Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

We all love our reading challenges but sometimes it can get tough to fit in those side reads. When we read a great book, it would be great to squeeze in another one, whether it be inspired by the same subject, theme, or genre. So this week is your opportunity to do just that. You get two weeks to read two books that are somehow inspired by each other.

-----------------------------------
Suggestions:
- Group Bookshelf
This topic is entirely dependent on your choice for your first book. If you're looking for some guidance, feel free to post a comment with your first book and others can help you find the second. You can also post your own choices and connections in order to inspire others.

-----------------------------------
Optional questions:
- What are you reading for this category? (Both books)
- How are they connected?

I hoping to slot Barbara Unsheltered in here and I'd like to find a non-fiction book to pair with it. I'm still looking so any suggestions are welcome. In some ways Origin of the Species would be a good pick but I've already read it and don't especially want to reread it. Perhaps something about the current US political situation would work.

I've got several ideas but I'm really interested in reading the 2 book series Doc and Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell, about the Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday story.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to read a fiction and a non-fiction book on the same topic,and it will probably be Black Lives Matter themed. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir and Dear Martin are my current picks.

Chrissy, Those two sound like a great pairing. Perhaps I'll steal them and try and squeeze Unsheltered in elsewhere. Book about a historical figure? Although that might be a bit of a stretch since I'm not sure any of the main characters are famous enough to be "figures". Charles Darwin certainly is but I don't think he is really a character in the book. Perhaps I'll try and get a copy now and read it before next year. One way of solving my dilemma!

I'm thinking of doing a fiction/non-fiction pairing. Thus far, I'm thinking:

In the Shadow of Blackbirds paired with A History of Ghosts: The True Story of S�ances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters (spiritualism)

Rise to Rebellion: A Novel of the American Revolution paired with 1776 (American Revolution)

Some kind of sci-fi book paired with The Right Stuff (space travel)

Or I could pair a fantasy book that uses mythology or folklore with the source material. Maybe some mythology-based fantasy paired with Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes or The Winter of the Witch with a book about Russian folklore.

I've finally solved by Unsheltered conundrum. (It's going for the polarizing prompt category since I heard great things about it on the What Should I read Next podcast.) I'm borrowing from Chrissy here and reading Dear Martin and pairing it with The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea.

I don't know which two books I am going to read for sure, but I'm doing Cleveland true crime as my relation. I like true crime, but haven't really read any local stuff. I'm considering Nobody's Women: The Crimes and Victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer and The Lost Girls: The True Story of the Cleveland Abductions and the Incredible Rescue of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus because they're cases that I remember occurring and would like to know more about.

A variation on this prompt came up earlier in the voting - "two books, with each book representing a different opposing side of an issue/event/perspective." I found two books for that prompt and have left them on the list for my Rejects Challenge but they would work for this prompt also.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy
slavery, from the viewpoint of the slaves

Sugar Money by Jane Harris
slavery, from the viewpoint of the slave traders

I am going to go with 2 books from the Throne of glas series and I have several other prompts to fit other books from the same series.

I am looking for suggestions. I have several nonfiction books I'd like to read from my 40 Before 40 list, but I would like suggestions on fiction pairings for them.

1. MENTAL ILLNESS: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
2. FEMINISM: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. CULTS: Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple by Deborah Layton
4. SERIAL KILLERS: I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
5. WWII: Night by Elie Wiesel
6. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Emily wrote: "I am looking for suggestions. I have several nonfiction books I'd like to read from my 40 Before 40 list, but I would like suggestions on fiction pairings for them. ..."

Emily - For WWII, there are tons of novels but a YA book (with a touch of magic) that you might like and is different from more traditional historical fiction is The Girl with the Red Balloon. It has a dual timeline set in East Berlin and during the Holocaust in a ghetto.

If I read in order, it won"t be the right time to read the two Christmas books I have planned.

Pam wrote: "Emily wrote: "I am looking for suggestions. I have several nonfiction books I'd like to read from my 40 Before 40 list, but I would like suggestions on fiction pairings for them. ..."

Emily - For ..."

Pam, thank you for that! I've had that book on my TBR but I hadn't even considered YA. It will pair well with Night though... lots of different perspectives between the two books!

My only concern is if I can stomach two WWII books back to back 😂

I am going to read the fiction/non fiction pairing of An American Marriage and Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.

I'm using this for a fiction/non-fiction pairing but am still trying to figure out my topic.

Emily, I found this article when searching for the "group/cult" reject prompt

For WWII pairing with Night, how about Lilac Girls?

Rachelnyc wrote: "I'm using this for a fiction/non-fiction pairing but am still trying to figure out my topic.

Emily, I found this article when searching for the "group/cult" reject prompt ..."

I just finished Lilac Girls and that was exactly the book I was going to,suggest to Emily as well!

