Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

It's now time to get ready to vote for our first set of prompts! The thread will be open for at least 24 hours before the poll gets posted. This is a good opportunity to ask any question you may have regarding the prompts, do some research or ask for recommendations.

Voting will open in the morning of Wednesday, September 30 and results will be posted in the morning of Sunday, October 4 (CST time).

How it works:
- When the voting opens, follow the link to the mini-poll that will be added at the end of this post
- You have a total of 8 votes this poll to spread across your favourite and least favourite prompts (you can also use less than 8 votes) - You can find examples of acceptable voting practices on the Introduction thread.
- The prompts with the more favorable votes (comparing top votes to bottom votes, and looking at the overall number of votes it received) will be added to the final list (between 2 and 5 depending on how the votes are spread)

We are asking people to include their 카지노싸이트 profile address when they vote. To find this, just go to your own profile and then copy the URL/web address. If for some reason you can't link to your 카지노싸이트 profile, please post your full 카지노싸이트 name with enough identifiable information that we'll be able to access your profile. We’ve introduced this for two reasons:

1. On a few occasions in each poll, people have used more than the allotted number of votes, either because they aren’t familiar with the rules or just by mistake. When this happens our only option is to disregard the vote as we can’t identify the voter to ask them to resubmit. By asking for your profile address we’ll be able to message you and ask you to vote again if you’ve accidentally used more than the allotted number of votes.

2. Unfortunately a very small number of people have voted more than once per poll and so we are asking for this information to prevent duplicate votes.

As a reminder: You have a total of 8 votes to use among your top and bottom votes. The mods have access to each individual vote, so we can see if you use more than 8 votes. If you use more than 8 votes in the poll, your vote will have to be deleted, so please make sure to follow the directions so your voice can be heard.

Possible Prompts:
1. A book that you consider comfort reading
2. A book about a books
3. A book with a theme of opposites
4. A book that fits a prompt suggestion that didn't make the final list
5. A collection of short stories, essays, or poetry
6. A book related to the 21st chemical element Scandium
7. A book recommended via the Readers Also Enjoyed feature (top right) on the 카지노싸이트 page from a book you gave 5-stars in the past 3 years
8. A book with a list of characters or a family tree
9. A book with a female villain or criminal
10. A book by or about an everyday hero
11. A book that tells the story behind the story
12. A book from the first 20 books on your GR to-read shelf when sorted by “date added” in ascending order
13. A book from the Tournament of Books
14. A book with a found family
15. A book title or an author where the first word has two syllables, and the second word has one syllable (ignoring A or The in titles)

Feel free to discuss the prompts below, but please remember to be respectful to the other group members.

VOTE HERE:

NOTES AND IDEAS FROM THE SUGGESTIONS THREAD

3. A book with a theme of opposites
(opposing forces, ideas, personalities, backgrounds, etc.)
Ex: good vs. evil, opposites attract romance, unlikely friendship, etc.

6. A book related to the 21st chemical element Scandium
It could be (but not limited to):
• Set in Scandanavia (traditionally Denmark Norway and Sweden but often expanded to include Finland and Iceland)
• By a Scandinavian author
• Published in the 1870's
• About chemistry
• Related to one of it's uses


10. A book by or about an everyday hero
In honor of our essential workers and everyday heroes: teachers, garbage collectors, postal workers, bus drivers, grocery store workers, vets, first responders, etc.

If you'd like to expand it beyond occupation, it could also be about someone who saves the day, saves the business, etc.


/shelf/show/...

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11. A book that tells the story behind the story
This could be a prequel in a series or very open to interpretation for nonfiction

12. A book from the first 20 books on your GR to-read shelf when sorted by “date added” in ascending order
Basically one of the 20 books that’s been on your GR TBR shelf the longest. I can’t be the only one with books there from 2009!

13. A book from the Tournament of Books
This is the link to the one I know - and has been going for 15 years so aa good number of choices but not overwhelming. There may be other similar tournaments that I don’t know about but I’m happy for them to be used.

