like minded members who like to discuss and share the books they are reading. Please feel free to join the group if this resonates with you.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/readittrackit2016

>5 Andrew-theQM: Good idea, Andrew, I was wondering where to put my list!

I have too many list. I'm not ignoring this but I'm looking through where I have all this stored to see what I want to do with it. I'll be back with a wagon train hauling the books:)

>7 Carol420: It's there if you want to use it, but certainly won't be offended if you don't want to or you have it elsewhere. :)

>8 Andrew-theQM: Do you honestly think I can resit a blank space??? I just wanted to see if the same thing was resting somewhere else more than once. I did post one of the list twice somewhere and now I can't delete it. I have never seen a site that wanted to hold on to things like this one does:)

>9 Carol420: there's also a place for you to keep lists on your profile page. Maybe - if it's possible - it might be easier for you to put a link to it in all the various spots? then you only have to update in one place without copying and pasting.

Thank you...I'm going to check it out:)

>9 Carol420: certainly not surprised to see you using it Carol, but twice! That's above and beyond the call of duty. Two glitches in the way things are set up - IMHO!
1) You can't delete threads or even archive them.
2) You can't edit the title of a thread.

>12 Andrew-theQM: I hate not being able to change these things if you have a better and cleaner idea later. It's better than nothing so I'll stop complaining...or just complain less:)

>13 Carol420: Perhaps we should call them frustrations rather than complaints.

Oh yeah...that's what they were:)

>14 Andrew-theQM: >15 Carol420:
I agree, it is frustrating. I just deleted my list on the mistake one and said 'ignore this' and that way if I open the wrong list, I'll know it's the wrong one. lol

I would suggest starring the one you want to use and selecting ignore topic for the one you want to not use. That way one will appear towards the top and the other at the bottom, may help you to avoid mistakes. Even as an admin you cannot delete a member's post (unlike on other sites) or delete a thread either.

>13 Carol420: Or come and do it in private on the Trove where only old friends will hear you vent!

>12 Andrew-theQM: So, members can delete their own posts/comments, but not threads? And, admins cannot delete members' posts or comments? Is that what you're saying? Or, are you guys specifically talking about lists only?

>19 AnitaUnmuted: Yes a member can delete their own comments but not any of their threads and the only thing an admin can do is delete the group not delete any comments (other than their own) or threads.

QM, thanks for the invite; not sure how active I will be, but I will givep it a go....truly love mysteries. You have some great ideas for things to participate in. Maybe your group can draw me out and give me the incentive to participate more. Glad to be here!

>21 JaneAustenNut: Welcome JaneAustenNut. Can I call you Jane?

>21 JaneAustenNut: You are welcome no matter how much or how little you participate. Some are very active others less regularly. Welcome :)

>19 AnitaUnmuted: "Admins" are just the people who set up the groups. The only thing they do is edit the group description page. And they have the option to delete the group (which removes all threads with it). I'm not really sure why they have that title, that makes it sound like they are much more authority figures than they actually are. It should just say "creator" or "maintainer" or some such.

>20 Andrew-theQM:
>24 .Monkey.:
Okay, I see. Thank you both for the clarification. Such a waste of space, though. Cluttery. Ick. I love deleting. It frees my spirit. LOL!

>25 AnitaUnmuted: :)

Yay! Finally added all my books.I imported my books in February as a backup to LT and was so busy on LM I never added any books here. Didnt want to risk messing up my data status quo,so I added them manually the last week or so and at last they are up to date. Of course I still have to update ratings,since shelfari didnt have half stars. But that can wait,a leisurely Sunday aftrnoon project. That and removing the tags which I spent months removing on LM,only to have them all there on my shelf again. Aarrgghh!! :0)
Anyway,maybe I can get back to doing some reading again. 20 pages a day have pretty much been the norm for the last month or so.I have shuffled my reads this month to read some shorter works ,or young adult,so that I have managed to put 4 books on my read list,so it doesnt look so pathetic.! lol

>27 dustydigger: The ever reappearing tags. More than half my books didn't upload so I deleted them all so I can try again.