I will be reading Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction and Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines. It's the same story told from the father's perspective and from his own perspective. I am not sure which was published first, but I just find the concept really interesting.

So i know i want to do a fiction/nonfiction pairing, but I always run into problems when the options are seemingly endless. I really liked Chrissy's idea, so right now I'm thinking about doing Dear Martin with Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race or something akin to that. But there's certainly a couple other topics I'm very interested in, psychology and genetics being the ones that come to mind, but I don't really know what my fiction choices would be for those. So for now, I'm sticking with the BLM/racism theme

I was reading Book Riot and saw The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction which reminded me I have a non-fiction book that's been on my wishlist for years now about living near a nuclear facility Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats. One sounds deeply depressing and the other a bit fun. So I might use them for my pairing. I could also use Command and Control which I do already have a copy of.

I HAD been tentatively planning to read two books in the same series, or two books that fit the same reject prompt (deck of cards or ancient civ), but while looking at ideas for other categories I've had some new ideas for this one!

1. Two Asian mysteries (any two of the following):
The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan
A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint
Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan (this one is set in Canada with a Muslim detective, so it might be an interesting pair to a book set in Asia)
Malice by Keigo Higashino

2. A biography and a novel about the same person:
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Fallen Beauty by Erika Robuck

Which lead me to:
3. A biography of an author and a book by that author:
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Second April (or something similar, depends on what my library has)
or
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston and Dust Tracks on a Road
or
The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne and Agnes Grey or Villette

4. Same/similar title (I realize this was not exactly what this category is, but I can't stop loving the idea)
The Good Son by You-jeong Jeong
and
The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

Nadine wrote: "I HAD been tentatively planning to read two books in the same series, or two books that fit the same reject prompt (deck of cards or ancient civ), but while looking at ideas for other categories I'..."

Wouldn't the title theme be good CHILDREN?

I'm doing the next two books in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny:
#7 A Trick of the Light and #8 The Beautiful Mystery.

I've been only reading one each year until now, and I hope to read 4 during this challenge.

Emily wrote: "I am looking for suggestions. I have several nonfiction books I'd like to read from my 40 Before 40 list, but I would like suggestions on fiction pairings for them.

1. MENTAL ILLNESS: Brain ..."</i>
[book:Challenger Deep might work. Its on my TBR but I haven't read it's a suggestion more than a recommendation.

Margaret wrote: "I already have this nonfiction book about birdwatching: Bird Watcher's Adventures in Tropical America. This new fiction release about a birdwatcher sounds so intriguing that I think ..."
Ooohh. Feeling very excited by The Life List of Adrian Mandrick since if I've got spare time and I'm not reading then I'm probably birding. And, since I only clicked on this thread accidentally, I think I can honestly say that I stumbled across the title. Running off to update my 2019 plan accordingly!

Nadine wrote: "I HAD been tentatively planning to read two books in the same series, or two books that fit the same reject prompt (deck of cards or ancient civ), but while looking at ideas for other categories I'..."

I love Edna St Vincent Millay's poetry. More books to add to my TBR. Thanks...I think!

LOL 카지노싸이트 is dangerous to our growing TBR lists!!!

Emily wrote: "I am looking for suggestions. I have several nonfiction books I'd like to read from my 40 Before 40 list, but I would like suggestions on fiction pairings for them.

1. MENTAL ILLNESS: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
2. FEMINISM: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie"

1. Challenger Deep is a good one for mental illness.
2. I really liked The Power for a fictional dystopia that makes you think about misogyny and feminism.

One of the genre types that I have found I enjoy is surprising to me I am not very much into Hollywood Gossip but I really do enjoy Hollywood Memoirs especially funny people!! So gonna go with.....

Lucky Man
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

I did a whole challenge based on pairing fiction and non-fiction books. Here is one pair I enjoyed very much:

Fiction: Euphoria - a novel about a love triangle, loosely based on a year in the life of Margaret Mead, when she was doing field work in Samoa

Nonfiction: The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy - Absolutely fascinating! The things that people can make up, the venal motivations, the soap opera that surrounded all this - wow! It was like reading another novel that was so crazy it couldn't possibly be true.

Cheri wrote: "I did a whole challenge based on pairing fiction and non-fiction books. Here is one pair I enjoyed very much:

Fiction: Euphoria - a novel about a love triangle, loosely based on a ..."

Oh that's a great pairing!!! I really loved Euphoria!

I agree, Euphoria was really good. And that non-fiction book about Margaret Mead sounds so interesting, I wish I had known about it closer to when I read Euphoria.

And that bird watching novel sounds great. You're right, Nadine.

I was really liking everyone's one fiction, one non-fiction on the same topic so I've already changed my mind on what I want to do for this. I'm sticking with my Cleveland crime topic, but I'm going to do a fiction and a non-fiction related to Eliot Ness. I'm planning on reading The Dark City for my fiction and am going to stick with In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders as my non.

