Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

This poll had some great suggestions, with some very popular (and unpopular) themes. The results are:

Winners:
- A book with an unreliable narrator
- A best book of the 21st century (so far)
- A book set in a fictional location
- A book from the BBC The Big Read list

Bottom 4:
- A book you’re expecting to hate
- A fan fiction or book that started as web-based content
- A book about sports
- A book set in a country with a population less than 1 million

Note: The 'Stephen King' and 'Long Book' prompts were very polarizing. A lot of members voted them in their top 4 but an equal number voted them in their bottom 4.

Suggestions for the 4th mini-poll will open on Wednesday, July 13 at 12:00PM (noon) EST.

Two of my top 4 made it and I'm ok with the 2 others as they won't be difficult to fill with whatever I want to read. I'm really happy with the unreliable narrator, I don't think I read many books in this category so I hope I'll discover something interesting.

In my case, I read many King's works when I was young but they don't work as well for me now so I'm ok with re-reads but not so much with new ones (I planned a Dark Tower re-read for next year, so I didn't bottom this one). For the big book, I suppose it's totally not popular with slow readers or people who just read their 52 (or less).

I'm ok with the result, I voted for two of them and the others leave room to choose a book.

At first I thought the country with a population less than 1 million would be really hard, but I was surprised to see there actually are quite a lot of them!

To balance the list, in next poll it would probably be a good idea to have:
- a genre (we already have a YA category)
- something related to publishing
- a title category

It's really interesting to see some of last year's rejects making the cut this year (unreliable narrator this time).

Well that is not how I thought this one would turn out at all. None of my top 4 made it. I didn't pick unreliable narrator but I don't mind that one at all. The two lists were too vast and vague for my personal liking. And fictional place isn't a challenge because in my preferred genre, it's ALL fictional places so anything will fit there. *shrug*

I think only one of these was in my top 4 but there were so many good choices I had a really hard time deciding. I'm pretty happy with all of the choices. The ones I really didn't want are in the bottom so I'm good with that.

Breathing a sigh of relief. My bottom 4 were not picked. This prompts will be not horrible to fill. I am not sure about unreliable narrator though. I will be glad for the external links people provide for that one.

Anastasia, Laura provided a link for this one if you want to already have a look at some ideas:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

It's strange to see the "web based content" in the bottom 4 as there are very well known books that started on the web (like Throne of Glass, Nimona or 50 Shades of Grey).

There are some great books for the unreliable narrator prompt - that was in my top 4. The web-based content was definitely not my cup of tea, although it wasn't in my bottom four. It will be a difficult one to fill in my reject challenge, that's for sure.

One of the best unreliable narrators is in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Thank you Zazz, there was one already on my list

Wow, there are a few on my TBR list :)

None of my top 4 made it this time but I like some of these. None of them were in my bottom 4. They should be interesting.

There are so many books from my tbr in the link Zaz posted, I'm going to have a hard time choosing only one! ;)

Darn, I really wanted the Stephen King category! But no complaints, I don't think I picked any of the ones chosen, but I don't hate any of the categories that were picked either.

Nicole if you just want to read Stephen King fit him into another category. I know some of his books would fit into the set in a fictional place category. Needful Things and Cujo were set in Castle Rock and It and Dreamcatcher were set in Derry both are fictional.

Two from my top, the others I can work with.

I'd like to make a request about the polls - I know there was a suggestions to have the last and possibly the sixth polls be restricted to already suggested topics.

However, due to the two-day-wait rule and the speed that topics are suggested, it's likely no one will be able to suggest more than 6 topics. However, if two polls, both of them even number, are restricted to re-submissions, it means that some people may have to resubmit a past topic twice. Is it possible to bump one of them to an odd numbered poll? Maybe keep the last poll as a previous idea poll and slot the other one into poll 7/9/11?

I'm a little confused about how the previous suggested polls work. Do we have to resubmit the topics? Or do we just get to pick from the complete list?

I'm very happy with the results. At least two of them were in my top 4, and the two list categories have enough variety that I'm sure I can find something. I can't remember all of my votes right now, but the bottom 4 was also pretty close to what I picked.

I personally don't like the Stephen King topic because I'm not a fan of his (to be fair, I've only read Carrie and I didn't like it much), and I think it's a bit too restrictive to be limited to one author for a prompt. If people want to read Stephen King, I'm sure it's easy to fit them into other prompts. The 750 page book was one of my bottom votes, because as I said in a previous thread, I have trouble finding books of that length that actually keep my interest the whole way through.

