First of all, let me just say, "WOW!!" keli and I were both blown away by the amount of categories suggested this year. Last year, we struggled to get to 31 categories and this time--even after much combining of similar suggestions--we ended up with a whopping 67 categories. Thank you to everyone who posted suggestions.

Here's the list:
( It's quite long... )

And here's the slight change: keli and I have discussed this, and since there is such a huge amount of categories to vote for, we decided to use a random number generator to whittle the list down to 45. I'm in the process of getting the first round voting post up which will have that list included.

BUT...I will let you all in on a new rule that we're implementing for 2019. In addition to the two wildcards, the 2019 game will also include two square substitutions.

Those will work like this:

We will post a substitution list at the start of the year. It will be comprised of 8-10 categories not included on the final card. If you are having trouble with a square and don't have a wildcard to use or would rather save your wildcards for a later date, you can choose a category from the list and swap it out with a square on the card.

Example: Say that I'm having trouble filling the "Animal on the Cover" square and I've already used my wildcards, I can look at the list and choose one of the categories--say, "A Favorite Re-Read"--and swap it for the "Animal on the Cover" square.

Wildcards will work the same as they do this year. You can read any book of your choice and fill a square.

The substitutions list will be chosen from the above posted list of 67, excluding the categories that make the final card, of course.

Any questions, please ask.

1st round voting post will be up shortly!

Under the cut is a list of 45 out of 67 categories we've had suggested. (Please see this post for more information.) What we'd like you (and keli and I, too) to do is to vote for 10 of them you'd like to see on the final card. After a week or so, I'll tally the votes and the 6 categories that have the most votes will make it onto the card, the others will be placed back in the list for the next round of voting. I'd like for us to choose six categories per week for the next four weeks.

Comments will be screened until time to tally the votes. At least they're supposed to be screened. I set the entry to screen comments, but I'm having to go back and manually screen them for some reason.

( Read more... )