Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
2017 Plans
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J's 2017 Plan - Adaptability is Key
A lot of the books you've got on this list are some of my all time favourites. Some really great series here - Red Rising trilogy, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Name of the Wind, as well as some really great solo stories like Ready Player One and The Martian. I hope you enjoy those books!Shogun also narrowly missed out on being included in my list for next year, but I ended up choosing another book over it.
Great plan!We have several books in common for 2017: Ready Player One, The Penelopiad, The Name of the Wind, Howl's Moving Castle, Oryx and Crake, Good Omens. I look forward to seeing your opinion of them.
I see you put two books from Gabriel Garcia Marquez in your plan (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera), I loved them both, as well as The Master and Margarita, and A Wizard of Earthsea.
I love the notes that Anna, Peter, and Stacey have made above. you're recommendations will push those titles from maybe to most likely in their respective categories.I had to cut three books from my plan: The Golem and the Jinni, Player Piano, and A Princess of Mars because I read them in 2016!
It had been my intent, with making the list so early, to reserve these books for 2017 -> but the waiting is so hard...
Luckily, all three of those were books where I had more than one option for the topic.
The name of the wind and the great Gatsby both are wonderful books. Same for 100 years of solitude and love in times of cholera. We share only a few, but I'm interested in quite a few of your choices
It's nice to have company for Annihilation (almost everybody will read An Ember in the Ashes for the movie!). Of course, I'm looking forward to discuss Parable, I hope it's as good as Kindred.I'm hesitating a lot for The Martian, maybe I'll follow your lead :D
For Wool, if you read the 1st, you need to read the sequels, they are totally complementary. Many people find the 1st too slow and don't continue, which is a shame because he's an amazing world builder. My fav was the 2nd (it's a prequel, the sequel is the 3rd).
You have some books I really liked on your list (like Howl or Name of the Wind) and others that were a miss (Oryx and Ready Player One - yes, I'm on the weird zone for this one). It'll be interesting to see which of my opinions match yours :)
@Claire -> I'm glad you gave a shout out for The Great Gatsby and the Name of the Wind. Those are both options that I have been leaning away from and this will shift them back into contention. Everyone tells me that NotW is amazing, but I have been waiting on that 3rd book. I'd much rather read an amazing book and then continue on to finish the series than read an amazing book and find myself joining the wait. In fact, if that book isn't coming out anytime soon, I might rather that the initial book were one that I hated.
@Zaz -> Annihilation is one that I chose because it is on the Amazon top 100 list as is Wool. I am a bit concerned with needing to read the rest of the series (where would I put them?) but maybe if I don't like one of the other series that is in my list, I will then shift to Wool.
For the Martian, I have two friends with decent taste who absolutely swear by that one. It is supposed to be hilarious. I would not be surprised at all if I join you in hating Ready Player One. It doesn't sound like it would be my type of book, but it does seem like one that I should read and have an opinion of.
I'll be interested to hear what you think of NotW. I seem to be the only person here who didn't like it - I have no interest in continuing the series at all. I've been wanting to read The Martian for ages, so I'll probably try to get onto that next year. I need more funny books in my life ... I feel like I've read an awful lot of depressing books in the past two years!
J, if you like audiobooks, I highly recommend listening to Ready Player One! Wil Wheaton did a fantastic job as a narrator and it gave a totally new dimension to the story!
I absolutely loved NotW, however.... it doesn't appear that there is any time frame for the publication of book 3 at this point. It kills me to tell you to read another book because NotW is my favourite book of all time, but the wait for book 3 has been painful, so you might be better off finding another book until the Kingkiller Chronicles are complete.The Martian however is totally worth it. It's a one off, and a very quick read. It does have some science and technical stuff in it, but it's not necessary to understand it to enjoy the book - it's more like illustrations or diagrams than anything else. If you enjoy sarcasm and witty dark humour, you'll enjoy this book.
I have The Golem and the Jinni on my 2017 list but it's one of the ones I'm not 100% on and have considered switching it out a few times. How did you like it and would you recommend it?
