Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
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Jody's 2016 AtY Reject Challenge
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Wauw Jody, what a list! And what a great idea with the "Harry Potter" and "Narnia" topics. I'm looking forward to see how it goes :-)
This is an excellent idea! I may make a list for myself that I won't publish on here and then if I manage to finish my actual challenge list I'll have this as a reserve for the rest of the year. I doubt I'll finish my list I already have compiled though so we'll see!I'm very impressed, though!
I'm planning on listening to the Stephen Fry readings of Harry - I'm SO familiar with the books, and I'm really excited to approach them in a different way this time around. I'm currently listening to The Fellowship of the Ring and actually really enjoying it this way (I didn't get very far when I tried to read it a few years ago). And I really feel like I should read Narnia - I've read the Lion, but not the rest. I don't think I can call myself a real book fan without reading them!
I read The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was younger but never read any of the rest of the books. I've been meaning to revisit them all for years!
I'm wondering if I'd be able to read at least The Lion to my daughter - she's six now, and if I left it until the second half of next year, she'll be seven. Hmm ...
This is great! I made an "alternate" reading list that I hope to get through in addition to my official 2016 challenge, but hadn't posted it here yet.
Beware, I liked the 2 first Narnia (in your order) and was bored by the rest (I didn't finish the series). I'm looking forward to the short stories and picture/kids books :)
The first time I researched how to read them, everything pointed to chronological order, but now everything is saying publication order, so I think I'll go back to publication order, and read LWW first.I'm looking forward to those too Zaz! I love picture books - I need to find a good library here to sit and read some in!
Jody wrote: "I'm planning on listening to the Stephen Fry readings of Harry - I'm SO familiar with the books, and I'm really excited to approach them in a different way this time around. I'm currently listening..."Have you listened to Jim Dale's version of the Harry Potter audiobooks? He's a fantastic narrator, and if you haven't given those a listen I highly recommend it. What version of Fellowship are you listening to? I just finished the one narrated by Rob Inglis. It was beautifully done.
And for kids' books/picture books, do yourself a HUGE favor and read We are in a Book! if you haven't already. It's amazing.
Jody wrote: "I'm planning on listening to the Stephen Fry readings of Harry - I'm SO familiar with the books, and I'm really excited to approach them in a different way this time around. I'm currently listening..."The Stephen Fry audiobooks are fantastic. I'm a huge Stephen Fry fan, of course, so that helps, but they're really well done. I hope you enjoy them!
Also, if you're American and have only read/heard the American version(s) of the book(s) then it's fun to pick out the Britishisms in the reading. Things like sweater vs. jumper or timetables vs. schedules. I find that amusing, but maybe I'm just weird...
This is an awesome list - full of books I read this year or are on my TBR. I felt also that I cannot be well-read without Narnia - so I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I thought it was ok but nothing special. Since the consensus seems to be that the series goes downhill from there, I figured I will skip the rest. On the other hand I am happy with Roahl Dahl, find his books delightful.
Cleopatra: A Life is excellent, so is The Martian and Charlotte's Web. Enjoy!
Raeann wrote: "Jody wrote: "I'm planning on listening to the Stephen Fry readings of Harry - I'm SO familiar with the books, and I'm really excited to approach them in a different way this time around. I'm curren..."I have all of the Harry Potter books and have re-read them several times, but never listened to them on audio. Will have to try that--I like listening to books in the car.
Awesome list. I'm doing a reject list too, but only for the ones I suggested but didn't make it.
I love how many people are doing reject challenges or versions of reject challenges. It's awesome that all the wonderful suggestions that did not make it are still getting some love and that the group continues to inspire one another. Go us!
Raeann - I'm listening to the Rob Inglis ones too, I did a bit of research and all of the fanbois raved about his version! It seemed to be very much the definitive audiobook of the trilogy, for sure. So far, I'm really enjoying it, way more than I thought I would. I'm definitely going to check out that picture book - my daughter is a huge fan of the pigeon, so if these books are similar, I'm sure they will be a big hit!Emm - I love Stephen Fry too, and I've heard really great things about his Harry Potter audiobooks. I've read the books so many times (especially the earlier ones) that it will be really nice to have a different experience. That's really interesting to know that the American versions of the books are different - I thought it was only the title of the first one that was different. I would probably notice all of the Americanisms if I read those versions! And I am in total agreement - this group is awesome. I'm so glad I joined!