14. A book with a found family
Found family is a family that you find (rather than or born into). It can be a mentor or a set of friends or coworkers that are more like family than your own family.
/shelf/show/...

15. A book title or an author where the first word has two syllables, and the second word has one syllable (ignoring A or The in titles)
Some examples of authors: Amor Towles, Robert Burns, Ernest Cline, Roald Dahl, Robert Drewe, Freya Stark, Patrick Gale, Annie Proulx.
Titles: Adam Bede, Lorna Doone, Shanghai Girls, Moby Dick, Nickel Boys, Shipping News, Little Life, Tiger's Wife.

I do believe this is the best list of suggestions we've had so far. I went through and pulled out my first instinct upvotes and there were 8, with no downvotes.

Wow that went fast!! I stepped away to help my daughter with a school thing, came back a half hour later to second Scandium, and suggestions were already closed! I am glad Scandium got in :-)

Yep, I will definitely have 8 up-votes this round. I just need to narrow it down, because I think I have 9 or 10 at the moment. What a great group of prompts! 😁

I had another thought on my suggestion of "story behind the story."

This could also include an original story that has been adapted. For example, Home Fire was a retelling of Antigone so Antigone would be the story behind the story. Lots of Shakespeare would work here too. In other words, instead of reading an adaptation of a story, read the original which has been adapted.

Another example: read any of the original stories from Eight Perfect Murders.

I've been thinking about this since I put The Alice Behind Wonderland on my shelf. I'm reading Rebecca now and have noticed The Rebecca Notebook: and Other Memories.

This is a great list of options and I really like several of them - found family, everyday hero, female villain, opposites, about books.

The only ones I know automatically that I'll downvote are the two that are related to goodreads. I do not like the "related to feature" at all. Any time I have looked I've just found a whole list of books with only the most tenuous connection to the original book. And I don't track my TBR on goodreads - I only use it it records books I've read - so the "20th book added" prompt is impossible for me. I could find a work-around but, no.

I may have a couple of downs but that's just personal preference. I will obviously vote for my one which i am delighted got through.

I found some listopias for the Tournament of Books (I always find it's easier to search when there's a listopia!) Correction: I THOUGHT each list should be 16 books, but the Morning News page says 18. Anyway, you have to be careful that the Listopias are correct.


2005 /list/show/9...
2006 /list/show/9...
2007 /list/show/9...
2008 /list/show/9...
2009 /list/show/9...
2010 /list/show/9...
2011 /list/show/8...
2012 /list/show/1...
2013 /list/show/8...
2014 /list/show/4...
2015 /list/show/8...
2016 /list/show/9...
2017 /list/show/1...
2018 /list/show/1...
2019 /list/show/1...
2020 /list/show/1...


Tournament of Tournaments: /list/show/1...

The only one I immediately love is comfort reading, that will be a definite upvote! The rest are good, and I'd be happy with any of these on the final list.

At fist I didn't like the wordiness of "A book from the first 20 books on your GR to-read shelf," but after thinking about it, I decided I do like it since most of those are books sitting on my physical shelf that just kept getting overshadowed by sparkly new releases and book club picks. I like that I will always have 20 options for that book no matter what!

The only prompt I really dislike is "A book that fits a prompt suggestion that didn't make the final list." I know this prompt gets through almost every year though, so I don't have my hopes up. It's just the freebie of all freebies to me.

I also have conflicting feelings about the book about books since that one seems to pop up a lot, and I typically don't love books about books. But the exception to that is The Starless Sea, that one was 5 stars!

I loved yours Thomas! Do you have recommendations? I read a lot of thrillers but the criminal/villain is almost always male. It may also be a hard one to avoid spoilers on.

I like the 카지노싸이트 TBR one because I have books that have been on there for as long as I've been using GR, which is over 10 years now. I am not a fan of the Readers Also Enjoyed one though, I just checked a couple of books and I've already read almost all of the recommendations. I won't downvote it, because I think I'd rather save my votes for upvotes, but it's not my favorite.

