SF_fan_mae tries a BingoDog for 2025

Just joined the group. I'm going to try the Bingo challenge for 2025. It will probably take me the month of December just to figure out the oldest book on my TBR! As I find books in my TBR pile that match categories, I'll add them here, but I won't mark them on the BINGO card until I've read them.



1 - features winged creatures
2 - features fire - Into the West - lots and lots of fire in the final battle!
3 - travel - Passenger to Frankfort
4 - newly in public domain
5 - child main character - Fearless: A Tale of a Runaway Imagination
6 - long title - The Curse of the Giant Hogweed
7 - non-traditional family - The Church on Ruby Road
8 - totally random (I'll use "random book from your books" to pick this) - The Worlds of Clifford Simak
9 - author has your first/last name - Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart
10 - holiday in title - Death of a Valentine
11 - nonhuman narrator - A Burning House - hardly any human characters at all
12 - published in language not your own
13 - read a CAT - ColorCAT
14 - furniture on the cover - Murder in the Paperback Parlor
15 - medical topic
16 - features a birth
17 - Hollywood - It Rhymes With Takei
18 - place you've never been - one of the Judge Dee Chinese mysteries, The Emperor's Pearl
19 - profession in title - Death of a Chimney Sweep
20 - sun on cover/in title - Lilith - sunset on cover
21 - oldest book on your TBR - going with a book I bought new but haven't read yet, rather than one of the older used books that have only been on my TBR a few months/years - Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark, 1992
22 - recommended by a friend - Bible study group book, The Message of Jesus, recommended by another member of the group
23 - "Library" or "Thing" in title
24 - writing about writers

Actually, maybe that's a question, is the oldest book the one with the farthest back publication date or the one that's been on the TBR pile the longest? I have some books from the 1960s that I've just picked up over the summer from the used book store.

>2 SF_fan_mae: Welcome to the Category Challenge! I hope you have fun with the BingoDOG!

We were just talking about the question of “oldest book on your TBR” over in the planning thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/365342#8682264. The bottom line is you can interpret it however you like! I’m going for oldest in terms of publication date, but others are going with longest on the TBR pile, so either is fine.

Welcome to the group! BingoDOG is one of my favourites so a great starting point.
I am just going to choose a book that I have been meaning to read for ages - I have quite a few that have been on my TBR for a very long time. Wolf Hall, I am looking at you!

Welcome and have fun bingo reading in 2025!

Welcome. Enjoy your reading in 2025!

Welcome! Hope you enjoy the challenge. Happy reading!

>1 SF_fan_mae: I'm in the same boat as you! We can hold hands and make our way through this year together :D Happy reading!

Welcome and enjoy your Bingo!

Thanks all for the welcome! I've decided to also try the ColorCAT, for my bingo square 13.

January – Green - Anything Goes
February – Gold - The Concubine's Tattoo
March – Pink - Lilith, for the pink sunset on the cover
April – Brown - Death of a Chimney Sweep
May – Red - Lady Crymsyn
June – Yellow - Mulch Ado About Nothing
July – White - White Darkness
August – Grey - A Burning House
September – Silver - Memoirs of an Invisible Man
October – Black - Absolution By Murder
November – Blue - Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn
December - Purple - Someone to watch over me

All from my TBR piles, mostly mysteries, some SF.

>10 SF_fan_mae: - Most of us just read one book for one of the Cats. Your plan is more ambitious than most of us.

Good reading in 2025.

>1 SF_fan_mae: I am selecting the oldest book on my Kindle since that is the only one I can properly date. Have fun and hope you B-I-N-G-O

I'm also in an Agatha Christie reading group on another site, we read and discuss a Christie each month. Back in 2020 we started reading all the novels in publication order. We have less than a year's worth left, so I hope some of them happen to fit my cover colors or bingo squares!

Have a happy reading year with many Bingos!

Happy New Year and good luck with your reading.

Hope you have fun with the BingoDog.

Enjoy your reading year-BINGO!

Thanks to the snow storm, I've already finished two Bingo squares, Passenger to Frankfort for travel, definitely not one of my favorite Christies, and Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark, a very old 6th Doctor and Ace novel, also, sadly, not very good, for longest in my TBR. I've also started Anything Goes, my January Green ColorCAT entry, the first in a 1930's set mystery series.

Bad weather is such an enabler for reading, isn’t it?

>19 SF_fan_mae: Hope your next few reads are better than the first two!

Finished my Gold February ColorCat book - The Concubine's Tattoo and starting my non-tradition family bingo square with The Church on Ruby Road.

Finished Death of a Valentine, my "holiday in the title" bingo square. I'm afraid the Hamish Macbeth series has really jumped the shark. The one before this was completely unreadable to me (hit all my horrible plot buttons, I don't think I finished 2 chapters) and while I finished this one, I skimmed the last 3rd of it (this time it was the awful new character that put me off). I still have a couple more, but I won't keep looking for the rest on my used book store runs.

Finished The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart, for the "same name" bingo square. First book by her that I've read, though her name comes up often on classic mystery writer lists. Enjoyed it, making allowances for the changes in society in the past 110 years since it was written.

BINGO!

Finished my "totally random" book, as selected by the LT "pick a random book" feature. Also started a "place I've never been" book - The Emperor's Pearl.

Congratulations on your first bingo!

Really enjoying my "furniture on the cover" book - Murder in the Paperback Parlor. It's number 2 in a series. I had found it and #3 at a used bookstore. Now I need to find #1.

Finished two more squares this week and got another Bingo.

Found a "Hollywood" book to read after all, George Takei's memoir It Rhymes with Takei.

this was fun... going to set up a bingo card for 2026.

I’m glad you had fun! See you in the 2026 group!