Love your list! I have most of your chosen books on my Want To Read shelf, so I'll be very interested to hear what you thought. I didn't much like Annihilation, Oryx and Crake and The Windup Girl, but I seem to be in the minority for all three, so you may feel very different!
Oh, and I recommend the audio book for The Martian if you enjoy them. I thought R. C. Bray did a fantastic job reading it and made all the technical explanations quite a bit of fun.
Quite fun that my thread blew up a bit! I am so excited for 2017 to finally come and I can start in on these.@ Jody, Peter has been talking me out of reading NotW, so it might not happen this year (I might put it off until late just to see if Rothfuss gives us a date for book #3).
@Katie, that likely locks in Beloved. It definitely seems like the sort of book I'd go in for given other books I've loved. The Master and Margarita is one of my definites for 2017, as it comes highly recommended by a god friend.
@Sophie, I'll probably take your advice on that audiobook. I do like to listen to audiobooks while performing menial tasks. Given, some books aren't meant for the format and you absolutely must have a good narrator.
@Peter, don't think I would recommend The Golem and the Jinni. I gave it a meh rating of 3 star. It has a very cool setting and premise but it suffers from too perfect of protagonists (the named Golem and Jinni) who never really are challenged or run into any conflict. Thus, there is little story or draw to go with the high concept. I do think that the author is skilled and I am hoping that this is just a matter of first book weakness (she only has one book so far).
@Vee, I'm actually glad to hear that you didn't like those three -> so I will have a compatriot should they fair poorly with me. I don't think I'll go for the audiobook of the Martian, though, since Peter mentions that the book has diagrams.
J wrote: "Quite fun that my thread blew up a bit! I am so excited for 2017 to finally come and I can start in on these.@ Jody, Peter has been talking me out of reading NotW, so it might not happen this yea..."
Just to clarify...
I think you should definitely read The Name of the Wind - I can't recommend it enough. If you enjoy fantasy, you will almost certainly love it. I would just recommend waiting until book 3 is released because it's so good you'll want to finish the story, lol.
Also, the Martian could work as an audiobook - I can't remember because it's been a while since I read it, but I think most of the science stuff is readable - I just meant it is similar to diagrams in that it's not entirely necessary to grasp the concepts, but definitely helps to clarify things....I can't remember if there are actual diagrams, just that the science parts serve a similar purpose.
Good to know about the Golem and the Jinni - It's always been an iffy one for me. I was interested in the premise, but wasn't entirely sold on the book. I may look at changing it out for something else now.
Vee wrote: "I didn't much like Annihilation, Oryx and Crake and The Windup Girl, but I seem to be in the minority for all three, so you may feel very different!"You're not! I stopped reading Oryx and Crake and I normally NEVER do.
Ooh, Lavinia is an excellent choice! I read it a year or two ago and loved it. :) Great Gatsby and Good Omens are both wonderful, too. Actually need to read the latter at some point again myself... I think I've only read it in Finnish! o_o
Sophie wrote: You're not! I stopped reading Oryx and Crake and I normally NEVER do. "I managed to finish it, but I wasn't glad I did. I did find the world quite interesting, but I couldn't connect.
Today, I determined which book will be my Random Pick (Week 37) using random.org.I had decided that this week would be a second go at the 'A book that you've owned for a while but haven't gotten around to reading' (Week 20) topic, to clear out the old backlog.
It first determined that I will be reading one of my Michael Crichton books. Then it settled on A Case of Need. Not sure how I feel about this...
A Case of Need is one of the few Crichton books I haven't read. It's on my list though. What are you not sure of? The novel itself or the author?
^It's both really. Though after I posted that, I went and actually read the description and it sounds pretty interesting. Especially being that it is a thriller about being a doctor written by a legitimate doctor.My main concern is that going back to Crichton, who I was very into in middle school, it might not hold up.