Boy, that went like lightning. Maybe I will get in for the next one. It isn't a bad list, but I am undecided on how I will spread the votes.

I really like the scandium prompt! also tournament of books and comfort read. The female villain is interesting - I would also like some suggestions for that if anyone has any?

Edit:
Looking through my shelves there a few I found, such as
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal - Zoe Heller
Idaho - Emily Ruskovich
Hausfrau - Jill Alexander Essbaum
possibly Rebecca ?

There are also some mystery/thrillers on my 'read' shelf but I think those are probably spoiler territory.

I like a lot of these, but I don't care for the Readers Also Enjoyed idea. I give very few books 5 stars and I think the recommendations tend to be recent ones which I may have already read or decided not to. Or the recommendation is because the book is set in the same place or time but nothing else about it is similar.

Oh I absolutely have to follow Tournament of the Books next year after reading up on it!

holy moly that went quick!

There's so many good prompts on this list. How am I supposed to decide what to vote on?

And I have officially decided to do ATY next year (after having decided not to and not voting, for a few months).

Johanne wrote: "And I have officially decided to do ATY next year (after having decided not to and not voting, for a few months)."

our siren call cannot be ignored bwahahahaha

Yeah, I really really tried to resist the temptation! But I have no impulse control regarding books and reading combined with a game/ quest element.

some books with female villains and/or criminals

I don't think these are spoilers, since each book has more than one woman in it, but I'm putting the entire thing in spoiler tags after the discussion. (view spoiler)[
Sunburn
Every Secret Thing
Gone Girl
My Sister, the Serial Killer
Heartsick
Fairest (Queen Levana is featured in the entire Lunar Chronicles series, so any of those books would work, really)
Macbeth
Macbeth
The Kind Worth Killing
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal
Queenpin
Double Indemnity (hide spoiler)]


in searching for more, I found these:

/list/show/1...

The Killing Eve books have a female villain and that’s no spoiler!

There are a lot of evil witches out there.

Suzanne wrote: "I had another thought on my suggestion of "story behind the story."

This could also include an original story that has been adapted. For example, Home Fire was a retelling of [boo..."

I immediately thought of a memoir specific to "the making of" something - I read [book:As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride|21412202] by Cary Elwes this year about the making of The Princess Bride, and would recommend it to anyone who likes the movie!

Edit: I just found Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions which looks amazing

Female villains - love it!



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Gone Girl is one I would consider a spoiler but I guess is there anyone left who hasn't read it or seen the movie?

I loved As You Wish! I listened to the audio and there are tons of cameos from Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, etc.

At first glance, the ones that immediately stood out as an immediate yes for me were found family, female villain, and everyday hero. I like a book about books, but I have done it many times before so I'm not sure I'll vote for it this time. Theme of opposites could be interesting but I'm not quite sure how to go about researching options.

I'm not a fan of the Tournament of Books choices, although the lists above really helped. I had a lot of trouble trying to find the lists on their site. I have a handful of books that I could use if it gets through, but nothing super exciting.

A book from the first 20 on my TBR is a very likely downvote for me. When I started my 카지노싸이트 account, I added a bunch of classics that I'd been meaning to read forever but only have a mild interest in picking up. My entire first 20 consists of those (including War & Peace, Gone With the Wind, Don Quixote, and Crime & Punishment), and I don't realistically see myself being interested in reading them.

I don't think I fully get the "story behind the story" book. At least, I don't really see how it would work well for fiction aside from prequels, which are not that common. List of characters/family tree is interesting but might be hard to know before picking up the book. I may need to flip through some of the books I own and see if any of them have it.

I forgot today was a suggestion day. I haven't checked in the last couple of hours and BAM there's a 50+ suggest thread and a 25+ voting thread haha. Guess I can't go to faculty meetings and doctor's appointments without a flurry of action here!

Lots of interesting choices. I agree with Avery that one that didn't make it is such a free choice so I won't vote for it. I like the story behind the story one; I've got some good ones for that on my shelf. I'll probably downvote comfort read because that's not really my desired type of reading.