Marta - I've read LWW before (years ago) and felt the same way. It didn't blow me away at all, which I guess is why I've never bothered to read any more. But they seem to be quite short, so I'll give them a crack. I think I'll read it to my daughter towards the end of next year, and see if she likes it. Charlotte's Web is one of my all-time favourites - I felt it had to be my significant name book, as that's my daughter's name. :) I'm planning on reading it to her, and I really hope she loves it as much as I do!
Ellen - me too! I've read them (especially the first three or four) so many times. I have only just had my first audiobook experience, but I'm already hooked. I started off listening to one when I went for my little weekly hike, but I've now branched out and started listening to one while I do my ironing, and I might listen while I knit - I'm doing a baby blanket for a friend, and it might actually get me to pull my finger out and get the damn thing finished!!
Jody wrote: "Raeann - I'm listening to the Rob Inglis ones too, I did a bit of research and all of the fanbois raved about his version! It seemed to be very much the definitive audiobook of the trilogy, for sur..."I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, too! I knew I would enjoy it because I've read Fellowship before and liked the book, but I wasn't expecting Inglis to draw me into Middle Earth to the extent that he did.
The Elephant and Piggie series has the same sense of humor as the Pigeon books, but they don't all break the fourth wall and involve the reader as much. We are in a Book! does, and it's wonderful. I've used it for storytime a few times and the kids loved it. (My coworkers loved it, too!)
I love that you're doing the reject list also!!! Welcome to the club :D
I'm also reading Do androids dream of electric sheep?, The Husband Secret and The Man in the High Castle. I hope you're going to love The Martian as much as I did!I've listened to the whole HP series this year and it was awesome! I started with Stephen Fry and I tried to switch to Jim Dale's version for the fifth book, but I was so accustomed to one narrator, that it was difficult to change (and Jim Dale's Hermione seriously got on my nerves).
Audiobook are such a nice way to revisit books you loved, I'm definitely planning to listen to LoTR when I get the chance!
Aaaarrrrgggghhh ... somehow my original post got almost completely deleted. Time to go back and redo it. :(
I'm powering through my rejects! And surprisingly enjoying most of the short stories - usually not something I enjoy at all. I'm really loving having this side challenge as a way to read quick stuff.
I love the way you've incorporated series to fulfill so many of the categories. I've been considering doing something similar with a few series I want to read or re-read (Harry Potter, Narnia, Georgia Nicholson, etc.) One of the problems I'm having is that I tried to narrow down the categories by eliminating anything that's very similar to what's already been done, or ones that were very similar to each other on the list. I've found by compiling my list, I actually need to put back some of the categories that I'd removed in order to make the series work.
This would definitely be a very long-term project though. Not at all within this year.
I've already had to move one of the Narnia books over into another challenge, as we now have an "animal on the cover" prompt for 2017. :) I'm in no great rush to read Narnia, or to re-read Harry Potter (as I want to read them with the Spider and she's only just turning seven next month), so I'm not too worried - I'll managed to squeeze them in somewhere! My reject challenge will be overflowing with prompts again once we've finished selecting the 2017 challenge. It's already back into three figures with four poll's worth!I've made it an ongoing challenge - no time limit, especially since I'm planning on adding the rejects each year we put a list together.
That's true, some of those books will also fit the rejects from this year as well. I haven't even begun to fill those in yet. I keep going back and forth about whether to take on the rejected list. I want to, but I also don't know when I can squeeze those books in.Also, I meant to ask -- are you doing all the prompts, or have you modified the challenge at all? That's another part I keep going back and forth on, since so many of the categories have been done in other challenges.
