Book Bout - Overview

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Pack your bags, we're going on a literary adventure!

Our theme for Book Bout is....

Adventure/Exploration

That being said, not every book you read has to fit the theme - but you'll be able to earn more points for your team if you do.

Team Points

Books

• Each book you read for the challenge (and post about it per the guidelines below) is worth 20 team points.
• If any of your books read fit the overall theme, you'll be able to earn a further 5 team points
• We've provided a series of prompts that relate to the theme of Adventure/Exploration: if your book includes one of these, you'll earn a further 5 team points.
• The total number of team points that can be earned per book is 30.

Tasks

At the start of each week, we'll be posting 2-3 discussions and/or photography tasks (descriptions in place of photos/graphics are perfectly fine). Each of these are worth 5 team points. The deadline is the same as for book posts, Sunday, the 23rd of August

Awards

We have two awards up for grabs (we're still in the process of finalising their names):

• This activity is all about reading - any book read is worth celebrating! If you read even just one book and post about it, you'll be eligible for an award.
• Sharing the love of reading is important to us - if you complete 10 tasks and/or prompts (ie. 10 book tasks, 10 photography/graphics tasks or a combination of the two equal to 10) you'll also be eligible for an award.

Beans

• Each book you read will count for 25 beans
• Each task you complete will earn you 10 beans

Books

You must have read (or reread) the book during the challenge. If you started a book just before the event started then you can count it, providing you read most of it during the event. Counting books you read and finished before the event is not allowed.

Reading in different formats is also absolutely fine. Audio Books, graphic novels, scripts, books of poetry and the like all count. Unfortunately,fanfiction and podcasts don't.

Please pay attention to HOL appropriateness while choosing your books. Ideally, you should be posting about things that are suitable for even our younger members to read (the later Harry Potter Books are generally a good guide for the level of threat, language and violence that is advisable). If you believe your book tackles darker or emotional themes then please include a disclaimer so that everyone can make an informed choice.

Posting Guidelines

In order for your books to count towards your team points (and the individual awards), you’ll need to post something around the Book Club for each one before 11:59 PM HOL-time on August 23rd. This doesn't have to be just a series of reviews: you might present a new author on The Bookshelf or start a conversation about something more general you noticed in several books on Between the Pages.

While there are specific guidelines in the 'Overview' threads on each subforum, for this Challenge here are a couple things to keep in mind:

• To ensure that people get the most out of any reviews you write for The Bookshelf, your comments should be a minimum of 80 words (this does not include the info about the book’s title, author or series).
• If someone has already started a topic about your book, author or subject, please contribute to that rather than starting a brand new one of your own.
• Make sure the review or discussion is yours and based on your own thoughts while reading; lifting a review from Goodreads or elsewhere on the internet, representing it as yours, is categorically not allowed. You may quote someone else's blurb or opinion though, providing you credit the source.
• Please remember to include disclaimers for darker/emotional themes and also spoiler warnings if your review or discussion mentions specific parts of the plot.

Once you've made a post about a book, please edit your post in the sign up thread to reflect that and point us in the right direction with a link to your book review. You can keep track of your official progress with our spreadsheet. In addition, if you think your book fits the overall theme then explain how in a few words. You should also do the same if you think the book fits one of our book-related prompts. Remember, until you’ve posted about it, the book doesn’t count towards your team and won’t appear in the spreadsheet used to keep track of individual/team points. Please note that the spreadsheet might only be updated every few days.

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We were inspired by several challenges and are indebted to the original creators for sparking the idea for this.

[Prof. Sky Alton]

It's great to see everyone getting stuck in to reading!

There's been a bit of confusion so I just wanted to drop in a note toclarify a few things:
1. Rereading, listening to audio books and reading graphic novels are all fine. Unfortunately fanfiction and podcasts don't count.
2. You must have read or reread the book since the challenge began; counting books that you read before the challenge is not allowed. If you started a book just before and finished it during the challenge then you can still count it providing you read the majority while the challenge was going on.
3. Reviews should include your own thoughts on the book as well as information about the book itself. If you use blurbs/summaries/synopses from other places (like the back of the book or Goodreads), please include a note of where you got it from.
4. For a book to count, you need to edit a link to your post about it into your original signup post and also include whether you think it fits the theme (adventure/exploration). Additionally if you thinkit fits one of the additional reading prompts, please include a brief explanation of which one and why. For instance: 'I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (link to review) and I think it fits the theme as it involves adventure. It also fits the additional prompt about 'an unusual mode of transportation' as it features a flying car'. Obviously, if your book doesn't fit the theme or a prompt, then a link to your review will do just fine.

[Prof. Sky Alton]

What an incredible bout we've had so far! It's been awesome watching everyone embarking on literary adventures and enjoying the stellar responses the prompts have been getting. And of course, seeing those team points mounting up.

Remember you can still join in on the adventure. Signups are open until the 17th of August with everything due a week later on the 23rd. I know our teams would love a few more wanderers/voyagers. Even if you can only manage to slot in one book in the remaining time, it's still well worth doing. Who'll emerge victorious? We'll find out!

Good luck to both teams and happy reading.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Our literary adventure will be coming to an end on Sunday, 23 August - the last day to submit any reviews or tasks. If you'd like to check your progress towards any of the awards, an 'Awards' tab has been added to the spreadsheet.