I understand that - I absolutely loved Crichton when I was in highschool, but I've read some of his books in recent years and wasn't as impressed. That said, I think it may have been a case of just reading the right books of his when I was younger. I have reread Timeline and Jurassic Park and both remain among my all-time favourites.I generally think his earlier work is stronger than his later novels. From what I'm able to tell, A Case of Need is one of his earliest books, so maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised? I'm interested in what you think if you do read it - like I said, it's one of the few Crichton novels I haven't read yet.
GREAT LIST!! I LOVED THE ROOM, and of course all the Stephen King's are great choices. Also, THE ROAD is fantastic, and READY PLAYER ONE isn't too shabby, either! -Jen from Quebec :0)
(39. An epistolary fiction)The best thing about starting a whole new year and a whole new plan is all of the choices to pick from. This is, after all, a list of books that I want to read - and now I get to!
So which to read first? I found myself interested in The Martian as life looks rather grim of late and I felt that it would be good for me to read about someone in a much worse place than me.
The book was a wild ride. Well paced, exciting, with characters I cared about. It barely missed out on full marks from me.
I like the way you put the finished book at the beginning of the plan, under the "Completed" heading, so if you don't mind, I'm copying/stealing your idea. ;)Happy reading in 2017!
Oh I certainly welcome you to join me in my rebellion. :)I developed my methodology over the course of 2016, and I rather like it.
I did note, however, that it is technically against the rules of the group. One thing I like about it is that my plan gradually changes from being the original order to being in the eccentric order I read them in. But one of the rules (which I obviously don't adhere to) is that your plan should maintain the topic order.
There's absolutely no rule about how you manage your plan, so feel free to rebel, because from anticonformism come great ideas ;)Edit: I went to read Zaz text after my emotional reaction to your answer and I think there is a misunderstanding here. We ask you to keep the number linked to the prompt so we can find them easily, but your plan is your personal space, so you can organize how you want.
What would be confusing is if people start numbering prompts in the order they read it for example for you: 1. epistolary fiction.
I love your post, Sophie. It makes my one proceeding it even more humorous.(16. A mystery)
While I did have In Cold Blood listed as an alternate option here, I had always intended to read an Agatha Christie book. As soon as I saw the mystery topic win as a 2017 topic, I knew that it would be Agatha and was leaning toward The Mysterious Affair at Styles since it was published in a year that I have not yet read a book from: 1920.
The only real question was if I could wait until 2017 to read it. Well, I made it but only until January 1st (which is when I started this). I began as an audiobook, but realized that the book does have diagrams and pictures. So, I shifted to doing both formats (getting my copy of the book from The Gutenberg Project).
This was a very solid read, Poirot was a great detective and everything that Sherlock Holmes should be. Hastings, however, was an idiot and a horrible perspective character. Props to Agatha for totally having me on a false lead for the whole book spoiler: (view spoiler).
(17. A book with illustrations)As the plan was originally written, this week was supposed to be The Sirens of Titan. That was my first thought as soon as I saw the topic win, and I definitely wanted some Kurt Vonnegut in my plan. But I was assuming that all Vonnegut books had illustrations. The three I had read did. But late in 2016, I read two more books by the author and neither had drawings. So, I got ahold of Sirens and flipped through it -> no illustrations.
And it's quite hard to find out which books had illustrations from Google. I fell back on Peter Pan because I knew it had pictures and it filled a year that I have yet to read a book from (1911). I went with a version that had the original pictures (and title) from 1911.
The book was pretty hit or miss, a text book 3 star for me. Some parts were great and others were less so (especially the portrayal of the Native American tribe.) Still, a quick read which I am glad to say that I have.
Great that you've had two really great reads and one solid one! I also really like how you're doing the completed part of your plan: I think I am going to incorporate that as well into mine.
(15. A book written or set in Scandinavia)This book just blew my mind, it was so good. It has to be one of the very best books I've ever read. Thinking back, the last time I can remember feeling a bigger high after finishing a great book was probably Use of Weapons (2013).
