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 Sunday, August 7 and results will be posted in the morning of Thursday, August 11 (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 favorite and least favorite 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

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 from the Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books
2. A book that has won a Bookbrowse award
3. A book featuring a character with paranormal or supernatural abilities
4. A book related to science
5. A book from the point of view of a person with a physical, sensory, learning, mental, or medical disability
6. A work of fiction based on a real person or real event
7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you
8. A book with fruit or vegetables on the cover or in the title
9. A nominee or winner of an Australian book award
10. A "wild" book
11. A book written by two or more authors
12. A children's classic
13. A book with a school subject in the title
14. A book with a cover you consider to be beautiful
15. A book with a female or nonbinary main character who is an explorer/traveller

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

VOTE HERE:

THOUGHTS AND IDEAS FROM THE SUGGESTIONS THREAD

1. A book from the Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books
PDF of List:
ListChallenges List:
Listopia: /list/show/1...
(All links will give you the same list of books)

In the book The Sentence, the main character is a bookseller and these are books she recommends. Of course, author Louise Erdrich also owns a bookstore.

2. A book that has won a Bookbrowse award


5. A book from the point of view of a person with a physical, sensory, learning, mental, or medical disability
This prompt aims to be inclusive, and allow for different definitions of disability (Medical, legal, temporary, perceived, etc.). We might not all agree on the types of differences that should be called disabilities, but we all have an idea of what might count, and we'll use our best judgment. The book you read doesn't need to focus on the disability, but the point of view of the person is important.

7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you
(3255 kilometers)
Milesfromme.com map can identify what areas do not work

8. A book with fruit or vegetables on the cover or in the title
/list/show/3...
/list/show/1...

9. A nominee or winner of an Australian book award


Australian Book Industry Awards
CBCA Book of the Year
Miles Franklin Literary Award
Aurealis Awards
Davitt Awards
Ned Kelly Awards
Romance Writers of Australia
Prime Minister’s Literary Awards

6 Australian Book Awards to follow if your not a Literary Fiction Reader:

10. A "wild" book
possible interpretations:
- about the wild, wilderness, wildlife
- weird fiction
- wildly imaginative
- unexpected plot twist
- written in a strange or unusual style
- ""wild west""

13. A book with a school subject in the title
e.g Lessons in Chemistry, The Secret History, Prisoners of Geography, The English Patient, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Psychology of Time Travel etc

15. A book with a female or nonbinary main character who is an explorer/traveller
/list/show/1...

I like the school subject one! I feel like I may have suggested that one a few years ago. Good amount of upvotes for me this time for once!

Hmm… I hope we don’t end up with three top prompts this round.

I'm really not a fan of most of these. Really would only upvote the 'wild' prompt, and maybe the travel one.

I can't find any books for the fruit/vegetable prompt I'd want to read.

Very confused by 7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you

Milesfromme.com doesn't seem to be an active website, and anyway how would I know where an author lives? Most don't publicise their home addresses for very good reasons... and I guess dead authors don't count at all, because they are not alive, so by definition they don't live anywhere. So maybe I could hope that somebody who was born in the USA would still live in the USA and be more than 2023 miles from me living in the UK. But I don't know how I could be sure that's where they live...?

For something a bit different from the usual lists of Children's Classics, there's the Carnegie Medal

/award/show/...

The Carnegie Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises one outstanding new book for children or young adults.

Tookie’s books look really interesting and I like the idea of a "wild" book, weird and strange, definitely for me.

Maybe 3 up votes for me this time. Just feeling super lukewarm about most prompts. Probably 4 down votes this round.

I don't know if following the suggestions as they happen makes me more inclined to like the prompts, but I think I'm going 5 up on this one.

Rosemary wrote: "Very confused by 7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you

Milesfromme.com doesn't seem to be an active website, and anyway how would I know where an author lives? Most don't publici..."

