Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Voting is now open!

The entire Around the Year challenge list is generated by the group members. We enjoyed the process so much in the past three years that we are creating another list for 2019.

The Process:
The topics for the 2019 RC list will be determined through around 13 mini-polls. Each user will vote for their favorite 4 topics in each mini-poll, which will then add up to the 52 topics (13 polls x 4 topics/poll=52 weekly topics). Suggestions for each poll will be opened until 15-20 suggestions are received+seconded. Then a poll will be opened for voting for one week so you can select your 4 favorite suggestions. This timeframe allows for a completed list in October-November.

The Rules:
- Vote for your TOP 4 and BOTTOM 4 - You are allowed to vote for less than 4
- Voting ends September 16
- One vote per poll per user

- see the suggestions thread for more details on some entries.

Poll Entries:
1. A book featuring an historical figure
2. A book dealing with memory (flashbacks, amnesia, eidetic memory, PTSD etc.)
3. A book recommended to you by Goodreads based on one of your shelves
4. A book or collection written by multiple authors
5. A book published in the 1960s
6. A book where the author’s name contain A, T, and Y
7. A graphic novel or comic book
8. A book connected to health or medicine (fiction or non-fiction)
9. 3 books that are a trilogy or part of a series
10. A book about or featuring STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths)
11. A book about or inspired by a legend, such as King Arthur or Atlantis
12. A book inspired by a song (artist name, lyrics, release year, etc.)
13. 2 books, a book written by an author when they were under 30 and a book written by an author when they were over 60
14. A book not written in traditional novel format (poetry, essay, epistolary, graphic novel, etc)
15. A book with fewer than 5000 ratings on Goodreads

Survey Link

I love the multiple authors prompt! Here are my picks for this prompt that are fiction novels! I wonder how many other books are written by multiple authors with a single pen name.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (pen name for Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine)
Hey Ladies!: The Story of 8 Best Friends, 1 Year, and Way, Way Too Many Emails by Caroline Moss and Michelle Markowitz
The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

I can almost guarantee you that I have just voted for polarizing and close call prompts, based on my previous track record 😂

For the series prompt, I'm wondering if they need to be from the same series... I'm in the middle of a few series, so I'm thinking I could use this to finish up a couple different series. The way it is worded makes me think it is open to that possibility, but I may be interpreting it wrong?

I looked at it closer too and I think it could be interpreted for books from multiple series. I also think that’s necessary because it would be way to restrictive otherwise, in my opinion.

Agreed, Laura. I've read two full trilogies this year and really enjoyed them, so I'm not opposed to it if it were limited to the same series. Just wondering how it would work logistically for reading in order... I would hope the three prompts would be back to back so that I could read the full trilogy one after the other.

But if they can be parts of different series, then that opens up a bit more.

Also! I had first interpreted the 2 books prompt as being the same author (before they were 30 and after they were 60), but now that I'm looking at it, can it be two different authors of the respective ages?

Avery wrote: "I love the multiple authors prompt! Here are my picks for this prompt that are fiction novels! I wonder how many other books are written by multiple authors with a single pen name...."

I didn't realize that there were authors who wrote as a duo under a single pen name! Interesting! I like this prompt, too, because I have at least 11 short story collections that I have been procrastinating about reading! I said I was going to donate them at the end of the year if I hadn't read them but I'm not ready to give them up! I also want to read novels by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson (continuation of the Dune series), and more of the Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Dianna Paxson.

Pam wrote: "Avery wrote: "I love the multiple authors prompt! Here are my picks for this prompt that are fiction novels! I wonder how many other books are written by multiple authors with a single pen name......."

I was surprised by The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine, which I had put down for one prompt, but ended up using it for the multiple authors prompt for PopSugar this year.

Emily wrote: "Also! I had first interpreted the 2 books prompt as being the same author (before they were 30 and after they were 60), but now that I'm looking at it, can it be two different authors of the respec..."