I feel like I'm part of a small niche of people who know about this amazing book. Less than 3000 people have rated it on Goodreads (including Jennifer Lynn, above).
The funny thing is how I discovered it, and I can honestly say that I would not have likely read this book had I not been participating in this challenge. I needed a book from Scandinavia and nothing immediately came to mind. So, I followed one of the links to a Listopia list and started perusing. Far, far down the list after passing numerous books that I either had never heard of or didn't care to read, I found this and clicked on it. 'Ah that's that book that everyone has been going on about, that has a recent film: Room'. But no. When I clicked on it I immediately discovered that it was a different book called The Room.
Still, since I had clicked on it, might as well read the description. And it sounded amazing. So, it became my pick. This was one of the books that I was most interested in reading in 2017 and one that I just couldn't wait to start (based wholly on the description).
Amazing. Not everyone can see it because of the Goodreads system interface limitations, but I've given this well more than 5 stars.
(2. A book with at least 2 perspectives (multiple points of view))I finally finished Trainspotting, after more than a week. I found it to be a fairly challenging read, but I'm not sure that all the hard work paid off.
I find myself preferring the movie. It's nice to have read the book, as I get a bit more detail in parts. But I think the movie managed to streamline the book: focusing on the best parts, giving it a story, and combining characters to keep things manageable.
(26. An adventure book)I started this book, Ready Player One, for the week 6 topic, a book that will become a movie in 2017, before finding out that its release date was pushed back to 2018. I have to admit, I still feel a bit burned by that. I made my plan well in advance of 2017, you'd think that these movie types would check before changing the date.
I'm also not sure that it was the right call. Fantastic Beasts and Rogue One were in the theater together. Both are big films which appeal to nerd culture. It might actually benefit RP1 to be there at the same time as Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi. Unless they really, really want to be able to claim that #1 at the box office slot. Still, anything releasing early in the year is questionable.
But, I rarely DNF a book and that meant that Ready Player One needed a new week and a new topic. I also needed a new book for Week 6. That was the harder part. Looking at the lists of what is becoming a movie, there are not a lot of good options. I considered moving Annihilation, but it doesn't have a release date yet, and I was concerned that I might hit the same issue again.
Ghost in the Shell was another option. I definitely want to read the Manga before watching the film (and the film looks quite good), but I had an issue with finding a way to get a copy. It has graphic content of the sort that the US doesn't approve of (nudity, apparently), so no Libraries carry it. I'll have to buy it. The other option is to throw down on more Agatha Christie (which sounds great) with Murder on the Orient Express.
For the new week to put RP1 into, there were not a lot of topics where it fit and those that might work had books I didn't want to give up. I finally settled on An Adventure Book, after finding it on one of those lists, as I didn't mind putting King Solomon's Mines off for a bit longer.
As for what I thought of it? Pretty meh. The writing is not up to spec with a lot of the dialog falling into an awkwardness one might expect from a beginners creative writing class and lots of plot convenience where needed (everywhere). Slow parts with info dumps, sections where a lot of awesome is going on that are quickly skimmed over.
But it was an easy fast read and the nostalgia was fun, so 3 star.
If you think about it, RPO is technically in the process of becoming a movie at the moment, in 2017. The prompt doesn't specifically say that it has to be *released* in 2017. In case you want to use semantics to your advantage.
I had the same problem with RP1, I had it for the 2017 movie release week. I shuffled it to week 3, a book I meant to read in 2016, which is true. For week 6, one of the best choices is Murder on the Orient Express, although for me Tulip Fever is also a contender, it sounds interesting (and I have a paperback copy of it on my bookshelf).
Anna wrote: "I had the same problem with RP1, I had it for the 2017 movie release week. I shuffled it to week 3, a book I meant to read in 2016, which is true. For week 6, one of the best choices is Murder on t..."Is Tulip Fever becoming a movie????