Distance Calculator:


If you plug in your country and that of another country where an author is from, you can see how far away they are. I think the idea is to read authors from countries that are quite far away from you. It can be any author from any country that is more than 2023 mi (3255 km) away. I think we can use the location (city or country) listed in the author's bio on GR. There is no need to pinpoint a home residence (nor would I want to look up such personal info about an author).

I know it says "address" but you can use city or country in the calculator and it will give you both miles and kms.

I didn't suggest the prompt, but I hope the prompt will be modified to add kilometers in parentheses, since most of the world does not use miles.

Rosemary wrote: "Very confused by 7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you

Milesfromme.com doesn't seem to be an active website, and anyway how would I know where an author lives? Most don't publici..."



It’s probably easiest to look for countries greater than 2023 miles from you and choose authors from those countries. I don’t think most people will be able to narrow it down to hometowns.


For example, I’m in NY, so any authors in Los Angeles or Vancouver and points west of there, Alaska and north, anywhere in Europe and points east, and any South American country will work. Just use Google if that site doesn’t work for you.

Nadine in NY wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "Very confused by 7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you

Milesfromme.com doesn't seem to be an active website, and anyway how would I know where an author lives? M..."

We were posting at the same time, Nadine, but I put a distance calculator in my post above yours.

I keep missing the suggestion rounds. Very happy to see the disability prompt this time around. There are a couple of others that sound fun too. I like the school subject one and the “wild” book is a fun idea.

Are there any lists with the actual books that have won an Australian award? I’ve tried following the links and they just seem to discuss the awards not the books.

I had trouble with that too Jillian

I'm not very keen on any of the list or award suggestions, although I have added The Sentence to by TBR because the book itself sounds interesting. I skimmed through the list of Tookie's recommendations and have maybe 2 books that are on my TBR and neither are things that I'm particularly in a rush to read.

I like the disability prompt (although I'm not sure all of the kinds of disability really need to be specified), paranormal abilities, school subject in the title, and traveler, so those are probably going to be my upvotes.

Jillian and Louise, I was able to find lists on the website links provided. I've updated the links to go directly to the most recent lists of winners though, if that's more helpful.

Joy D wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "Very confused by 7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you

Milesfromme.com doesn't seem to be an active website, and anyway how would I know where an author lives? M..."

Thank you, yes I'm sure I am being too literal and BIO. But to me, the fact that an author comes from a certain country doesn't mean they still live there. Maybe we are more mobile in Europe? I work with people who come from at least 10 different countries, but currently live in my country, at least for a year or two. If this gets in I guess I would just have to pick a living American author, and I could assume they were still living there :)

Joy D wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "Very confused by 7. An author who lives greater than 2023 miles from you

Milesfromme.com doesn't seem to be an active website, and anyway how would I know where an author lives? M..."

I suggested the prompt and I apologize for not including kilometers. Just to keep the 2023 theme, could we make it" 2023 miles or kilometers from you"?

Emily, thanks for updating the links. They still don’t show too many books on my phone’s web browser but I was able to see more through my Ipad. It is way to many pages for me to have to click through just to find a possible book that looks interesting. It will be a downvote for me and if it makes I’ll just use the group’s listopia.

Jillian wrote: "Are there any lists with the actual books that have won an Australian award? I’ve tried following the links and they just seem to discuss the awards not the books."

I can't help with all of them but the Internet Speculative Fiction Database has all the books for the Aurealis Award which is our main fantasy/sci fi award (though you do have to search by category/year still)

I really like the Australian award and wild books. I strongly dislike Disability and Tookie's List. Right now I am thinking 3 up and 5 down this round.

Normally, I'm pretty positive about the prompts but there's quite a few downvotes for me this week. I don't like either of the list prompts since I have no connection to the source material, the fruit and vegetables prompt feels redundant when we already voted in "recipe word in the title", and I have no interest in reading a children's book. I'm also quite meh on the "wild" prompt, but that's mostly because I don't think about books about nature or Westerns as being wild, so I'm a little confused about what it's trying to achieve (though I could easily find something to read for it if it got in).

