Take It or Leave It Challenge - May 2024 - Page 1

For those new to this challenge: More info and monthly index can be found in post #1 of this thread or this TIOLI FAQS wiki.


...logo by cyderry

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Your challenge for May 2024 is to…

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Read a book whose title, subtitle, or author's full name begins or ends in the letter "Y"
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This should be fairly self-explanatory. Let me know if you need "rules" for this challenge. :D

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Other Stuff (not part of the TIOLI challenge):
1. FAMeulstee's 2024 TIOLI Sweeplette Meter
2. FAMeulstee's Our TIOLI Sweeps
3. Morphidae's List of Previous TIOLI Challenges (2010-2016) - A reference (Do a control-F scan) to avoid repeating a previous challenge. If your idea is similar to a previous challenge, make it unique by adding a new "twist" to it.
4. The May 2024 TIOLI Meter - Optional page on which you may track your TIOLI reading. Not competitive--- just fun!

Index of Challenges:

Challenges #1-6
1. Read a book whose title, subtitle, or author's full name begins or end in the letter "Y" - msg #1
2. Read a book where a 4-legged animal is mentioned in the title - msg #5
3. Read a book with a girl's name in the title - msg #3
4. The "In Honor of My Mother" Challenge: Read a book to to spell out MOTHER - msg #4
5. Read a book that you acquired in 2024 - msg #8
6. Read a book that poses a new question or answers a question already posed - msg #13

Challenges #7-12
7. Read a book for the Zodiac challenge (Taurus) - msg #16
8. Read a book from the list that shows what other LT members have read so far in 2024 - msg #18
9. Read a book whose title suggests something a person would like to achieve - msg #19
10. Read a book with first person narration or a title featuring the word "I", "me" or "my" - msg #29
11. Read a book mentioned in one of the Five Books Lists (fivebooks.com) - msg #49
12. Read a collection of religious or spiritual texts - msg #51

Challenges #13
13. Read a paper book - msg #59

Please hold your challenge until the June challenge is posted. Thank you!

Challenge #3: Read a book with a girl's name in the title

May is also a girl's name, so it's a simple one this time, read a book that contains a girl's name in the title. It can be embedded, it can be across more than 1 word, it does not have to be used as a name in the title.

Challenge #4: The "In Honor of My Mother" Challenge: My mother turns 85 in May, and Mother’s Day is being celebrated in the U.S. this month as well so I present a rolling challenge to spell out MOTHER. You must complete one set before you start building another.

I leave it up to you as to whether you want to use the article "The" for the T in Mother or not. The same is true of any other leading article in a title.

I have never done a Rolling Challenge before, I do not think, so if I messed it up, someone please correct me. Thanks.

Challenge #2: Read a book whose title contains a 4-legged animal

: Can be real or imaginary animals
: Animal can be embedded in a title word

>4 alcottacre: Is one set of MOTHER considered o be two spellings of mother? or are we waiting for the first 6 books to be entered?

>6 raidergirl3: We are just waiting for the first 6 books to be entered before we start another set.

Challenge #5: Read a book that you acquired in 2024

Any way of acquiring the book in 2024 is fine. Purchase. Borrowing. Gift. If you're matching someone else, you don't need to have acquired it in 2024.

This is totally self serving for me as three favorite authors have come out with new books in the past month or so (though one is due out this week). Amor Towles and his new Table for Two: Fictions, Doris Kearns Goodwin and her new book An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, and, due out this week, Erik Larson's new book about the period between Lincoln's election and the start of the Civil War, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War. Not to mention all those new mysteries I love (and need to read for Net Galley).

UPDATE: Someone later posted the Amor Towles book in a later challenge and so Stasia and I moved it over there.

It's always a good idea to check to see if someone has already posted a book to another challenge.

>8 lindapanzo: Ha! An excuse for me to finally read Towles' new book, which I have had on hand for almost a month now. Lol.

>9 alcottacre: The same here. I could probably put every book I read in May in my challenge.