Andrew,I wasnt going to take the risk of a botched data transfer. With 3700 read books on my shelf,and less than 3 weeks of having my LM shelf to compare with I wimped out! Back in the day with shelfari,leafmarks and LT available,I could always make corrections or find info etc very easily. Less than 3 weeks to make sure everything is sorted! :0)
In particular I need to decide about reviews. I dont do many proper reviews( like the wonderful stuff our Carol regularly produces),I only do sort of mood pieces,quick comments.
Only 9 reviews made it from shelfari to LM,and I spent quite a bit of time going back to shelfari and importing such notes/reviews,about 60 of them. Now I just have to decide whether to bother doing it again. Reviews dont seem very prominent,unless this is one of the areas I am not up to speed with yet,very possible.In our groups the what are we reading/reviewing threads are jam packed with good reviews,in some of the groups here people just say the title they have read and little else! Am I missing something?I may just forget the whole thing and just list my reads. With all the problems I have in real life,I barely have time to do them anyway!

>29 dustydigger: Dusty if you go to the home page and then click the third blue option 'connections' you get a feed of recent books added or reviews written. A lot of work to do over next couple of weeks with my books but so busy at school don't know if I will get it done! :(

>27 dustydigger: Congrats on getting your books up to date!

I don't understand why everyone wants to remove their tags... (Ok, I think it's only been a couple of people; I remember more about this at LM. The display at LM was lacking for tags, but I think the display here is quite nice where we have a tag cloud back again - yay!)

I have also been trying to fix things here little by little for a few years (that is, adding reviews that didn't come over and fixing up half stars), but I feel like I'll never get there. (Especially now, with so much house stuff to do... then more unpacking!) I guess I just don't take that much time to do it, as I always want to get back to reading. Wish I didn't have to work full time to pay the bills!!!

>32 LibraryCin: I know the feeling, work just gets in the way!

>33 Andrew-theQM: Sadly, it does...

>31 LibraryCin: I was often very careless with my tags back on shelfari.I would type a full stop instead of a comma between say author name and year date. As a result that book would have a separate tag from the rest of the author's works and wouldnt turn up in the year count. Or I'd miss a letter off a name,and that would be a separate tag eg dram for drama,so the book count count would be off.lol.I had a tag for every author,but I wanted rid of those in obscure cases of singleton authors I am not likely to read again.-,or want to refer to. It would just streamline the cloud .With nearly 1200tags its just a bit too much.The shelfari style of the tag cloud being tucked neatly under the library shelf was ideal when adding books etc,now the cloud isnt quite so user friendly. Pity they got rid of the commas,and that the genres are written according to the number of books so some of the tags are HUGE and obtrusive to my sensitive eye! lol
I got rid of all but 50 of my tags on LM,because they appeared as shelves and took forever to scroll down to get to sciencef fiction or YA!
So there isnt so much work this time,but its a tedious repetition of what I was doing only two months ago.And with much less time to do everything,one month as opposed to four!

>35 dustydigger: Yes that's the key problem - lack of time!

>35 dustydigger: Ohhhh, ok. It sounds like it's more of a cleanup you want to do.

Yeah, I really don't like the way they appear at LM or GR as "shelves" in a long list.

I found the fact that - in shelfari's edit pop-up window, where you could look at both the book's tags and your own tags VERY helpful, so was able to check my spelling, plural/singular, etc. I miss that.

(ETA: Now, I open the book main page in one tab, my own tags in another tab, and the book edit page in a third tab to try not to duplicate my own tags!)

Shelfari had varying sizes of font in the tag cloud, as well.

Group Read of The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
#1 in the Cotton Malone Series

Location : Leafmarks Mystery and Suspense Group (Final Group Read on that site)

https://www.leafmarks.com/lm/#/discussions/forums/92/topics

Schedule
Saturday 25th June : Prologue and One to Thirteen
Sunday 26th June : Fourteen to Twenty-Five
Monday 27th June : Twenty-Six to Thirty-Six
Tuesday 28th June : Thirty-Seven to Forty-Five
Wednesday 29th June : Forty-Six to Fifty-Six
Thursday 30th June : Fifty-Seven to Sixty-Seven

As it is quite a long book I have split it over six days.

Carol, any thoughts about the July Monthly Sub-genre Challenge?

>Sure do. I was just thinking about posting all the "stuff" today. Stay tuned!

>40 Carol420: Great minds think alike!

That's what I've been led to believe. In this case it's true:)

>39 Andrew-theQM: Thanks for asking! Going to see if we've got something now... :-)

>43 LibraryCin: Like you I like to plan ahead with my reading.

This is the schedule for the Mystety and Suspense Group Read of Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves, #4 in the Vera Stanhope Series.

Schedule
Monday 18th July : Chapter One to Eight
Tuesday 19th July : Chapter Nine to Sixteen
Wednesday 20th July : Chapter Seventeen to Twenty-Five
Thursday 21st July : Chapter Twenty-Six to Thirty-Three
Friday 22nd July : Chapter Thirty-Four to Forty-Two

A seperate group has been set up for the group read, which can be found at this location:

http://www.librarything.com/groups/silentvoicesbookdisc

If you are planning to take part in the discussion please join the group so we can see who is taking part. All welcome to join in.

Schedule for Group Read of Ice Hunt by James Rollins, which is a standalone.

Saturday 24th September : Prologue and 1 - 3
Sunday 25th Spetember : 4 - 6
Monday 26th September : 7 - 9
Tuesday 27th September : 10 - 12
Wednesday 28th September : 13 - 15
Thursday 29th September : 16 - 18 and Epilogue

>46 Andrew-theQM: Just looked at the chapters. Those are long ones.

3 chapters a section, yes they are long but at least they are broken up into smaller sections.

>48 Andrew-theQM:
Leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow, so I may late with my answers.

>49 EadieB: You certainly get around. Enjoy :)

>49 EadieB: Win big...share with your friends!!!

>49 EadieB: Remember don't bet the house, or even your library come to that!

<50 >51 Carol420:
Business trip but fun for me! I only play the slot machine and usually just a roll of quarters. If I win anything, I quit while I'm ahead and then go shopping! lol Not much of a gambler! I'll probably be at the pool reading my books. ha ha!

>49 EadieB: - Live large - Put it all on red!

>54 Olivermagnus:
My lucky numbers are those that end in 5.

For the last two years we have done an Annual Challenge.

In 2015 it was to visit countries, in 2016 it was to visit cities around the world. This was a very positive feature in 2015 but less so (especially for me) in 2016. This was mainly due to swapping sites on two occasions and this slipping through the net for me. I know some of you were more successful than me at keeping it up - well done to you.

Are you wanting to look at an Annual Challenge for 2017, or are people all challenged out?

I'm game

I really like the geographical challenge - it pushes me to read books from other parts of the world and has added some wonderful discoveries over the years.

PS: whether this be a yearly challenge (I have to admit I dropped out of the cities this year...) or with the monthly map you've updated recently - I like both.

I dropped out of tracking my cities too, but I did like tracking my countries. I like to see where everyone is on your monthly map.

>59 sushicat: I also dropped out Sushicat, mainly because it got a long way behind when doing the extra work when swapping between sites and then got too big a job to catch up on as couldn't remember all the cities I had visited and stupidly hadn't written them down!
But generally like you I like a geographical challenge as it broadens my reading experiences.

I managed to keep up with my cities this year, but I only had 30-odd so it was easy enough done, :)

Maybe we should do countries again in 2017, just to alternate...

>62 Sergeirocks: That sounds like a good idea Sergei. We did cities this year (well done for managing to keep your cities Challenge up with all the changes 👍) so could look at Countries for 2017. We could produce a world map to show the countries we visit over the year.

Maybe give us a group challenge to cover one continent (excluding North America) - or more realistically reach a certain percentage.

Okay here goes then... (drum roll please)🥁

We will do an 'Around the World Challenge', with the aim to visit (as a Group) 💯 Countries during the year.

To add some extra spice, every two months we will focus on a particular region of the world with a target number of countries for visits to that region during that two month period, however you can still clock up visits to other countries in other regions during that two month period.

I thought we'd start off easy by targeting Europe during January - this is always one of the easiest regions to clock up.

Schedule
January / February : Europe
March / April : North America / Central America / Caribbean
May / June : Asia
July / August : South America / Antarctica
September / October : Africa / Middle East
November / December : Australasia / Pacific

I will set up the thread for it tomorrow, along with our target number of European countries.

This sounds like fun. I love the idea of a focus too. This was my favorite challenge of 2015 so I'm glad to see it again.

>66 Olivermagnus: Mine too!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Brenda has offered to take over the sub-genre challenge. She may change her mind after she sees the monster list I sent her this morning:) If she doesn't run screaming from the room...she will do it unless she has a month that she doesn't have the time and then I will post it.

Thanks Brenda :)

Thanks Brenda!

Great news about your mom coming home today. I know it's such a relief for your whole family.

>68 Carol420:
Didn't know that your mom was in rehab. I must have missed that message but anyhow wishing her the best and hope she is doing better soon.

I also want to thank Breda for volunteering to help you.

>70 Olivermagnus: >71 EadieB: Thank you both for your good wishes. I hope when I am 94...okay...I hope I get to be 94...that I'm half as good as she is.

>72 Carol420:
Hopefully you got her genes!

A reminder that the Around the World Challenge on the Mystery and Suspense Extra Group moves on in May. In May and June the challenge is to read books set in Asia . I will set up a thread for this on the Group tomorrow.

A
Afghanistan
Armenia
Azerbaijan
B
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Brunei
C
Cambodia
China
Cyprus
G
Georgia
I
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Israel
J
Japan
Jordan
K
Kazakhstan
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
L
Laos
Lebanon
M
Malaysia
Maldives
Mongolia
Myanmar (Burma)
N
Nepal
North Korea
O
Oman
P
Pakistan
Palestine
Philippines
Q
Qatar
R
Russia
S
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Syria
T
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Turkey
Turkmenistan
U
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Uzbekistan
V
Vietnam
Y
Yemen

In case anyone is interested in trying out the 2018 Challenge group, one of the three main challenges for next year is the MysteryCAT.

Take a look at the thread here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/271262

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

A very Merry Christmas...or whatever holiday you may celebrate... to one and all.

Happy New Year Everyone, may 2018 be a Happy and Healthy New Year for everyone, as well as being a great reading year! 🍾🥂🎉🎊🎆❤️

Happy New Year to one and all! Looking forward to a great reading year with all of you!

I'm going to try to "personalize" the Book is Born topic starting in June or July. Instead of listing almost every book coming out in the month I'd like to list books that are coming out based on Your favorite authors...the ones you read and love and look forward to their new offerings. I am going to start a topic for each of you to list your absolutely favorite authors. We will share a lot of them I'm sure but that is perfectly alright. Depending on how many I have by the time I do June's books I may try to start it then or I may wait until July. Of course you all know there are times that none of your favorites will have a new book for any given month... but most do.

>80 Carol420: That sounds interesting! Good luck with that and thanks,

>81 EadieB: We all share a lot of favorite authors and I am finding that the top authors with the exception of a few, don't produce works every month. We all seem more interested in the ones that we already read than the "unknowns" anyway.

>82 Carol420: Thats true! So are you just going to look up this authors and see when their books come out. Fictfact lists my series and it lets me know the date of their next release so you may want to check that out. I filled in some dates from Fictfact.

Sounds good Carol. Now just need to decide on my favourite authors. 😂😂😂

>83 EadieB: I saw that you filled in some. Thanks. I use Fantastic Fiction, FicFact, and Stop! You're Killing Me. I will try to remember to check for Andrew and Sergei if the release date is different in the UK.

Are we going to do an annual challenge in 2019?

How about something like 75 (or even 100) years of Mystery and Suspense? Books written in any given year - see how many of the years we can fill in; and perhaps find out which of the years or decades turn out to be the most popular among us. I don't think we'd necessarily have to go out of our way to find books to fit, but it might encourage us to pick up an older book we might otherwise pass by.

Anyone else with a suggestion? Or are we not bothering with a challenge?

>86 Sergeirocks: Sounds a brilliant idea!

>87 Andrew-theQM: >86 Sergeirocks: I like this for our annual challenge for 2019. It definitely looks fun and will get us to read different authors we would not usually pick up. I'm going to make my list now. I love the idea!