That said, I did like: disability, science, Australian book award, explorer/traveller and subject in the title so I will have to decide carefully how to use my upvotes vs downvotes

Emily wrote: "Jillian and Louise, I was able to find lists on the website links provided. I've updated the links to go directly to the most recent lists of winners though, if that's more helpful."

카지노싸이트 has many award lists now. I couldn't find direct links, but if you look at a book that you already know won an award, there might be a link to the award.

I found some of the awards lists on 카지노싸이트:

The Goodread Main Page for Award:
/award


Miles Franklin Award
/award/show/...

Aurealis Awards
/award/show/...

Davitt Award
/award/show/...

Ned Kelly Award
/award/show/...

Adelaide Festival Award
/award/show/...

I was thinking it was the book’s setting that would be 2023 miles away, that’s easier to determine. For the author’s residence, I would guess that some people will vote against it, those who don’t want to research authors. As a non-literalist, if I know the author is from a certain country and lived there for a while, I don’t care if they just moved away last year, I’m counting it. But I know some of you like a stricter interpretation of the prompts.

Robin P wrote: "I was thinking it was the book’s setting that would be 2023 miles away, that’s easier to determine. For the author’s residence, I would guess that some people will vote against it, those who don’t ..."

I wouldn't sweat this one either. I will just use the author's country as listed on the bio. If it's not clear, it only takes a few second to google it. Their birthplace would work too.

To keep it simple, I'll avoid all North America books/authors, even though the west coast is far enough away from me. I have a lot of books on my TBR that are left over from the continent challenge. Books tagged "translated" are less likely to have North American, UK, or Australian authors, so that might be a good starting place.

For dead authors, I would use their nationality or birthplace if I can't find anything else.

Another good Australian prize for the list is the Stella: /award/show/...

A lot of books have a little "about the author" bit at the end, that quite often says where they live (or did at the time of publication), and I think almost every author I follow on social media mentions where they live, not down to the address, but definitely the city.

I appreciate the listopias. I will definitely look through them more carefully before voting.

Thanks for the listopia for the "Tookie" prompt.. and for the explanation of who Tookie is/was. My initial reaction to the prompt was ... why would I want to read someone else's list. However. the list has quite a few books I have loved, a dozen or so on my TBR list and some others that could be. So this is an upvote... and moving The Sentence up in priority for reading.

Still thinking about other votes.

Edie wrote: "Thanks for the listopia for the "Tookie" prompt.. and for the explanation of who Tookie is/was. My initial reaction to the prompt was ... why would I want to read someone else's list. However. the ..."

I like it too. It has a couple of my favorite 2022 books, and many more I want to read.

I'm upvoting the first prompt with Tookie's List and the last prompt about a female or nonbinary main character who is an explorer/traveler. I withdrew my own suggestion after I saw the books on the list for this prompt.

/list/show/1...

Rosemary wrote: "Most don't publicise their home addresses for very good reasons... .."

I love that- I totally didn't think of it as a stalkery prompt, but it kinda is. Not that I spent the 4 years I lived on Cape Cod trying to figure out where Alice Hoffman lived or anything..... I was thinking I would do it by country, Like I know Isabel Allende lives in SF (or did) but I would count her as a Chilean, a country which is right outside the 2023 line for me. Not an exact science!

This is a fun list of prompts!

I will say for those who hate list prompts., having added 100 of Tookie's books to a listopia today, it's a really good way to get an Indigenous author into your challenge. There's books that are traditional white male on the list, but about 75% of the list isn't. I added a whole of books to my TBR today, on top of the ones I had already added while reading the book.

And I'm so in love with the school subject prompt! I like how different it is, while it allows a good variety of books without being wide open to anything. It's my favorite type of prompt.

I might continue my streak of mostly upvoting. I'm with Emily in wondering if following the Wild Discussion makes me more favorably disposed to prompts I might have scoffed at in past years. I always did 4/4 in past years and never more up than down votes,

Pamela wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "Most don't publicise their home addresses for very good reasons... .."