For the previous suggestion polls, I'll post a list of the previous suggestions, obviously excluding the winners. Then the 20 members making a suggestions will look at the list and choose the one that they want to "re-suggest". So we'll end up with a poll that's the same as what we've done so far but it will only be composed of previous suggestions.

I'm going to make one of the answers something like "I would prefer to do a poll with new suggestions." If that answer gets the majority of votes then we should consider just doing 13 regular polls or only one "re-submit" poll.

Peter, I may be misremembering but weren't we planning on having the 6th and 13th polls be devoted to resubmissions? In that case, one of them is already an odd number :)

Woohoo, 2 of the ones I voted for made it and the other 2 I was ok with as well. What's even better is 3 in the bottom 4 were in my bottom 4.

Also, I find it very interesting about the Stephen King book and the long book.

Re the Stephen King topic I'm glad we're not getting so specific about authors. For me, the idea of these challenges is to expand our reading universe and so I much prefer a category like "Horror Author You've Never Read" rather than a specific author.

I love the idea of Unreliable Narrator but will be interested to see how we find such a thing.

Re book you expect to hate -- there are so many great books out there I'm glad I don't have to choose a book I really don't want to read when there are so many that I do want to read!

And maybe it's an age thing but I'm not at all disappointed about the lack of fan fiction / web based choice

I've actually read some really great fanfiction, but that was still a category that I put in my bottom 4. Partly it was for logistical reasons of how to keep track of my reading accurately on GoodReads since fanfiction (to my knowledge, anyway) are not listed, although a book based on a fanfiction would be.

My main reason for voting against that category was because I browsed through a list of options, and there really wasn't too much that interested me. I have no interest in Fifty Shades of Grey, and many of the books I saw on the list seemed quite similar to that.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I would have preferred if either the BBC list or the top books of the century had made the final list, but not both. From what I can remember of the two lists, they are quite similar although there is enough variety in both that there are still plenty of options.

My other top votes were for a book about a difficult topic, and a book about an immigrant or refugee. For both of those, I picked them because I have quite a few books on my TBR that could fit and that I really want to read.

Ooops, I forgot there were 13 polls not 12. Disregard my previous request. And I like the idea of adding an option for preferring new topics. Personally, I'd prefer only one forced "resubmission" poll as the final poll, and if there are topics people want to resubmit in the meantime it's perfectly fine to suggest them in a normal poll.

I agree the suggestions shouldn't be that specific. I like them when they're a little more interesting. Like "a book set in wartime" or "a book featuring your favorite food" etc.

Two of the topics were close to the top for me, and I can work with the other two, but we are starting to have a lot of list-categories I think - Goodreads choice awards, Goodreads top YA books, middle of your Goodreads list (a little different perhaps), BBC big read list, best books of 21st century.

Elín Birna wrote: "Two of the topics were close to the top for me, and I can work with the other two, but we are starting to have a lot of list-categories I think - Goodreads choice awards, Goodreads top YA books, mi..."

Right!! That's why I didn't vote for "A best book of the 21st century", but I did for "A book from the BBC The Big Read list", for me it was like to choose between this two list, so it came as a surprise to find both of them in the final list :P

By the way, just one of my choices made it to the final top 4, but 3 of my bottom 4 made it to the final bottom 4 list :D

Yes, same for me, I wanted just one of these 2 lists (with a light preference for the BBC as I find it has more interesting books rather than popular crap :p). But there are many choices in both lists, so I'll probably pick Rebecca as I want to read it and something well known for the other.

I agree with Elín, no lists for next poll! However I'd like to see 1-2 for a mystery and a fantasy-scifi at the end of the year as they are well liked genres in the group.

The only problem with one of the lists is that the 'best books of the 21st century so far' is a very subjective list and even from just a quick look at the lists that were given as options and a quick google search, the list differs (sometimes greatly) depending on which site you go on and who has voted on it. Maybe, as a group, we should narrow it down and pick one or two of them for our group to pick from (pick some of the longer ones for more choice) so that people are picking from the same list/s.

I didn't actually vote for either list just because I felt like we already had a few and I was trying to pick some more specific topics but I'm happy with their inclusion.

Zaz wrote: "Yes, same for me, I wanted just one of these 2 lists (with a light preference for the BBC as I find it has more interesting books rather than popular crap :p). But there are many choices in both li..."

