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[2017] Voting for 10th Mini-Poll
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I had 3 clear top 4 and had to do process of elimination for the other one. My bottom for were a little harder, there were only 2 I really don't want and the other 2 I picked were based on how hard I felt it would be to do, like the book read and hated in high school. I didn't hate any books I was required to read, but that's just me, :).
I liked more than 4 suggestions, so I'll be happy if some of them win even if I didn't vote for them. There are places for short stories/books and children books, I really hope they'll make the final list.My bottom 4 was pretty easy, even if they weren't bad suggestion in my opinion. I'm really not appealed by specific nonfiction and the only book I liked from school was a nightmare when I re-read it, so I'm not sure I want to try again the books I disliked, especially as they are classics.
I had 5 or 6 that I thought would add to the challenge. I narrowed it down to 4 but I hope the others are suggested again. I had a clear bottom 3 and then added a 4th that I didn't have as many choices for.
Laura - you misunderstood my suggestion. I meant a book of short stories that were connected by a theme but were written by different authors. It's probably too late but I just wanted to say something.
Ah, sorry Kirsten, I misread for whatever reason (probably because we have "a book my multiple authors") and read "all by the same author".
It's okay, I was just thinking of books that were like best mystery fiction of 2015 or a book of Christmas stories. I thought that was basically what I wrote in my suggestion. I do not believe I said all by the same author.
Are we keeping it same author? This would impact my top four.
I also understood Kirsten's suggestion with multiple authors and wanted to vote for it. As the poll hasn't been open for long would it be possible to modify it? Or consider the "real" suggestion in the results (hoping that people would see the change announced).
I don't know if Laura can modify it, but it'll be listed as "A book of themed short stories" in the final list.
For the one I suggest animal heroes: animals who did something heroic (ie. rescued their owner), or an animal protagonist, plus it could also be animals that served in the military during wartime like the ones they have either now or back doing World War 1, World War 2 and so on
I voted already but the change doesn't impact my vote. I didn't even pay attention to the one author part in the voting page.
Mod
You can not make me reread Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution! The worst week of college!
But I have found there are other books, especially classics, which have a time to read. I recently read a book most people read in school and hated but I somehow missed (don't remember the book!), and I totally loved it! But I also recognized that to have read it when I was younger would have been a disaster.
I definitely went through a phase where I hated everything I read in school, I think just because I was "forced" to read it. Also it was when I was 12-14, so how can I be trusted? I'd really like to reread some of those books I judged harshly. I think this would be a fun topic, though if it doesn't win, I'm already planning to reread some of those books at some point in the future.
I had a very clear top 4 and bottom 4 this time around. The rest I'm not fussed if they do or don't make it in and won't mind either way. I doubt all of my top 4 will make it and I think I can probably guess which ones are less likely to make it but oh well. My fingers are crossed!
I had a very clear bottom 4, and I had 2 or 3 that I knew right away I wanted to vote. It was hard for me to pick my fourth Top 4 option.
I can't remember the books I read in school, never mind the ones I hated. But I'm sure I didn't hate any...unless they were classics, I still hate clissics.
Now that I actually have a bit more time, I wanted to expand on my post a bit. I had a hard time picking my top 4 because there were quite a few topics that I wanted. I think this was the first poll in a while where I had quite a few that I really wanted, for various reasons. Some I thought would balance out the list nicely, and there were one or two that I just found a bit different from anything I've done in the past. My bottom 4 was much easier because they were all topics that I'd done before, or that I thought were too restrictive/difficult to find options for. Even then, there were probably really 6 that I wanted to put in my bottom list, but I narrowed it down based on which ones I could live with if they made it.
I even threw in my "book by or about a person with a disability" suggestion for a second try, although I somehow doubt it will make it in. With all the conversation recently about non-fiction, I thought this might be a good prompt because it has the flexibility for either fiction or non-fiction. I have quite a few books on my shelf that are memoirs written by family members of a child with special needs talking about their lives. I actually think it might be more interesting (for me, at least) to read a fictional book about a character with a disability because I think they are very underrepresented. If this prompt doesn't make it, I'm sure I'll manage to fit it in somehow as a wild card or a "prompt from another challenge" kind of category.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how the categories are chosen for BookRiot or PopSugar? I know they are not done by vote like us, but I'm just wondering who decides and how those decisions are made. The BookRiot list especially is usually quite challenging!