I love that- I totally didn't think of it as a stalkery prompt, but it kinda is. Not that I spent the 4 year..."

Why, does Alice Hoffman live on the Cape? (Now I'm being stalkery. I'm doing a year long author's challenge/tournament, and I'm really enjoying her books.) I don't think the prompt requires us to know exactly where they live. The country is all I want to know.

I hope Tookie's list gets in! Thanks for doing all that work! I added many of the missing books to the list early tonight but most of them didn't stick! I have had this problem a lot recently with listopias. I wonder if I navigated away from the list too soon after adding them. But I see that you, Edie and Pearl added many to the list. I think they're all there now. I spotted two trilogies on the list, and a long series. I think the total count is about right.

I counted 14 books I read on the list that I gave 4 or 5 stars.

Louise Erdrich was too modest to put her own books on the list. Do you think we should? If nothing else, I think more people have The Sentence on their radar now.

I also love the 카지노싸이트 prompt, Disability, and Australian awards - I found some books that look great. The travel prompt looks interesting too. I had a copy of the Psychology of Time Travel that I never opened. Now I see it's on two lists. Maybe I should check it out again.

I really like these prompts. At first look I have 5 upvotes.

I'm planning on voting for Australian book award (as I'm Australian), written by two or more authors, school subject in the title, disability (I have 2 autistic kids and always want to read more from that point of view) and a character with paranormal or supernatural abilities as I tend to read something like this every year so will be easy to fill.

The list ones I don't have feelings on either way....so I won't be voting but will be fine if they get in.


I don't really like the 2023 miles one given I'm Australian and miles aren't relevant...and reading a random number of KM away doesn't appeal.

I'm not really sure what would constitute children's classic - so if people have examples that would help.

And I don't really like beautiful cover - I always find this hard as it's so subjective, and I read on kindle so don't see the covers.

Well I don't like list prompts, so I'll be downvoting all of them on principle, and I also think we have enough X in title prompts on the list so I'm downvoting all of those too (I do like the school subject idea) I love the wild and science prompts so those will be upvotes and then I'll probably use my last vote for the historical fiction or the paranormal fiction prompt, I haven't decided yet. Or maybe I'll vote for the disability prompt....

And maybe once we have more prompts I won't feel like there are too many title prompts and I'll start voting for them again.

Thanks for the Australian award lists. I only did a quick Google for the suggestion links as it was some else's idea but I reckoned all our Australian friends would be asleep.

I am not a big list fan but as we tend to always have one or two I'd prefer Tookie's as it has a fair bit of variety and a few books I want to read. I never get round to reading about the space spiders!

I like Tookie's list (lots of books I want to read on it), science, disability, wild, and school subject the most.

I will down vote Book Browse because I've read most of them already, and not sure about my other votes.

Children's classic will probably be easy for me since my oldest is starting to read on his own, so I can read him a longer classic.

I like expanding my reading horizons. With that in mind I am voting for Tookie's List, Australian Book Awards (It is different than the usual awards lists), Disabled Characters POV (Amanda Leduc has another book coming out), explorer ( love the restriction of non binary), 2 or more authors ( I have a series by 2 authors from Botswana I am reading)

Childrens books are down votes for me. Others who like them can fit them in any prompt for the challenge. I am not interested in the title or cover prompts either. The others are not inspiring but it would be not a disappointment if they get in.
That is 4 up 3 down. I usually don't use all my votes.

I’m not a huge fan of most of these. I think I’ll only have a couple of upvotes this time around.

Yikes, I certainly didn't mean for this to sound like a "stalkery" prompt, just reading that gave me anxiety. Most authors and/or publishers give out that information freely on bios and in interviews. I wasn't expecting anyone to go to an author signing and follow the author back to their apartment! Please don't do that!

I have been doing an Author around the World challenge for a few years. My goal is to read from an author born in each country. Other than countries that don't have many authors, I found it pretty easy to find out which authors lived where. Most author pages on 카지노싸이트 gives their birthplace, sometimes just country, sometimes down to the region or city. A lot of countries have "Authors from Our Country!" type of webpages too. And there is always Wikipedia that lists authors by country. I will be using one of my AtW challenge books to fill this prompt if it gets in.