>86 Sergeirocks: >88 EadieB: I think it would be a good idea to have our own lists as well as to have a joint group list we can add to.

75 years or 100?

>90 Sergeirocks: Let’s go for the 100, nice round figure.

You're on! 👍

You’re all very efficient with your threads. As well as the individual threads I will (eventually 😳) post a group thread to see if we can collectively read books for the 100 years from 1920 - 2019. Will be interesting to see the popular years.

Okay question here for our Century challenge. Do the books published in each year need to be Mystery and Suspense books or are we using any books, no matter the genre?

>94 Andrew-theQM: I was going to say it should be mystery and suspense or at least thriller since most of us named our individual challenges to reflect that theme. However after looking at some history books, romance novels, and even some children's books...there are more that reflect my "Century of Blood, Guts and Mayhem", theme that I would ever have imagined. So I'd say to each his own.

>94 Andrew-theQM: >95 Carol420: I think I'm going to stick with just Mystery, Thrillers or Historical Mysteries.

I'm looking at other threads in the group and was wondering if this was going to be a group thing, as well? I thought it was, but I don't see a thread for it, so I wanted to confirm.

Oh, I do see >89 Andrew-theQM: mentioned having a group one, as well. Whew! Guess it's just not set up yet.

I won't be doing my own - I have enough challenges as it is! But, it would be nice to fit in one here or there for the group. :-) Especially if it's limited to mystery/suspense (as you all know, (I think!) I read very broadly, so only a portion of my yearly reads will fit mystery)!

>97 LibraryCin: Will be aimed not to set the group thread up over the next week now that term has finished, once i’ve recovered some energy that is! Be great to have you contributing to the group challenge.

For my two penn'orth, I think it might be reasonable to keep the main group challenge to M&S books only, but for each of us individually to fill in our years with other genres if we feel that way inclined.
I'm personally hoping to find a goodly supply of older mystery/thrillers - lots of authors-of-old that I've not tapped into yet.

>99 Sergeirocks: I think that makes sense. It's what the group is meant to be about.

I'm currently working on a "Lifetime of Books" Challenge where I am reading a book from every year of my life. Since I've been reading mostly M&S recently, I might be able to get some of those to fit for this challenge as well since I'm starting from mid-1960.

I agree that the group challenge should stay to Mystery & Suspense since that is what we are...but the individual ones can be anything the reader wishes.

>101 bhabeck: What a great idea to do the years of your life. I would do that but those books that are chiseled out of stone might be too heavy to lift:)

>102 Carol420: LOL

A very Happy and Prosperous New Year to Everyone!

My friend Brenda posted this on another group site. I thought about all of you that are not on Dusty's Treasure Trove and thought I'd share this with you.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bespoke-libraries-joining-book-love-with-interior-d....

Just turned on the TV. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is burning, Didn't hear what caused it. They have said that it was under going major reconstruction.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there. I know that the British celebrate a different day...but you are all welcome to join us today. Have a good one.

Just got email from my daughter- in- law. Our grandson is running for sheriff of Ascension Parrish in Louisiana. Grandpa is proud that he's carrying on the family tradition of law enforcement and Grandma is just proud!

>109 Carol420: And justifiably so! 😀

We will remember what they did!

>111 Carol420: And also remember those who died in the final preparations during Operation Tiger at Slapton Sands in April 1944.

>112 Andrew-theQM: I thought about that this morning.

Bless Them All!

>114 Sergeirocks: Absolute. Whoever said "freedom isn't free" knew what they were talking about.

Running a few days late getting the July Americana challenge posted - should be posted tonight!

Be sure to check out the newest M&S Subgenre game!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/308607

July 20, 1969....50 Years! Seems like yesterday.

Well, that's a new one...I just got a notice that LT caps the number of comments that a user can post over time. So... that means I didn't get to send everyone the notice that the new Americana August 2019 Challenge had been posted.

For those of you who didn't get your personal notification (Andrew, Eadie, Sergei, Jaret and Jen), I'll send you the link later when LT decides it wasn't spam. :) But, in any case, you can access the new challenge here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/309593

>119 bhabeck: Wow! I guess they are probably trying to prevent spam.