P.S., there's a minor typo in #2; it says a book about a books; I don't know if it should be "about A book" or "about books" because it was suggested in the other thread with the typo, though seconded with the plural and no A.

My favorite of this bunch is definitely female villain/criminal. I don't have any immediate thoughts on books that would fit, but it does make you think about how often villains are men.

I also really like the syllable one. I voted for it when it came up before & would love to see it make the list.

Ooh, I just had a thought for "story behind the story" for fiction. If you've read & loved The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas is coming out with Concrete Rose, which tells the story of Starr's father, Maverick, when he was a young man. That almost makes me want to vote for that prompt because that book would be such a perfect fit, and I cannot wait for it.

Story behind the story could be something like Circe or one of the many books about a famous person like Jack the Ripper, Anne Boleyn, etc. Doesn’t have to be factual.

Yes it should be "A book about books," good catch! I was going to change the wording and make it longer but decided to go simple, but obviously didn't proofread.

I don't know if I love this list as much as others, but I definitely see some immediate favs. (Maybe I'm subconsciously saving all my happy thoughts for our Close Call poll next time!)

On first glance, my definite upvotes are (1) a book about books (2) collection of short stories/essays/poetry (3) female villain - this is so wonderful and juicy (4) and the syllables book.

My only immediate downvote is Scandium. I think my only option would be a book set in or an author from Scandanavia. Not impossible, but not necessarily thrilling.

The other 3 will definitely be based on the discussion. I'll admit I'm also still confused on how I would use "story behind the story". I'll have to really review my TBR and follow the recommendations on this thread.

Sorry what is a Close Call Pool?

Emily announced, I think in the Wild Discussion, that the prompts that have fallen under the "Close Call" bucket for the last 16 polls (including this one) will be put together for us to vote on. So instead of switching immediately to Poll 17, we'll jump to the Close Call Poll.

Close Calls are prompt that were really close to being in the top, but missed it by a few votes. So they almost were on our list, but just didn't quite make it.

You can see those, and others that didn't make it in, in this thread: /topic/show/...

To clarify, Poll 17 and the Close Calls Poll will run concurrently, and the Close Calls Poll will be made of the close calls plus other prompts that had similar numbers but weren't necessarily categorized as close calls within their own poll.

But otherwise, spot on Alicia. Thank you for posting that link as well.

I really like the tbr one. I also have books on there from 2009. oops lol

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper would be a good option for the 'story behind the story' prompt. It is one of my few 5 star reads this year.

Beth wrote: "The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper would be a good option for the 'story behind the story' prompt. It is one of my few 5 star reads this year."

I absolutely hated that book lol


But I did go through my TBR. Would any of these count as story behind a story? Feel free to completely tell me I'm way off. Because that's very possible.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Meaning of Mariah Carey - I know I know but she's a goddess.

All upvotes for me this round (I had to narrow it down to get 8).

The prompts that immediately stood out to me are:
- a books about books: I know we see it a lot but I still love it, plus it'll give me a reason to finally read S..

- a book that fits a prompt that didn't make it: I only have a handful of prompts that I love that haven't made it on the list (maybe even less after the close call poll) so I don't consider this a freebie since I'm strict about my options.

- 21st element Scandium: I think it's a creative way to add a 2021-related prompt to the list.

- female villian or criminal: awesome idea, and also this book's been on my TBR for a while now: Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

- short stories/essays/poetry: I love short stories (and select essay collections) so this is always an upvote for me

- theme of opposites: my own suggestion. I'm actually not sure how I'll approach this one yet but I love the concept based on past books I've read.

I considered a couple options for my last 2 prompts but finally landed on the every day hero prompt and the Tournament of Books.

I would appreciate some recommendations for "A book with a list of characters or a family tree." It's one of those things I always notice and like when I'm reading. But now that I'm specifically looking for them, I can't remember where I've seen them! So far, I have Homegoing, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, and A Plague of Giants. I could always read a play for this, as they usually have cast lists, but I'd like a nice list of options.