I interpreted it as being two different authors but immediately thought it would be far more interesting to read two books by the same author at different stages of their lives/careers. I think making it the same author would be a good BIO for making the challenge more difficult.

Emily wrote: "Also! I had first interpreted the 2 books prompt as being the same author (before they were 30 and after they were 60), but now that I'm looking at it, can it be two different authors of the respec..."

I also interpreted it as both being the same author. I guess I am unsure of the point of the prompt if it is different authors.

Emily wrote: "For the series prompt, I'm wondering if they need to be from the same series... I'm in the middle of a few series, so I'm thinking I could use this to finish up a couple different series. The way i..."

I was the one that suggest this prompt and I was thinking 3 books for 3 different weeks. I read somewhere that we were prompts short, so maybe this is not a problem.

My initial idea was that it should be from the same series, but I don't have any problem if people whats to read 3 books from different series. Because I like to read a trilogy by order, that idea never crossed my mind, but I am fine with that. It will be great to share some more TBR suggestions, I love to read series and I am always looking for good ones. (Hope you understand my english, it is not my mother language)

Your English was perfect, Sofia!

I'm too lazy to Google this right now, so I'm just going to ask it here. What's the difference between a legend and a myth? I can differentiate between them, but I'm just not sure how I would define them.

Katie wrote: "I'm too lazy to Google this right now, so I'm just going to ask it here. What's the difference between a legend and a myth? I can differentiate between them, but I'm just not sure how I would defin..."

Myth: a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

Legend: traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.

Here you go, Katie!

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Leg...

Myths are stories typically involving supernatural or magical beings, often animals and are used to explain the world's creation or the reason something is the way it is. They tend to take place is the very distant past.

Legends are stories about regular people in more modern times and often have to do with unconfirmed events.

Both are told as true but are not necessarily meant to be taken as literal truth.

Basically:
Myth = explanatory or creation story about our world involving supernatural/magic beings (often animals)

Legend = story about ordinary people and events with no explanatory value about the world.

Urban legend = a legend but is typically a recent event (within the tellers lifespan), occurred locally and usually happened to someone the teller knows through a chain of people (my brother's best friend's ex girlfriend's uncle)

Think the "World Turtle creation story" vs "The Legend of Robin Hood" vs "The Hook-handed Killer" urban legend.

On my phone so can't edit my comment above... but beaten to the punch by multiple people lol.

I voted, so now the endlessly long wait until the results are posted. The past two polls have seemed incredibly slow.

I have tons of series in progress and that I'd like to start, but I decided against that prompt because I figured I'd fit the series in anyway, and I thought "A book from a trilogy/series" on the list three times would not be the most exciting for me.

I also changed my mind at the last minute and voted for the book with less than 5000 ratings on Goodreads, which up until then had been my 5th place pick. It covers about 50 pages of my TBR (although to be fair, some of those have not been released yet and probably won't qualify by next year), but it also covers many, many of the books I'm dying to read. It's a bit of a free choice category to me, but I thought it would be a good way to fit in one of those books that might not fit anywhere else.

I also really liked the memory and the health/medicine prompts, and I was glad they got resubmitted. Actually, I can't remember if health/medicine had been submitted before or only discussed as a possibility, but it's a very interesting one to me.

This may be my favourite poll yet. I managed to pick a top and bottom 4 but there aren't any that I would really hate doing.

Rachel, I had only discussed health/medicine as the timing meant I missed the last round of suggestions, so first time submitted. I think it’s open to a lot of ideas, obviously a lot of non-fiction from doctor memoirs to microhistories. For fiction it could be about someone dealing or living with health problems, mental health, a medical thriller or an apocalypse caused by a pathogen.

I like most the suggestions this week so will be hard to pick tops.

I used my votes this time for things outside my usual realms , things I might not read if not for a nudge- legend, not traditional novel format, and graphic novel.

°~Amy~° wrote: "I also interpreted it as both being the same author. I guess I am unsure of the point of the prompt if it is different authors."

It could be interesting to compare the works of two different authors of significantly different ages, like the quality of writing, the subject matter, how they portray characters, the theme, etc.