So excited! I recently heard part of it on BBC Radio 4 Extra... missed the rest of it. Liked the feel of it so much, I bought the Kindle edition. Will definitely switch the book I'm reading for that category!
(6. A book being released as a movie in 2017)This topic got moved to the front of the queue due to the issue I had with Ready Player One (above) since I had posted what book I was reading in the thread for Week 6 and then had to edit in a new answer.
Finding a copy of Murder on the Orient Express was tricky. The price for the Kindle book is up, due to the film, and there are wait lists on both ebook and eAudio versions at my library. I ended up getting a CD version of the audiobook, but that limited how often and where I could listen. But I got lucky and came up quickly for the ebook right around the time that I was really into the story and wanted to move along to the end.
So far, this is the best of the Agatha Christie books I've read (of 3 total) and the only one that I managed to solve correctly. It narrowly missed out on the 5 star rating.
(8. A book written by a person of color)For this week's topic, I gave myself two choices: Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup or Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler. I ended up going with the former.
I hadn't thought about what month it is when I started this, as I started it in January, but it does fit pretty thematically for February if unintentional. Definitely a worthy read that I'm glad to say showed me life at the time in my country.
I was a bit surprised at how straight forwardly this is written. My previous forays into the 19th Century found the language to be somewhat challenging and I was uncertain if this was because people simply talked different 'back then'. Now, I'm more convinced that it is simply a pretension that 19th Century authors favored or felt was necessary.
(51. A collection)I built my list for 2017 as the topics were chosen, excitedly filling in each new topic as they were revealed. As such, my Microsoft Word version of the list still has the topics in the other order.
I realized rather late in the process that I had, somehow, failed to include any Stephen King books in the plan. So, it was those last few topics which got Stephen King titles. That made picking this week's topic easy: 'does Stephen King have a collection that I have not read?' -> Yes. Then: which one to read. Different Seasons won out because I love The Shawshank Redemption film.
This was a solid read. It is a collection of four novellas, which I think I prefer to short stories and maybe even to novels themselves (depending on mood.) They are a good length for me.
I had only seen one of the films made from these stories. (3 out of 4 are already adapted and the final will likely happen in the near future). Overall, this was a great read and I look forward to the next book by him, though I will certainly space those out.
I'm reading different seasons in the same way as you are - slotting in each story in between other reads. I've been using them between library holds and am part way through "Apt Pupil" but just had a couple books come in from the library, so I'll put Different Seasons on hold for now.I am enjoying Apt Pupil so far, so I'm interested to see what I think at the end after reading you didn't like it that much. I really enjoyed the Shawshank Redemption and I'm really looking forward to The Body as both of those movies are two of my favourites.
Which story is the third one that has been adapted into a movie? I'll have to watch it when I finish the book.
^I think that, if you are enjoying it, then you will like Apt Pupil better than I did. I found it to be a bit of a drag all the way through, not just the ending.Apt Pupil is also a film. It stars Ian McKellan as Kurt Dussander, but is directed by Bryan Singer. So, I'm conflicted on whether or not to see it.
(20. A book that you've owned for a while but haven't gotten around to reading)I chose Piers Anthony's Chthon for this topic because I'm pretty sure that it is the book that I have owned the longest without reading. Back in the day, I would frequent Thrift Stores and had no qualms about picking up books which might be interesting to read at the steep price of $0.49 and managed to build a decent collection of books that way, though often they were incomplete series.
I quite enjoyed this book, which surprised me somewhat as I had gotten pretty burned out by Piers Anthony before getting to High School. But this book supports my theory that he has actually gotten worse over time.
What I think Piers realized was that he would never have mass appeal, but for those readers which were fans of his, anything he wrote was worth having. For this reason, he's made a decent living on quantity over quality -> sell a lot of books to a few people rather than write a single book and have it purchased by everyone.
But this was his first book, and while I do see the inexperience of a novice writer it also shows signs of being well worked over and perfected prior to publication. This makes me actually quite interested to read his subsequent books as there is likely a high point and it might be with books I've not yet read.