I have to second all the votes toward no more lists please. I wouldn't mind having more directed polls from here on out to get away from some of the list suggestions and the super vague ideas or the repeats that no one wants. Zaz mentioned some options earlier in this thread that we could focus on. Maybe that could be discussed?

I also second to have no more lists please. If this keeps up we're going to have nothing but Lists to pick from which doesn't help people expand their horizons and expose them to different genre's.

I love lists, but even I think we probably have enough now. :) I do think some very vague prompts are ok though, just not too many. Personally I don't want to have to go on a hunting expedition for every single prompt, but I do still want to have a bit of a challenge. Some of the other challenges I've done with super-specific prompts had me reading something I didn't want to read just for the sake of ticking it off, and I didn't find that fun. I think we will end up pretty balanced in the end. This year's turned out well.

Jody wrote: "I love lists, but even I think we probably have enough now. :) I do think some very vague prompts are ok though, just not too many. Personally I don't want to have to go on a hunting expedition for..."

I agree on everything. I like having some slightly more vague prompts as it's easier to fit in some books I want to read as well as having stricter ones that push me out of my comfort zone. I think it'll end up fairly balanced, though. This year's did and we're only a few polls in.

Jennifer (#34) -- I don't know. It depends on the list for whether or not it expands your horizons.

I agree, I think we have enough lists for now. I also wouldn't mind more direction in the polls. I find it hard to keep track of what's already been chosen, although I know we get updated lists after each vote.

I will be providing direction in the next poll so more details to come tomorrow morning when the suggestions open.

Zaz posted three different categories that she has noticed are missing from our current list. Does anyone have a fourth type of suggestion that they think is missing?

Zaz posted:
- a genre (we already have a YA category)
- something related to publishing
- a title category

Maybe something to do with location - from memory we only have one (fictional location).

I'd like "Something you find challenging" or "A format you don't usually read" (poetry, epistolary, diary, etc) for the 4th type of suggestion as I think both of them are currently lacking in the list :)

I enjoyed that each year there were some categories out of my comfort zone, even if I didn't enjoy the read (for example, I won't read a memoir without the challenge, but for this year I'd like something different but still very open to choice).

Laura wrote: "I will be providing direction in the next poll so more details to come tomorrow morning when the suggestions open.

Zaz posted three different categories that she has noticed are missing from our ..."

Like gothic fiction (one of my favorite sub-genres)?

Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "Laura wrote: "I will be providing direction in the next poll so more details to come tomorrow morning when the suggestions open.

Zaz posted three different categories that she has noticed are mis..."

That would be more a specific suggestion than a category of suggestions. It's a little confusing so hopefully that makes sense. In other words, tomorrow you make the suggestion "A book of gothic fiction" (fitting it under the genre category)

I've been saying for a while I'd like more content related topics so maybe suggestions that have to do with major themes in the books would be nice.

I'm wondering how the kinds of topics we're now saying that we're missing fared in previous polls. For example, Zaz suggested we should have something title-related, but we've had title suggestions in previous polls that didn't get chosen.

Laura, I know you said you're going to give more direction about the suggestions, but what about the voting? I don't necessarily want to have limits imposed on what we can vote for (ie. choose one of 4-5 options relating to titles), but I'm just thinking that even if we fill in some of the gaps during suggestions, those topics still might not be picked.

My plan was to break the suggestions into the four categories and then ask people to vote for one theme out of each category.

If people are concerned about that forcing the voting (like Rachel is saying), then I can add an answer like "no themes from this category". Then if that one had the highest count then we would just have less than 4 themes from this poll (#5).

I'm just wondering if it isn't a bit early making rules and restrictions about which suggestions is okay and which is not?
I understand why you're having this discussion, but I think it takes away a bit of the fun when it comes to suggesting and voting on topics.
I'm saying this as one who isn't thrilled about the list so far, but I definitely don't feel like making suggestions if I'm more or less told which topics are right or wrong. And we've only picked 16 out 52 topics so far, so shouldn't we give it some more time and see how the list turns out?

As with last year, it's interesting to experiment to see what works or not and to have feedback about what's in place. If we do this near the end, it will be difficult to balance something that didn't work well or improve with new ideas.

We can of course decide that people who want to make the list more balanced should follow the rules (more or less) and people who don't agree with them can vote for whatever suggestions they prefer.

Maybe if the already chosen categories are broken down into sub-groups when mentioned before voting (like title, lists, content, cover etc, as was done last year), everyone will have a better overview of what has been chosen so far and there might automatically be more variety.

It's available in the announcement topic (1st post) since the beginning ;)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...