Hm, I am also one who generally "hates" lists but Tookie's List actually has quite a few that I have read, and several others that I own or are on my to-buy list.

I happen to be a huge fan of indigenous writing. I'll have to look closer and see if the two I purchased recently are on the list. I HIGHLY recommend the very short but highly emotional Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival for anyone who hasn't read it.

This is an upvote for me :)

VOTING IS OPEN:

5 up, 3 down. More ups than I was expecting!

Up

A book featuring a character with paranormal or supernatural abilities - there are several books on my kindle that’d fit this nicely

A book from the point of view of a person with a physical, sensory, learning, mental, or medical disability - I mean, I suggested this prompt! I also have a few disabilities myself, and a fair few options to fill it on my kindle.

A nominee or winner of an Australian book award - Usually I don’t like award prompts, but looking at some of the links provided me with a wide variety of crime novels I could use to fill this. I love reading crime from different countries (as every single country seems to have a slightly different way of doing crime), so this seems like a nice excuse to pick up something new.

A "wild" book - I just think this is a fun prompt! And could be filled in many ways. I have a fair few nature books that I could read for it, but also a fair few out there ones that could be fun too.

A children's classic - again, I have a lot of options for this. And all of them could be quite fun!


Down

A book from the Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books - I only looked through it quickly, but that quick look didn’t reveal that many books I’d want to read.

A book that has won a Bookbrowse award - Same as above! Had a quick look, but there didn’t seem to be that many options I was interested in.

A book with a female or nonbinary main character who is an explorer/traveller - Technically I probably could fill this one, but it would take a lot more effort for me. I don’t think I read that many books with explorer mcs, or characters who travel a lot.

I'm getting my voting in right away. I had two up votes.

4. A book related to science ( I read quite a bit on the science of reading and those books don't always fit challenges.)

11. A book written by two or more authors ( This fits the not too narrow but not too broad. I also like that I don't have to research anything personal on the authors to complete the prompt).

Bec wrote: "I really like these prompts. At first look I have 5 upvotes.

I'm planning on voting for Australian book award (as I'm Australian), written by two or more authors, school subject in the title, disa..."

Children s classics would include Alice in wonderland, wizard of oz, even (at the time of publication) lord of the rings.

A wiki list

Ellie wrote: "Thanks for the Australian award lists. I only did a quick Google for the suggestion links as it was some else's idea but I reckoned all our Australian friends would be asleep.

I am not a big list ..."

Space spiders! I thought about that too when I looked at the listopia last night. Children of Time looks so good, and I own the audio.

Mandy wrote: "Bec wrote: "I really like these prompts. At first look I have 5 upvotes.

I'm planning on voting for Australian book award (as I'm Australian), written by two or more authors, school subject in the..."

Thanks for posting the list of children's classics. Just looking at the titles brings back memories. I read The Secret Garden for the first time as an adult, and it was very enjoyable. I added some to the listopia for 1800's books (for our century prompt).

Does anyone have some links to sites of blogs with titles of books written from the perspective of the person with the disability?

Also is there a listopia or list with more books with subjects in the title?

Voted early this time because I almost forgot.

I'm surprising myself and only upvoting two prompts, and both are list prompts. Who am I? I upvoted Tookie and Australian awards. I figure if we are bound to have list prompts, these are the two I would like to see.

Then I downvoted 5:
- Bookbrowse
- real person/event: seems to easy as it's just any historical fiction and we already have that this year
- 2023 mi/km: this is just too broad. Anything outside the US would count for me
- fruit/vegetable: it's probably just in my mind but I feel like there are always a ton of food related prompts suggested every year that I'm a bit over it
- female/non-binary explorer/traveler: similar to food, I feel this is a prompt I see suggested/win a lot - adventure, explore, find, etc.