>10 lindapanzo: I could probably put every book I read in May in my challenge.

Wow!

>11 alcottacre: Well, that didn't last long. Two books I picked up this year are now in challenge #1. But they could've been in my challenge...

Challenge #6: Read a book that poses a new question or answers a question already posed

The rules:
- Your book's title can either ask a new question or answers a question already asked.
- Question book titles must end with question marks, though you are free to either include or exclude subtitles as needed.
- Answer book titles need to answer one of the questions already posed. There is no limit to the number of times a question can be answered.
- If you don't finish an answer book, just delete it like normal. But if you don't finish a question book, mark it as DNF so its answers won't be orphaned.

>13 susanna.fraser: Can we use a subtitle too? I was thinking of using Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? as a question book title.

>14 alcottacre: Yes, that's fine.

>15 susanna.fraser: Thanks, Susanna!

Challenge #8: Read a book from the list that shows what other LT members have read so far in 2024

https://www.librarything.com/list/45140/Books-Read-in-2024

You have at least 1423 books to choose from. Note how many other members have read that book in the wiki.
You can go to the bottom of the page and search each page for a book or author you have been meaning to read to see if it is listed. Control + F

Challenge #9: Read a book whose title suggests something a person would like to achieve
This could be a goal they would want to achieve, or something tangible or intangible they would want to get.
I'll be reading Absolution by Alice McDermott to continue my reading of women in war.

My planned reads:
Challenge #1: Read a book whose title, subtitle, or author's full name begins or ends in the letter "Y" - started by SqueakyChu
*All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders ABANDONED
The Apology - Jimin Han
Lucky - Jane Smiley
✔No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July (3.5)
✔Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (5)
✔Station Eternity - Mur Lafferty (4)
✔Strong Female Character by Fern Brady (5)
Challenge #2: Read a book where a 4-legged animal is mentioned in the title - started by DeltaQueen
✔Dinosaurs - Lydia Millet (3.5)
Challenge #3: Read a book with a girl's name in the title - started by helenliz
*✔Good Night, Irene - Luis Alberto Urrea (4)
*✔Leaving Lucy Pear - Anna Solomon (3.5)
✔Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice - Cristina Rivera-Garza (3.5)
Challenge #4: The "In Honor of My Mother" Challenge - My mother turns 85 in May and Mother’s Day is celebrated in the U.S. this month as well, so I present a rolling challenge to spell out MOTHER. You must complete one set before you start building another. started by AlcottAcre
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead - Emily Austin abandoned
*✔The Familiar - Leigh Bardugo (3.5)
✔Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom - Ilyon Woo (4)
Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do about Animals - Bill Wasik
Challenge #5: Read a book that you acquired in 2024 - started by lindapanzo
The Garden: A Novel - Clare Beams
✔The Husbands by Holly Gramazio (4)
✔One Way Back: A Memoir - Christine Blasey Ford (5)
Wild Sign - Patricia Briggs
Challenge #6: Read a book that poses a new question or answers a question already posed - started by susanna.fraser
*✔And Then She Fell - Alicia Elliott (4)
The Rule Book: A Novel - Sarah Adams
✔The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear - Kate Moore (5)
Challenge #7: Read a book for the Zodiac challenge (Taurus - pending final check) - started by Morphidae
*✔How to Steal a Dog - Barbara O'Connor (5)
✔Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World - Jen Psaki (3.5)
*✔A Murder Most French - Colleen Cambridge (4)
Challenge #8: Read a book from the list that shows what other LT members have read so far in 2024 - started by dallenbaugh
✔Chaos Terminal - Mur Lafferty (3.5)
Challenge #9: Read a book whose title suggests something a person would like to achieve - started by Citizenjoyce
*✔Absolution - Alice McDermott (4)
✔The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions - Jonathan Rosen (5)
*The Last Word - Elly Griffiths
✔Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge (3.5)
Challenge #10: Read a book with first person narration or a title featuring the word "I", "me" or "my" - started by Chatterbox
✔My Side of the River: A Memoir - Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez (4)
*✔Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent (5)
Challenge #11: Read a book mentioned in one of the Five Books Lists (fivebooks.com) - started by avatiakh
*✔The Last Neanderthal: A Novel - Claire Cameron (5)
Challenge #12: Read a collection of religious or spiritual texts - started by paulstalder
✔Native Religions of the Americas (Religion, Scriptures, and Spirituality) - Åke Hultkrantz (3)
Challenge #13: Read a paper book - started by FAMeulstee
✔Batman - One Bad Day: Catwoman - G. Willow Wilson (3)

>18 dallenbaugh: You can also sort LT lists including this one by Author or Title

>20 Citizenjoyce: Looks like a really good reading month for you, Joyce! I will be curious to see what you think of The Woman They Could Not Silence.

>18 dallenbaugh: I think if you click on "your books" it will also show you which of the books in the list you have in your library.

>23 wandering_star: Yes, if you can't remember whether you have read the book you choose. At least I think that is what you mean.

>22 alcottacre: I read it already and have recommended it to many other people, but my real-life book club is reading it, so I thought I should refresh myself, I forget so much.

>25 Citizenjoyce: I understand that! It should make for a very good book club read and discussion, I would think.

>26 alcottacre: My only worry is that it's so long many of the people won't read it.

>27 Citizenjoyce: Yeah, it seems that 'the shorter, the better' these days when it comes to books - as I am contemplating how long it will take me to read Jewish Literacy at around 800 pages, lol.

I try very hard not to pick books out by their page length. If it is a good book, I am going to read it at any rate. It will just take me longer if it is a longer book, pure and simple. I am hoping that your book club friends give the book an honest chance!

Challenge #10: Read a book with first person narration or featuring first person singular pronouns in the title, eg me, mine

Hopefully fairly self-explanatory.
Battling toxic stomach virus so forgot to post the challenge here as well as on the wiki.
Diaries, letters, memoirs all work for this, as well as any novel that has at least one narrative strand in the first person singular.

>29 Chatterbox: I had the same battle in March. I feel for you and hope things are getting better.

>29 Chatterbox: Sorry you have a stomoach virus, I hope you feel better soon!

In the Wiki you say "I", "me" or "my" in the title, here you say "me" or "mine". What is correct?

>27 Citizenjoyce: Normally, I wouldn't read something that long; however, I'm ready to challenge the last couple years of almost all comfort reads.

I checked out the first few chapters on Amazon, l Iiked it, and purchased the ebook. I'm going to take it in small chunks. Maybe we could check in each week and see how everyone is doing?

.•°*°•.ƸӜƷ•°*°•.

>16 Morphidae: The challenge is up but it's not "prettified" yet. Yes, I know I don't have to for ya'lls sake but my brain insists all 12 months look alike!

April has been challenging as I've been sick the entire month with what I found out was human parainfluenza 3. Which in this case gave Mr. Murphy and I a nasty case of bronchitis.

I ended up in the hospital a week ago Monday for a side effect of the prednisone I was given plus a couple other relatively minor unrelated things.

>32 Morphidae: Hope you and Mr. Morphy are now back on the mend!

>32 Morphidae: Me too!

I have a question about your challenge though "an original published date between April 20th and May 20." Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea how you find out this information.

>34 alcottacre: I've found that one way is just to look the book up on Amazon. The book's main page includes an actual publishing date.

>35 SqueakyChu: Well, considering how many books I own, that could take a while. Lol.

>31 FAMeulstee: Because I blame my woozy lightheaded feverish self for this, I'll include/allow all first person pronouns including all possessive pronouns, so both "my" and "mine" are fine. :-)

>36 alcottacre: Well, at least 1 out of every 12 you check will meet the parameters of Morphy’s challenge! :D

>38 SqueakyChu: Yeah, it took me at least 12 before I got to that point!

(And if it is wrong, I am blaming Amazon since that is where I got the info to begin with! Lol)

>39 alcottacre: LOL! Well, I wasn't wrong!

>40 SqueakyChu: Nope!

>38 SqueakyChu: I think it took me 14-15 tries going down my list of books checked out. The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul qualifies, which would work for people who've read The Hands of the Emperor and The Return of Fitzroy Angursell with which it has some overlap.

>34 alcottacre: Another option, while not ideal, is to go to Common Knowledge and under Original published date put 2024-04-/dd or 2024-05-/dd.

I haven't yet found a place to look for a book by month and year, much less date, but I have found some sites to make finding the dates easier without having to physically handle each book.

For older books
Library of Congress

For newer books
World Cat

For European books (links to libraries in each county)
Harvard's Theatrum Catalogorum

Still picking at finding a way to search by date.

ETA: I'll also accept dates from GoodReads.

>43 Morphidae: I wouldn't use dates from Goodreads because some of it is very inaccurate and difficult to correct. I'm really fed up with Goodreads as I had my librarian privileges revoked years ago but people do worse things than anything I ever did - I've tried asking for some to be corrected and been ignored, or changes have been made again! Examples: merging different selections of Katherine Mansfield's short stories, combining novels with the same title but which are otherwise entirely different - Another Country by James Baldwin (1960) and Another Country by Anjali Joseph (2008). It's very dominated by US users who put covers and other details against all editions (that was how I got into trouble, mainly).

Most books published in the last few years have publication dates on publisher and bookseller websites, or you might be able to find reviews which indicate a publication date. I think it would probably be difficult to find out exactly which month books first published more than 20+ years ago, or before this century, came out.

>43 Morphidae: Thanks for the tip about Common Knowledge, Morphy.

>43 Morphidae: Not surprisingly, I can't figure out how that date thing works, where to put 2024-04-/dd

>46 Citizenjoyce: Joyce, at the bottom of all LT pages you can find "Common Knowledge." When you click on it, you will be taken to a page which will allow you to search Common Knowledge here on LT.

I could not get the date to work with the 2024-04-/dd format in the search box, but it did work with 2024-04 and then when the list pulls up, the actual date is listed.

Hope that helps!

>47 alcottacre: Thanks so much. I put in way to much time finding a book that fit. This is much easier.

Adding to the challenges as we don't seem to have many so far -
Challenge #11: Read a book mentioned in one of the Five Books Lists (fivebooks.com)

https://fivebooks.com/

Heaps of top 5 books lists here with interesting commentary

>48 Citizenjoyce: No problem, Joyce. I am glad the info helped.

>49 avatiakh: Thanks for that, Kerry. We do seem to be lagging in the number of challenges this month.

Challenge #12: Read a collection of religious or spiritual texts

Read a book containing religious or spiritual texts by different authors (also anonymous works count). Not the collected works of a single philosopher or a theologian. Yi Ching or the New Testament would be okay, but not the Quran (one author only).

The books I'm reading:
- The Apocrypha of the Old Testament
- The stories about the trickster, hero, half-god Coyote of some American Native peoples

>51 paulstalder: silly question, but how would you define "spiritual"? Would philosophical (eg stoicism) count there?

>49 avatiakh: Thanks Kerry, for your challenge! What a great site the 5 Book Lists is - I have been down the rabbit hole there for hours and have bought a few books and added many more to my lists of books to acquire and read. Now I have to decide which book to actually add to the challenge!

>51 paulstalder: Would Native Religions the Americas
by Åke Hultkrantz work? It’s by one person but about different religions.

>53 DeltaQueen50: I have to admit to having spent some time on the site as well. I really like the indepth talk about the books.
The Guardian has a Top 10s list section that is interesting too, I like to read the comments where readers throw up their suggestions to the mix. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/27/top-10-grudge-holders-in-fiction-s...

>55 avatiakh: And The Count of Monte Cristo did not make the list the grudge list? Dumas has some epic grudges in his books. The Three Musketeers practically uses them for rails.

>56 quondame: Ha ha. The Count made the comments list as did Poldark's Warleggan.