Y'all apparently know me so well! I loved Lilac Girls and Challenger Deep, and I have The Power on my list to read next month!

Here's the pairings I have so far (but I'd love more suggestions if you have them!)

MENTAL ILLNESS: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

FEMINISM: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë or The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

CULTS: Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple by Deborah Layton and The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins or Children of Paradise by Fred D'Aguiar

WWII: Night by Elie Wiesel and The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Emily wrote: "... FEMINISM: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë or The Red Tent by Anita Diamant ..."

I just read Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger and it was absolutely THE best book I've ever read about feminism. The fiction possibilities are endless, of course, and include The Power and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall if you want a classic (but maybe you've read that one)

Another interesting feminist pairing would be ANY Wonder Woman graphic novel (eg: Wonder Woman, Volume 1: The Lies) read with The Secret History of Wonder Woman which is both a biography of the creator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston, AND a nice concise history of feminism in the early 20th century (Marston was involved with Margaret Sanger's niece).

I like the idea of fiction/non-fiction pairing. here is mine:

fiction
Frankenstein

non fiction
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley

Loving reading about these fiction/non-fiction pairings, so I think I will do that too. My current option (although I could change my mind easily) is:

A Walk in the Woods and
The Great Alone

with "wilderness" as the common theme.

To end the year I'm trying to get further in series, and it created an interesting pair that made me think of this. I read A Twist in Time whose main character is an FBI agent that time travels into the 1800s. I'm now reading Head On whose main character is a cyborg-esque (for lack of a better term) FBI agent in the near future. It's kinda funny reading the similarities between the two.

Shelley wrote: "To end the year I'm trying to get further in series, and it created an interesting pair that made me think of this. I read A Twist in Time whose main character is an FBI agent that ..."

That is an interesting pairing! Would the first books in the series match up as well? (that is, do the FBI agents travel back/forward in time in the first books too?)

Nadine wrote: "Shelley wrote: "To end the year I'm trying to get further in series, and it created an interesting pair that made me think of this. I read A Twist in Time whose main character is an..."

Yes the first of the series would work. In Lock In, he just is in the future, but I'm sure that there is a different crime series with an FBI agent actually traveling forward in time to really knit the two together more closely.

Kelly wrote: "One of the genre types that I have found I enjoy is surprising to me I am not very much into Hollywood Gossip but I really do enjoy Hollywood Memoirs especially funny people!! So gonna go with........"

Lucky Man is so good. It reads like he is sitting at your kitchen table having a conversation with you.

Milena wrote: "I will be reading Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction and Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines. It's the same story told from the father's p..."

Ya know I read those books at the same time... I would read a few chapters from Dads perspective then a few from the Son's perspective. I really liked doing it that way. Not sure if that is how you would want to do it but just a suggestion. I really enjoyed the dad's perspective the most. Maybe that is just because I have never been an addict so the dad was more relatable to my life experiences I have seen it in other family members but not myself.

Kelly wrote: "Milena wrote: "I will be reading Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction and Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines. It's the same story told from..."

Interesting idea. I will give it a try.
As the daughter of a young adult, I am more interested in the father's version. The movie got me more interested in it also. But my daughter's boyfriend highly recommends the son's version.

So many choices! Here are a couple of pairings I'm thinking about:
This Little Art and Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes and Birthday Letters

Lincoln in the Bardo and The Graveyard Book

That's a great combo, Karen - Lincoln in the Bardo and The Graveyard Book.

I was thinking of doing a combo of a comedy and tragedy with the same theme. I don't know if it's possible. Any suggestions??

I'm planning to do 11/22/63 and November Road, The Alice Network and Lilac Girls, or The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy and Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert

This one was easy for me because I had the fiction/non fiction theme already planned out for my rejects list:
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
The Only Harmless Great Thing

Plan B: If I can't get through Radium Girls ( I plan on being RUTHLESS about DNFing books next year, I suffered through way too much crap this challenge) is to do 2 dystopian books because I love them. For that I picked The Dog Stars and The Salt Line

Tracy wrote: "... ( I plan on being RUTHLESS about DNFing books next year, I suffered through way too much crap this challenge)..."


YASSS!! Life is too short to be reading books you aren't loving (or at least liking) - it's so freeing now that I let myself DNF without guilt.

Nadine wrote: "Tracy wrote: "... ( I plan on being RUTHLESS about DNFing books next year, I suffered through way too much crap this challenge)..."


YASSS!! Life is too short to be reading books you aren't loving..."

Cheers to that Nadine!!!! I loaded my list for next year with Dystopians, YA, Graphic Novels, whatever looked fun or fascinating or just really good. I have officially joined the DNF club.I'm gonna be throwing books at walls next year LOL.