Well, I stole a Narnia prompt for a book I read with the Spider. I'm sure I'll fit Dawn Treader in somewhere else at some stage ... I'm not overly motivated to read them this year anyway.Rachel, sorry, I forgot to reply! I'm not doing all of the prompts. I removed any that were duplicates (or extremely similar) to the 2x Popsugar challenges or the BookRiot challenge from last year. I've also now removed any the same as any of the challenges I'm doing this year. I merged some that were very similar also. I'm adding this year's rejects in and making it ongoing, but with the same "rules".
I was using a similar method. I'd weeded out the prompts that I'd done before in other challenges, and combined those that were very similar...and then I started making my list. I was planning on incorporating a few series, but found out pretty quickly that the prompts I'd removed were the ones that fit the books in the series. Now I'm trying to compile a list the other way and see how it ends up...
Well, I completed 39 prompts this year, so I'm happy with that! Now time to put together my 2017 list of prompts!
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Where the Wild Mums Are (other topics)Life and I: A Story About Death (other topics)
The Book with No Pictures (other topics)
A Child of Books (other topics)
Footpath Flowers (other topics)
More...
I'm planning on doing this over three years, at least. If our group does the same thing as last year and compiles a challenge for 2017, I'll probably add the rejects onto here & this will be an ongoing challenge.
Done and Dusted!
Elderly main character: A Good Man Is Hard To Find (Flannery O'Connor) ⭐️⭐️
Taboo subject: Signs and Symbols (Vladimir Nabokov) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finish in a day that starts with "The": The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Ernest Hemingway) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Protagonist with a name of someone you know well: Charlotte's Web (E.B. White) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Recommended by a GR member: Little Robot (Ben Hatke) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Published in the year a parent was born: The Crucible (Arthur Miller) ⭐️⭐️
Fairy tale with a colour in the title: Little Red Riding Hood (Grimm Brothers) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Short non-fiction: How to Stay Sane (Phillipa Perry) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Short book written in another language: In the Penal Colony (Franz Kafka) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Makes you pee your pants: Pete the Sheep ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Chosen for you by someone else: Please Don't Torment Tootsie (Margaret Chamberlain) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
By a Russian author: The Nose (Nikolai Gogol) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Smallest on your TBR list: The Fly (Katherine Mansfield) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Published when your parent was a teenager: The Lame Shall Enter First (Flannery O'Connor) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Non-human characters: The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Element in the title: To Build a Fire (Jack London) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By an author who has recently died: Death and What Comes Next (Terry Pratchett) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Newbery medal or honour book: Holes (Louis Sachar) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Short, but packs a punch: The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Raises your heart rate: The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
With a ghost in it: The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Written by a Nobel Prize-winner: Meneseteung (Alice Munro) ⭐️⭐️
With a plant on the cover: The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales (Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm) ⭐️⭐️
Genre you don't usually read: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Anonymous) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
About animal or human rights: The Use of Force (William Carlos Williams) ⭐️⭐️
Nature in the title: A Sound of Thunder (Ray Bradbury) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By an author from a different country: The Pit and the Pendulum (Edgar Allan Poe) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By an author born in the same month as you: The Purloined Letter (Edgar Allan Poe) - we actually share the same birthday, January 19. ⭐️⭐️
Set in a place you'd like to live: My Man Jeeves (P.G.Wodehouse) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Set in the country of your ancestors: The Rocking Horse Winner (D.H. Lawrence) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A work of fiction about art: Harold and the Purple Crayon (Crockett Johnson) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Time of day in the title: Mummies in the Morning (Mary Pope Osborne) ⭐️⭐️
Novella in a series you are reading: The Queen's Army (Marissa Meyer) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Children's book with a name in the title: Imaginary Fred (Eoin Colfer) ⭐️⭐️
Body part in the title: Footpath Flowers (JonArno Lawson) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Parody of a children's book: Where the Wild Mums Are (Katie Blackburn) ⭐️⭐️
By a prolific author: A Child of Books (Oliver Jeffers) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By an author using an initial in their name: The Book with No Pictures (B.J. Novak) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Self- or indie-published book: Life and I: A Story about Death (Elisabeth Helland Larsen) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
On the Go!
With more than one author: American Supernatural Tales (Compilation)
Title with a redundant phrase: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (Raymond Carver)
The Big List!