This round of voting was really difficult for me. There wasn't much that really sang out to me for my top 4. I had a top 1, and finding three others was a lot of narrowing down for what would challenge me, and possibly do well within the group. However, finding my bottom 4 was just as challenging because there were only 2 I was really against, and from there it was filtering out what was similar to topics we already have or would be too restrictive for others. I feel pretty "meh" about this round, but I know it's getting difficult to suggest topics as we as a whole are asking for more unique and challenging (not challenging) topics.
Manda, I completely agree. I really wasn't a fan of the topics for this poll, but I know that it's getting harder to come up with new suggestions.I feel like we all want something different and it's getting harder to find topics that will satisfy everyone. I've been looking at other groups and challenges to get ideas, but it seems like either everything has been done before, it's too restrictive, or they're "fluffy" topics that people don't want.
Mod
I feel like we all want something different and i..."
Everyone can't be happy every week, I figure there will be a week or two next year, just like this one, where I won't like a week and will make a replacement. I'm good with that!
In terms of people who think the topics won't stretch them, why not stretch yourself when you pick a book? There's the nonfiction category this round- why not pick a nonfiction book in an area you would not normally read? Make a rule half of the books you read next year are written by women, non-Americans, not originally in english, or some other way you want to stretch yourself. Many of the topics are broad enough to satisfy those who want to read more and those who want to stretch themselves.
I have a different outlook about re-reading a book I hated in school. I read Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck in high school and hated it. I also tried to read Great Expectation in HS and disliked it. I re-read GE this year and GoW in 2008. I loved them. So, I have no problem re-reading books from high school. I am different person at 50 than I was at 15.
Pamela --- AMEN!! We should be stretching ourselves.
Mod
I did too Laura. I was sure it said by the same author!
If it helps, I voted for it because of the change.
I agree with Pamela. If you want to stretch yourself, there are ways to do it even when the prompts themselves don't seem that challenging. I tend to stick to the prompts quite strictly, so sometimes it can be really difficult to find something that fits and that interests me enough to read. I love that we come up with this list as a group, but I also think it opens us up to a lot of the individual-level complaints about the winners each week not being what we wanted. It's impossible to please everyone, and I'm sure if we each came up with our own list of 52 out of all the suggestions for the year, our lists would all be so different.
I actually find it really hard sometimes to get a sense of what the group as a whole wants. For example, non-fiction or graphic novel categories were suggested but didn't make it, but then people also complained that those topics were missing from the final list. It sometimes makes me wonder how divided the votes get.
I have no idea if it would be possible, but at the end of the year, I would love if we could see the survey results somehow. Maybe it's just me, but I'd be really interested in seeing the distribution of votes among different suggestions.
Sorry, I didn't mean for my comment to come across as complaining. I didn't hate anything, I just meant that nothing really jumped out at me/made me super excited.
Nicole wrote: "Sorry, I didn't mean for my comment to come across as complaining. I didn't hate anything, I just meant that nothing really jumped out at me/made me super excited."
Don't worry, I wasn't talking about you specifically. Complained may have been too strong of a word. I just find it kind of funny how sometimes the votes don't seem to match with what people are saying in the comments. I think it's important to take a look at what we're missing from the list so we can balance it out a bit, and keep the list from getting too repetitive.
I don't think any of us are really coming across as complaining. As we are only communicating through written messages, there is a lot of tone and feeling that can be inferred by the people reading them. This is setting us up to seem like we're criticizing each other, when it's not the case. This group has always been about helpful suggestions and encouragement, though it seems like this time of year expectations run high. This isn't a bad thing. We're all here for something different, and for two years in a row we have proved that we can create a reading challenge with variety. Personally, I find this whole process a bit challenging, in a good way. While I know next year's list will not be my dream list, I am okay with that. I know there are things on that list I probably would not be reading had the majority of the group nor voted on it. I also see it as a "no matter what" scenario for myself. From day one, I have committed to do the reject challenge again, so I will be reading all the topics no matter what. For me the only difference is that I tend to be more strict on my self with the official challenge, whereas I might bend topics a minor bit (if needed for very restrictive topics) in the reject challenge.
One thing I find interesting is the diversity topics. We as a group talk a lot about diversity in our challenge, but so far we've only managed to approved two topics based on the location of the author or setting (Scandinavia and the Southern Hemisphere) and an author of color (non white) of the author. At the same time, we'e rejected the subjects of nonfiction and social justice; these may be a loose fit, and we as a whole do not seem big on nonfiction. However, we've also rejected, authors from Asian, Mediterrian, or Middle-Eastern countries, a book about an immigrant or refugee, translated novels, books about people with disabilities, with LGBTQ themes, and books about gender/sexual orientation. This isn't meant to be nit-picky, it's just an observation that I've been thinking on a lot recently (I blame my job). I realize there are a lot more people who vote than who contribute to the conversations. I would really love to know what their thoughts are as well.
I agree with you Rachel, I would be interested in seeing the overall spread of votes at the very end, though I am not sure if that would be feasible for Laura or not. I can imagine that would take a lot of time to compile and is it really worth it? Would we gain anything from knowing those results?
Having been a part of this process since it started in the original Popsugar group, this is my second year taking part in creating our own list.Here are a few observations I'd like to add to this discussion.
First off, as Manda and Rachel said, this group has always been about supporting each other and helping each other out. It isn't a group focused on many rules besides respect and everyone is able to interpret and use the challenge the way they see fit. As Manda stated, tone and inflection are lost through a screen, so it can be very easy as a reader to incorrectly apply tone and misinterpret something in a way it was not intended.
Last year when we came up with the list, I think there were generally fewer people taking part in the discussions as well as the actual polls, although I can't confirm that. That said, it was a new and exciting concept that we got to create out own list rather than use one someone else had come up with. There was a lot more discussion about the process because we had to figure that out before we could come up with our list. I think people were generally excited about the process (I know I was). People were also quite a bit less vocal about the results. From what I can remember, the results came in and then we moved on to the next step, the results weren't discussed quite as much - at least not in the sense of "I like", "I dislike", "I voted for..." etc.
I think there is more discussion about the results this year, especially about what people wanted or didn't want. This isn't a bad thing, in fact it has helped us mold the list better to what we as a group want. But it can be very easy to apply tone to comments that talk about wanting/not wanting certain topics and misinterpret them as complaints.
There are a lot of people in the discussion that keep wanting something completely new, but without getting overly complicated, completely new topics are difficult to come up with. As far as diversity in authors and settings and different genres, I think a lot of the reason these topics haven't been chosen is because they are not "completely new". We have some of those topics in this year's list and we have a few more in next year's list. I don't think are necessarily being rejected, just more that people aren't voting for them because they are looking for those "completely new" topics. This could be completely wrong, that's just my guess as to a reason some have made it in while others haven't. Further to that, I think the way some of the suggestions are worded plays a role in whether they get picked or not, but that's just a guess as well.
I think in general we are coming up with a pretty good list. Remember, like Manda said, this won't be a personalized list because there are a lot of people involved in creating it. We are going to end up with a list that has some topics we like and some we aren't too fond of, but that's just the nature of the way we are creating it. If there is a topic you really want that doesn't make it on this year, maybe it will get picked next year when we start our next list.
TLDR; it's easy to misinterpret meaning over a computer screen, but in the end we are all here to help each other and have fun reading. We're going to end up with a good list of topics in the end, and if there are some topics you like that don't make it on the list for next year, maybe they'll make it next year.
I just want to clarify that when I said "complain," I didn't mean it in a negative way. I just couldn't think of a better way to phrase it. What I meant was as a group we (for whatever reason) didn't pick certain topics, and then in the comments, we say how those kinds of topics are missing from the list. It's just something that I find really interesting, since it makes me wonder about the voting. I don't think we would gain much by seeing the results, and I'm sure it's much more trouble for Laura than it's worth. I love the list we have so far, and I'm always looking at the rejects challenge in some variation as an option. I just can't figure out which way I want to arrange it. One idea I had was to compile a list of my Top 4 each week that didn't make it, and use that as my rejects challenge...but I also have a plan to use the rejects from both years to read certain series that I've been meaning to read/re-read.
I agree with Peter that we shouldn't really look at a topic not making it as a rejection, since I doubt there are many (or even any) topics that don't receive any votes at all. Personally, I'm not too interested in topics that we've done before but some of them are still quite interesting.
I wasn't involved in the group at all last year since I only really started using GoodReads toward the beginning of this year, but I have to say this is by far my favourite of all the groups that I participate in because of the emphasis on discussion and the friendly environment. I love how this group actually actively encourages people to talk about what they are reading and why they chose it. Even the progress posts have questions to prompt discussion. It's a lot of fun!
Mod
Pamela, it's a challenge comprised of part or all of the prompts/topics that were not selected for the yearly challenge. It's a massive list. My reject challenge for 2016 ended up being 182 books (full list; no doubling up). A person doesn't have to do the full thing and can pick and choose their topics. I'm just an overachiever who can't narrow things down :)
We're can we find the reject challenge
It is not an "official" challenge, as not all of us are doing it, but you can find the list of suggestions here.For next year, as I know I won't be able to read more than 100 books, I'm planning to try and combine prompts from the main challenge with rejects, for example: an author I haven't read before who is over 40 years old.
On my side, I know I tend to not vote for some "identity" suggestions, just for the reason that I pick books with these topics during the year, without knowing it, mostly because I read many YA (these topics are a lot less present in the adult books I pick). For example, most of Ness' books have LGTB and mental illness themes, and it's sure that I'll read books by him next year (his 2017 books is a one word title). I find easy to fit these topics inside other categories, which is not the case for some genres or formats for example.POC/specific location authors are different because I don't have to focus too much on what's inside the book and can go with recommendations or "this looks interesting". However I wouldn't like too many topics like these because I'm not appealed by repetitive prompts and prefer hunting books in various ways.
I'll do few challenges next year and as so far I only voted for half the winning list, I'll also do a little reject challenge with my favorite losers. Last year, I was excited by the process of creating our own list and planned like 10 billions challenges, next year I want to focus a little more and would prefer a very very good 52 list. I'm also a bit biased by the fact I saw people chose our challenge and not the 2016 popsugar because our list was more fun/interesting, so I keep an outsider look at the list and I'm eagger to discover what popsugar and bookriot will decide for next year. It's difficult to come with new lists each year and it's interesting to see where the focus is.
Mod
Ooo, for all those ideas I voted for that didn't win! I like that, although I could not do 104 books a year, hopefully I'll have a job and friends next year (I've just moved so have neither so far!)
Hopefully a few of the prompts you voted for are in the challenge, so you maybe won't have to read 102 books next year ;)
I totally forgot that today was results day. Now I'm all excited!!!
Mod
No hurry Laura. Take care of real life things. We can even wait an extra day or two if needed. Have fun!!!
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The 2017 Reading Challenge will continue the concept of this year's challenge, with 52 weekly topics. Users then choose a book fitting each topic in order to complete the challenge.
The Process:
The topics for the 2017 RC list will be determined through around 13 mini-polls. Suggestions for each poll will be open until 20 suggestions are received and then opened up for voting for one week. Each user will vote for their top 4 and bottom 4 topics in each mini-poll, resulting in 4 challenge entries from each (13 polls x 4 topics/poll=52 weekly topics). This timeframe allows for a completed list in October-November.
The Rules:
- Voting ends September 11
- One vote per poll per user
Reminder of Current Challenge Themes
A book by an author you haven't read before
A book in the middle of your TBR list
A book from someone else's bookshelf
A book with a strong female character
A book from the Goodreads "Top 100 YA Books"
A category from another challenge
A book that you've owned for a while but haven't gotten around to reading
A book with an animal on the cover or in the title
A book about a famous historical figure
A book based on a myth
A book from the Goodreads Choice Awards 2016
A novel inspired by a work of classic literature
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 (link)
A Penguin modern classic
A book with at least 2 perspectives (more than one main character and point of view)
A book with a long title (5+ words, excluding any subtitles)
A book written by a person of color (i.e. someone who isn’t white)
An epistolary fiction book
A title that doesn't contain the letter "E"
A book set in or by an author from the Southern Hemisphere
A mystery
A dual timeline novel
A book being released as a movie in 2017
A book written or set in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland)
A banned book
A historical fiction
A book that is a subgenre of your favorite genre
A book recommended by one of your favorite authors
A Hugo Award winner
A book written by at least two authors
A book with a one-word title
Helpful Links
Top 10 Authors: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Survey Link