I also read his novels while a preteen and have always directed young people towards his books as gate way novels into high fantasy. Like you I out grew his writing quickly. I may give this one a try though since you said it is written for a more complex audience.v
^Very curious to see if you like it. I'm tempted to read more early Piers Anthony (there was a Kindle book sale late last year were they were 100% off! So, I have a lot), so that I can know definitively what was his best and recommend that to people looking to try him out or make a return. I'm suspicious that Chthon could be an acquired taste. Just one bit of fair warning (don't want to spoil anything): he wrote no likable characters in this one. I think I've noticed that a bit with first time authors, that they want to break down all of the existing tropes of fiction and then later, when they embrace a few tropes, their books get more popular appeal. I'm thinking specifically of Consider Phlebas and The Gunslinger.
(29. A book published outside the 4 major publishing houses)
I decided to go really indie for this pick and chose Sacred Trust by my good friend, Roxanne Barbour. Roxanne is an excellent writer who is just breaking into the industry and hasn't gotten recognized yet.
I had this book on my Kindle since it was released (almost 2 years ago) and decided to read it now because it was, or so I had heard, a romance novel and the day I started it was the 14th. I do remember, though, when mentioning that I had bought it to Roxanne that she didn't think I'd go in for this one, instead recommending a couple of her other works - and she was right. It wasn't my favorite of her books so far (she just released a new one a couple weeks ago that I want to read soon).
(4. A title that doesn't contain the letter "E")I found a pleasant surprise when I went to update this book today as 'finished'. A few months back, I complained about a minor inconvenience in the Goodreads system, that one could not list a book read multiple times (or, at least, not in a way that I had found) and have it show up in those respective years on the stats page. Zaz (I believe it was) pointed out that it was possible if one simply listed two different editions of the book as read.
But today, I see that there is a change in the review page which now allows multiple reading listed, with multiple start and finish dates right there under the review! I'll need to update a few of my older books.
I chose to read N or M? for week 4 because I found myself interested in reading more by Agatha Christie, after already visiting with her in weeks 16 and 6. That is something I tend to do, get really into an author and read a lot of books by them -> last year it was P.G. Wodehouse and Maya Angelou.
This is also the second book, that I have read this year, which was not on the original version of my 2017 plan - both of which have been further Agatha Christie books. This book, then, knocked out both of the picks that I had listed for this week: MaddAddam and Wool Omnibus. It also has the distinction of being the first book that I've read from the year 1941.
It was a fun read, especially because it was written during World War II about World War II but with the author not knowing how things would turn out. Interestingly, it wasn't really a mystery. I think it was more of a thriller.
(27. A book by one of your favorite authors)This is one of the easier topics to fill. I have a lot of favorite authors and suggesting that I should read another book by one of them: doesn't require much of a push.
But I decided to go with my very favorite author, Douglas Adams, as it has been a long time since I have read one of his books. This book, The Salmon of Doubt is one that I had been putting off, since I knew that it was published posthumously and incomplete and I didn't want my high opinion of Douglas to be tainted by seeing behind the curtain.
However, my fears were not justified. Even notes scribbled on napkins, emails, and blogs by the author are pretty high caliber. I suspect that, had he been able to finish this work, we would have had a five star outing. What the editor chose to include to pad out the unfinished work was also impressive. Those emails and blogs give us an idea of where Douglas was going with this work and his introduction to P.G. Wodehouse's final unfinished book is quite poignant here.
(3. A book you meant to read in 2016)It's interesting how things fall out sometimes. I had put holds on a few books at my library, especially ticking ones that I wanted to read but had huge lines. I had three holds going: The Salmon of Doubt had me first up in line, Naked Lunch had me around five back, and On Writing had me way out in the 20s.
They all arrived at the same time.
So, I guess those were the books I was reading. I jumped on the Douglas Adams first but I think reading that and On Writing close to each other wasn't ideal since both have the authors discussing how to write and their respective methods.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft was the only contender for the week 3 topic. Although I had 6 books which I had meant to read in 2016 but hadn't (6 contenders for the topic) it was the only one of those which I had regret for passing it up.