50 Best Short Story Topics
Collection of short stories: Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)
Alliteration in the title: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (Rudyard Kipling)
With a male or female pronoun or word in the title: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Give an author a second chance: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Modern classic: Brokeback Mountain (Annie Proulx)
Set during war time: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Ambrose Beirce)
Harry Potter Topics
Re-read the first book of your favourite series: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (J.K. Rowling)
With a crush-worthy character: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
Where the main character has a special power: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
Childhood favourite: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
Re-read a favourite: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling)
Re-read the last book of your favourite series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling)
Chronicles of Narnia Topics
A book where the main character is a child: The Silver Chair (C.S. Lewis)
With animal characters: The Horse and His Boy (C.S. Lewis)
A classic you've wanted to read for a long time: The Magician's Nephew (C.S. Lewis)
Sparkles on the cover: The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis)
And the Rest!
Existentialist-themed: The Trial (Franz Kafka)
Hugo Award-winner: A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller Jr.)
Play that has been adapted into a movie or musical: Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)
Weird or wacky title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
Family saga: As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)
Originally written in a language you'd love to learn: The Plague (Albert Camus)
Set on another planet: The Martian (Andy Weir)
A book you feel everyone has read but you: The BFG (Roald Dahl)
Cult book under 200 pages: Siddharta (Herman Hesse)
Ancient epic: The Odyssey (Homer)
Greek or Roman classic: The Iliad (Homer)
Epic poem: Beowulf (Unknown)
By an author of your nationality: Oscar and Lucinda (Peter Carey)
With a character with your name: You Suck (Christopher Moore)
Chick-lit: Attachments (Rainbow Rowell)
Re-read the first book you can remember that made you love reading: Flowers in the Attic (Virginia Andrews)
Long title: Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death: Reflections on Memory and Imagination (Otto Dov Kulka)
Self-help book under 200 pages: Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy (Eric G. Wilson)
Published during a significant year: If I Stay (Gayle Forman)
Re-read a book you feel deserves a second chance: The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Describes you or your life: The Diary of a Nobody (George & Weedon Grossmith)
Hero of a different ethnicity to yours: A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
A retelling: Grimm Tales: For Young and Old (Philip Pullman)
From NPR's 100 Swoon-Worthy Romances: The Girl You Left Behind (Jojo Moyes)
Made into a Disney film: Mary Poppins (P.L. Travers)
About sports: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (Christopher MacDougall)
Two books with the same title (I): Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)
Two books with the same title (II): The Cloud Atlas (Liam Callanan)
Under 200 pages in a genre you don't usually read: The Time Machine (H.G. Wells)
From Oprah's book club: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Poetry-inspired title: The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
Medical-related memoir: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness (Susannah Cahalan)
Western fiction: All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy)
Alternative history: The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick)
Published posthumously: A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
Day of the week in the title: Saturday (Ian McEwan)
Takes place underwater: The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Andersen)
About traveling: Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Photography 4th Ed
Longer than the longest book read last year: Bleak House (Charles Dickens)
Paranormal romance: Dead Reckoning (Charlaine Harris)
Banned in your birth country: American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis)
With a season in the title: Winter (Marissa Meyer)
Adventure: Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Campus novel: The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
About obsession: The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith)
Takes place in more than one country: Live and Let Die (Ian Fleming)
Featuring a fictional trickster: The Sea of Monsters (Rick Riordan)
Inspires you: Masters of Photography
With a cover that puts you off: Crime Scene (Rick R. Reed)
With the main character the same age as you: What Alice Forgot (Liane Moriaty)
Published the year you turned 16: The Shipping News (Annie Proulx)
With a date in the title: 11/22/63 (Stephen King)
Takes place during a holiday:
That requires you to do something:
Associated with someone special:
Children's "Choose Your Own Adventure" book:
Historical or educational children's fiction book:
From the Goodreads "Best of May" list:
History book about where you live:
Campus novel:
Judged too quickly:
With a famous building or sculpture on the cover:
Recommended by a friend:
Written by an author famous in another field:
About second chances/starting over:
With a man and a woman on the cover:
Debut book released in 2016: