Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Katie wrote: "That is so interesting. I end up reading a ton of books that none of my GR friends have read. Maybe I just read weird stuff, haha.
"

It's all that non fiction that most of us seem to not love so much hahaha

I don't think our discussion here affects overall voting results but this week it definitely changed my votes.

I chose immigrant/expat/vacationer, literary prize from another country, 2 books linked by voting and the youth prompt.

I was ambivalent towards the youth prompt until the comments about how many ways there were to interpret it. I also considered downvoting short stories/essays/poems but decided not to because I do want to stretch myself and while I wasn't looking forward to a short story collection this year, I really enjoyed what I read.

I cannot decide what to vote for. I don’t have any clear top choices, but there are 5 or 6 that I’m having a hard time narrowing down.

What would be considered a book of essays? Is it a compilation of someone’s thoughts divided into chapters?

Do the chapters need to be able to stand alone & not be necessary for the whole book to have a conclusion? I’m not sure if I’m making sense. At first I thought Brene Brown might work for essays, but each chapter needs the support of the other chapters to reach/support a conclusion. That would mean they’re not essays, right?

Liz wrote: "Do the chapters need to be able to stand alone & not be necessary for the whole book to have a conclusion? I’m not sure if I’m making sense. At first I thought Brene Brown might work for essays, bu..."

I can't really answer your question but if you're looking for examples, here are a few that I have added to my tbr and if this prompt makes it, I'll actually read one!

Bad Feminist
Feel Free: Essays
Notes of a Native Son

Thanks, Rachel! I think I’ve worked it out in my mind. :)

Liz wrote: "Do the chapters need to be able to stand alone & not be necessary for the whole book to have a conclusion? I’m not sure if I’m making sense. At first I thought Brene Brown might work for essays, bu..."

I haven´t read Brene Brown, but essays are an expression of opinion on a subject, and that subject is thought through in the essay. So it´s basically someone pondering a subject. I think a collection of essays can be a series of essays that are linked on the subject matter or each have a different subject matter. They don´t necessarily need to have a conclusion. But if it´s a collection of research papers/ chapters with a research kind of conclusion I wouldn´t consider it essays. As I understand it, the essay argues opinion and ponders a subject, they don´t try to find answers and argue scientific/research conclusions. Hope this helps, and if I´m completely mistaken, I´d like to know :)

Here´s a link that might be helpful (there are quite a few I´d love to read)
https://bookriot.com/2016/03/16/100-m...

Ok I think I'm there. I voted for the following:
*A book where the author’s name contain A, T, and Y - thanks to the people who posted the lists of authors - I've really been enjoying Laini Taylor this year and I actually own a book by Catherine Ryan Hyde which I've been meaning to read for years!
* book written by a man with a female main character or written by a woman with a male main character - I love Robin Hobb, but due to the length of her books they tend to go to the bottom of my TBR. I need to pick up Fitz's story after finishing the Liveship Traders this year.
*2 books linked to the voting for the 2019 ATY challenge - one for a prompt that was polarizing and one for a prompt that was in the bottom - lots of great topics to choose from
* A book told from multiple perspectives - i know this is similar to multiple timeline but I enjoy this type of book

I bottom voted for:
*short stories, essays or poems - I just don't enjoy them
* quest or treasure hunt - too similar to journey
The rest I'm fine with

Rachel wrote: "Another way to look at the prompt is to be the first of your friends to read a new release, before others on your friends list had a chance to read it..."

Because I befriend a lot of bloggers it's the new releases that are more likely to have been read by a handful (and before release). Having said that. I am currently reading a book I am very surprised no one has marked as read, especially as I am "friends" with the author and I know people on Twitter who have read it. Clearly we're not friends here!

I’ve got a reasonable number of GR friends, and a huge TBR (around 2000), and although I could probably go through every single book to find a bunch that nobody has read, whether or not I really want to read them or can get access to the books is another thing entirely.

With my bread book, I just got lucky - I was planning on reading it, and when I saw none of my friends had read it, I was like “Score! Onto the challenge it goes.” I don’t particularly want to do it again though.

Jody wrote: "I’ve got a reasonable number of GR friends, and a huge TBR (around 2000), and although I could probably go through every single book to find a bunch that nobody has read, whether or not I really wa..."

I was thinking of it more in terms of your second point, where a book you already want to read happens to fit. I've found so many this year that I was surprised to see didn't have any ratings/reviews from my Goodreads friends yet, but obviously not the very popular releases.

In any case, doesn't really matter to me if it gets in or not since I'm doing a challenge including the prompts I voted for that didn't make the list, so I get to do it either way.

I held off on voting until today to see if the discussion would sway me any, but I can't say that it did. I picked a top four and bottom four when the poll opened, and I ended up voting for those same tops & bottoms today.

For my tops, I picked author's name with A, T, & Y; book by male w/female main character or vise versa; 2 books linked by challenge, one polarizing & one bottom; National Book Award.

At least a couple of my bottom two seem to be popular bottom choices according to the discussion, but we'll see how the voting ends up, since the discussion doesn't often sync with the final choices.