>55 avatiakh: these are being adding to a LT thread over time.
This is the start of thread 4 https://www.librarything.com/topic/354998#8276616

Challenge #13: Read a paper book

No e-books, no audio books, just plain old fashioned paper books for this challenge :-)

>59 FAMeulstee: Thank you! My favorite kind of book anyway. . .

>60 alcottacre: You are very welcome, Stasia, I see you had enough books to put in my challenge ;-)

>61 FAMeulstee: And I am heading over there to add another :)

I had a bunch of books to read in May that did not fit into any challenges this month until yours showed up!

>52 Chatterbox: not at all, as soon a philosophy explains where mankind came from, where is' heading, and what we should do in the mean time, it's a religion (at least for my challenge here).

>54 Citizenjoyce: yes, look at my example: that's basically the same: An author compiled religious text from different Nations.

>63 paulstalder: Thanks for clarifying!

>49 avatiakh: WOW -- a big thanks for the intro to that site. I've just added half a dozen new books to my wish list because of it and I'm actually afraid to explore further... :-) I love the way the lists are compiled, the fact that they're short and well-explained. Like watching good movie trailers...

>63 paulstalder: Thanks. I stay as far away from religion as I can, but anthropology and sociology interest me.

>65 Chatterbox: I'd been to the site a few times but never really explored it. Just now discovered that they have Readers Lists.

I have a question. I'm a bit tentative about asking it and I hope I don't jinx anything but is anyone having issues updating the wiki?

I haven't been using the TIOLI wiki but the ROOTs memorial challenge one and one of my personal ones. It always seems to happen on the weekends, when I just get a spinning Captcha wheel when I try to save changes. I'm wondering if it's something at my end or if it's site-wide.

>68 humouress: It isn't all the time, I am experiencing the same issues. Even no CAPTCHA at all. Sometimes it helps when I click 'preview' again.

>69 FAMeulstee: Thanks. I've sort of given up and just try again during the week but I might give that a go.

I keep updating the bug report on it, so there's a log, but I'm resigned to waiting it out. Though last week when we had a bank holiday on Wednesday it wasn't working and it worked for most of this weekend until now (which is Sunday night for me).

>18 dallenbaugh: When you say note how many people read the book on the wiki, are you looking for the number of members that added it to the list itself (in which case, my book has 1) or the number of members who have it in their LT library?

>71 bell7: I was mainly interested in who had read the book in 2024 which was indicated by the list I used. I used the member number listed under each book. That was an arbitrary number, but I think gave an idea how popular the book was overall.

>72 dallenbaugh: Okay cool, I did it right putting in the member number of 1,900 then. Just wanted to make sure!

Well, I have tried 3 times to update the wiki tonight and have gotten an error message each time. *sigh* I will try again tomorrow.

>74 alcottacre: I just got a measage that this site is experiencing technical difficulties. When I tried to put something into the wiki, that is.

>75 lindapanzo: Yep, that is what I got too, Linda.

>74 alcottacre: I even don't get to the wiki, got a 'Gateway time-out' each time I tried.

>77 FAMeulstee: That is what I got this morning when I tried a few minutes ago. No idea what is going on with that wiki.

>78 alcottacre: I think some kind of attack is going on, none of the wiki pages can be reached.

>79 FAMeulstee: Yeah, I tried reaching the Threadbook and could not get to it either. I believe you are right.

There's an issue with wikis today. There is a bug report out.

>81 humouress: OK. Thanks for letting us know, Nina.

Wow, still wiki problems. This is a long one.

I just checked and the wiki is still down. A long one is right, Joyce.

It's working now!

>85 bell7: Yes it is. Hurray!!

>59 FAMeulstee: If someone has listed a book for your challenge can you listen to it as a shared read? I have 21 Lessons for the 21st Century on audio and would like to share it with Madeline.

>87 Citizenjoyce: Just a warning. I love this book, but I'm reading it very slowly and, in all honesty, will probably not complete it this month.