Surprisingly, it is not simply a how to book about becoming a novelist, but it actually mostly a memoir which happens to feature a section on how to write. Still, these different parts work well together as we get to see how and why Stephen King writes as well as getting examples which relate back to his works.
And that's the real highlight of the read: insight into the process of writing his books.
(19. A New York Times best-seller)The 15th book I've read this year and the 20th book I've ever read by Stephen King. This puts Mr. King in third place as most author's read, once you exclude comic books, manga, and picture books. Eighth if no such exclusions are made.
The Dead Zone was definitely one of the strongest of the King books. It really weaves well the separate storylines which all lead toward that inevitable conclusion. King is best at taking real characters in real life settings and tossing in one little bit of supernatural (this time it's Psychic Ability) to make the whole scenario very believable for the reader. I think the only thing keeping this off a full set of stars is the slow parts. Probably a 4.5 star book.
I opted to read this next because Stephen spoiled a bit of it for me in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Though that scene was thankfully rather early in the book, I still think it would have had more impact as a surprise.
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Lavinia (other topics)Aenid (other topics)
Annihilation (other topics)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (other topics)
The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Ursula K. Le Guin (other topics)Christopher Moore (other topics)
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (other topics)
Terry Pratchett (other topics)
Douglas Adams (other topics)
More...
Completed:
✔ 39. An epistolary fiction
✔ 16. A mystery
✔ 17. A book with illustrations
✔ 15. A book written or set in Scandinavia
✔ 2. A book with at least 2 perspectives (multiple points of view)
✔ 26. An adventure book
✔ 6. A book being released as a movie in 2017
✔ 8. A book written by a person of color
✔ 51. A collection
✔ 20. A book that you've owned for a while but haven't gotten around to reading
✔ 29. A book published outside the 4 major publishing houses
✔ 4. A title that doesn't contain the letter "E"
✔ 27. A book by one of your favorite authors
✔ 3. A book you meant to read in 2016
✔ 19. A New York Times best-seller
✔ 43. A book with a chilling atmosphere
✔ 23. A book from the BBC "The Big Read" list (link) –
✔ 5. A historical fiction
✔ 22. A book by an author you haven't read before
✔ 30. A book from Goodreads Top 100 YA Books
✔ 37. A book you choose randomly
✔ 32. A book with a long title (5+ words, excluding subtitle)
✔ 45. A book with a one-word title
✔ 52. A book set in a fictional location
✔ 36. A Hugo Award winner or nominee
✔ 13. A book recommended by one of your favorite authors
✔ 10. A dual-timeline novel
✔ 1. A book from the Goodreads Choice Awards 2016
✔ 11. A category from another challenge
✔ 46. A time travel book
✔ 49. A book from someone else's bookshelf
✔ 47. A past suggestion that didn't win: A book written or set in the United Kingdom, including all of Ireland. (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland.)
✔ 31. A book from a sub-genre of your favorite genre
✔ 14. A book with a strong female character
✔ 24. A book written by at least two authors
✔ 21. A book that is a continuation of a book you've already read
✔ 9. A book in the middle of your To Be Read list
✔ 33. A magical realism novel
✔ 48. A banned book
✔ 44. A recommendation from "What Should I Read Next"
✔ 34. A book set in or by an author from the Southern Hemisphere
✔ 50. A Penguin Modern Classic
✔ 12. A book based on a myth
✔ 18. A really long book (600+ pages)
✔ 25. A book about a famous historical figure
✔ 35. A book where one of the main characters is royalty
✔ 28. A non-fiction
✔ 42. A best book of the 21st century (so far)
✔ 41. A book with an unreliable narrator
✔ 38. A novel inspired by a work of classic literature
To Come:
7. A book with an animal on the cover or in the title – The Master and Margarita
40. A book published in 2017 – The Winds of Winter