I love the idea of "A book that tells the story behind the story." I have so many great options for this. As was already mentioned, there is Concrete Rose. Also, both The Rules of Magic (which I've read and recommend) and Magic Lessons would work. In an Absent Dream would work, as it gives a character's backstory. Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome is backstory for John Scalzi's Lock In series. The Fantastic Beast screenplays, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and all of the books that expand on J.R.R. Tolkien's LotR universe. Etc. etc. etc.

I was not sure what Scandium was but I read the Wikipedia page and it’s used for aeronautics, baseball bats and lightning for movies. As well as many other things. I enjoy prompts that are clever regarding the year. It seems there are many options with this one.

Many family sagas have family trees listed. I'm reading Wolf Hall right now and there are 3 or 4 pages of listed family members that are characters in the book and one family tree in the title (the Tudors).

The two books I recently read that had a list of characters were Miracle Creek and The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. They were the books tagged gave me the idea for the prompt.

We Were Liars has a map in the front of the book, which lists the house each character lives at. I know Crazy Rich Asians has a family tree.

I really like this set of prompts. I would have been ok if all of these prompts were actually in the final list. So that means there will only be upvotes from me this year. For now, the ones I am sure to upvote are –

1) a book that fits a prompt that didn't make it: I know many feel that this is a freebie and I agree. But this year I was really excited to see the prompt read a book about an endangered animal and unfortunately this didn’t win. This prompt was only one of the few I liked that didn’t make it to the final list. So, my choices are limited anyways.

2) a book related to 21st element Scandium: This is such an interesting prompt. I like prompts that are specific for that particular year and this is perfect for that.

3) a book with a female villian or criminal: This would be amazing to read. I have the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on my list for a while and it would fit this prompt perfectly.

4) A collection of short stories/essays/poetry: I like reading short stories. So this is an immediate upvote for me.

5) A book title or an author where the first word has two syllables, and the second word has one syllable: Again, a year specific prompt and I like it.

6) A book from the first 20 books on your GR to-read shelf when sorted by “date added” in ascending order: I have a shelf for owned unread books and this prompt will help me pick up books from my TBR shelf that have been ignored for years now.

I am also interested in reading A book by or about an everyday hero but looking at my shelves to see if I already own any books that will fit the prompt. Same goes for A book from the Tournament of Books.

My Brilliant Friend and subsequent books in the series have a long list of characters at the beginning. A random (but very interesting!) one is Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free - there is a list of all the miners that were stuck.

Amazon is really useful for checking these things as it gives you a preview of the first few pages. e.g. I suspected The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle might have a list and so it does. Similarly I thought Murder on the Orient Express might have one as there are a lot of characters to keep track of but actually it doesn't.

I love this list of prompts. The only one I will probably down vote is the “Readers Also Enjoyed” just because I don’t rate the books I read. If it makes it in, I’ll use the list of the most popular. 5 star books.

I always WANT to like the "a book about books" prompt, but then I go and look at the options and nothing grabs my interest. I think I've just seen this prompt too many times.

Love the TBR prompt! Anything to do with pulling from the TBR list in interesting ways will be an upvote from me.

Angie wrote: "I would appreciate some recommendations for "A book with a list of characters or a family tree." "

i only know of The Candle and the Flame + Empress of a Thousand Skies (character lists), A Study in Charlotte (family tree) & The Court of Miracles (lists of the courts & their masters)

I decided to read more about scandium and the only concentrated sources of it are in Scandinavia and Madagascar...and I'm baffled at the geological forces that resulted in this. They're quite far apart! There is a book about Madagascar on my wishlist so I could go down that route.

I like book about books and female villain/criminal which lends itself well to fantasy and I can also think of cases where the hero is also a criminal. Plenty others I don't have strong feelings about so would be fine with them on the list. Will have to see where the discussion goes.

I think tournament of books will be a downvote for me, the books that interest me I've already read, and a bunch of them were disappointing so it doesn't endear me to the lists.