You also have my permission to move my entry to Challenge #5: Read a book that you acquired in 2024. Let me know if you do this so I can change the challenge # on my thread.

>88 SqueakyChu: No need to move the book. I don't read paper books so I was hoping to tag along with yours. I wonder if I still could, even if you don't finish it.

>89 Citizenjoyce: It's a fabulous book. It just makes you think. Try to read other books by this author. I already read Sapiens and hope to read the others in the future.

>90 SqueakyChu: I did read Sapiens and agree, he makes you think and helps you think.

>87 Citizenjoyce: Yes, a shared read is always allowed.
Sorry, I didn't think someone would not read paper books at all.

>92 FAMeulstee: Heh! I don’t read anything but paper books (although I have read audio books and ebooks in the past) so your challenge was the best ever for me!

>92 FAMeulstee: It is interesting to see how people read. I never ever listen to audio books and I would guess I read a dozen print books a year of my own, along with some library books, every year. Overall, probably about 85 to 90% Kindle books, though.

I never expected to be mainly a Kindle reader. I love being able to adjust typesize and to carry many, if not most, of my books with me in something that fits into my smallish purse. I've usually got 3 books going at one time. For instance, right now, I just started the new Erik Larson history which I think of as my main current book, a cozy mystery by Jeanne Dams, and a book about the Stanley Cup.

Since there are only a few members using the Books Read in 2024 list, I decided to add mine (skipping my May reads).

And I found this really cool feature:

You can easily add your own list of books by copying any list of books, and under the "+ Add Work to List button" is a tab called "Add Multiple Works by Magic". The tag line reads: "What do I do? Just copy and paste a list of books. LibraryThing will find all the works in it by title and author, or by ISBN. It mostly works."

Very cool. It worked on about 9 out of 10 books for me and I added the rest by hand.

https://www.librarything.com/list/45140/Books-Read-in-2024

>95 streamsong: Well, my list of titles, one per line, did not yield any books to add. I took them directly from a pdf-print of the LT list of my books.

>96 quondame: Well, darn. Maybe it's glitchy like the wiki's have been. Or maybe it doesn't like PDF's? For me it was almost magic and pretty cool.

>97 streamsong: Do you just enter a list of titles in straight text? I selected and copied from a pdf, but the input should have been straight text.
Ah, I think I may have a clue. The select/copy/paste doesn't retain line breaks between books. Are your titles on separate lines or tabs or commas?

TIOLI Question of the Month:

Of all the books you've read for the TIOLI challenges this year, which book, by far, brought you the most joy? Why?

>99 SqueakyChu: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
The writing, the interesting setting, depiction of nuanced lives, the characters all worked so well together.
The re-read that I had the most fun with was At the Feet of the Sun because of spending time with favorite characters and well, it's a lot of fun.

>99 SqueakyChu: Probably one of my all-time favorites, 84, Charing Cross Road. Of course, I love all of the books mentioned throughout, but I also love the friendship that develops between Frank and Helene despite the distance between them. A slight book, but a great one (IMHO) nonetheless.

> I finally read Rules of Civility by Amor Towles after having it recommended and referenced for years, what a great book with very interesting relationships, but I think the books that gave me the most joy this month were Mastering the Art of French Murder and A Murder Most French by Colleen Cambridge. I'm not a fan of mysteries, but Julia Child is a character in both books and reading about her food and quirky friendship gave me great joy. I keep thinking about her and what fun it would be to have such a neighbor.

>102 Citizenjoyce: Glad you enjoyed the first two American in Paris series books by Colleen Cambridge. I loved them as well. I also like her other series, the Phyllida Bright series. Phyllida is Agatha Christie's housekeeper. I've read the first three of those and am eagerly awaiting the fourth in the series due out in October.

>18 dallenbaugh: I just finished a book that I know was read by Paul C. in April of this year that is not on your list. Is it allowable?

>104 quondame: Yes, that is fine.

>105 dallenbaugh: Thank you.