Katie wrote: "I'm too lazy to Google this right now, so I'm just going to ask it here. What's the difference between a legend and a myth? I can differentiate between them, but I'm just not sure how I would defin..."


I've been wondering that, too. I think of King Arthur stories as "legend," but they involve quite a bit of supernatural, too, and it's not at all clear if King Arthur actually existed or not.

And then there are books based on Homer's Illiad & Odyssey (I happen to be reading The Song of Achilles right now, which is why I thought of it) - myth? or legend? It involves gods and goddesses, so myth? But it involves mostly regular people, and maybe the battle of Troy really happened? So is it a legend? And then there are the other Greek stories, of Orpheus, Heracles, etc ... myth or legend?

There are so very many excellent prompts this round!

Three of my tops were all chosen for the same reason - they will be fun to research and there are oodles of possibilities. These were not-a-novel, medicine, and STEM. My fourth top was legend just because I really like myth & legend books and I have several on my TBR List to choose from.

As much as I loved most of the prompts this time, there were a few that clearly stood out as bottoms for me.
Author(s) of different ages because it's not something I pay attention to and I'm not interested enough to do the research/math.
Recommended by goodreads because the suggestions are usually wildly inaccurate (ie unlike anything I've read or am interested in).
Multiple authors because I don't have any on my TBR that I know of except for a few story analogies and I'm not really in any hurry to read those.
Based on a song because it seems super restrictive and difficult to find something that qualifies.

I'm struggling to decide between STEM and health/medicine. Medicine is really just a subset of STEM. I like them both, but I'm not going to vote for both of them, because there are so many other good ideas, too.

There is a fair amount of cross-over between myths and legends. I would say legends are the ones where there is an inkling of historical evidence but it has been blown out of all proportion by story-tellers. Eg. King Arthur existed, but the legend is all that stuff about Excalibur and Merlin. Myths are often around gods and fantastical beings but sometimes real people take on a mythological existence in the story-telling.

For my voting I went for non-traditional format over graphic novels/comics because I think it has a greater chance of getting voted in, even though I would read a graphic novel for it.

I also voted for both health/medicine and STEM in the hope one of them gets in (there's a bit of cross-over there).

And my final vote is for trilogy/series, because it's rare I read a whole trilogy without massive gaps but when I do read them relatively close together, it makes a huge difference.

There's not much I don't like. I wouldn't be too keen on the under 30/over 60 prompt if it had to be the same author.

Nadine wrote: "I've been wondering that, too. I think of King Arthur stories as "legend," but they involve quite a bit of supernatural, too, and it's not at all clear if King Arthur actually existed..."

I noticed that things are called legends if they happened in Britain but if they happened elsewhere, they are myths. Eg. Loch Ness Monster, St George and the Dragon, King Arthur = legends. The Illiad, El Dorado = myths.

Re legends (from the excellent link Tammy shared):

"Legends are also fictitious, but their origins are thought to be based on some truth. Originally, legends specifically referred to the fantastical life stories of saints (e.g., Joan of Arc), but today they refer to fantastical life stories of anyone or anything well-known. Oftentimes, the characteristics of people, particularly of heroes, in a legend are unverifiable or perhaps even false, but legends still have some basis in fact. They tend to include real people from history or take place in, say, a real war, but have obvious exaggerated or fictional elements. In legends, historical figures may have superhuman or otherwise extraordinary qualities (e.g., superhuman strength), and real events may incorporate false elements, such as a sage or fortune teller warning a hero about the events to come (foreshadowing, a story element)."

As opposed to myths, which "incorporate invented characters and fantastical story elements and usually take place outside of conventional timelines."

On the suggestion post, I provided this list of "10 of the World's Most Famous Legends" from this website.

Lady Godiva
Robin Hood
The Fountain of Youth
Atlantis
Bloody Mary
El Dorado
King Arthur
The Gordian Knot
Yamashita's Treasure
Prester John

I'm a little confused why there is discussion on myths. Is there a myth prompt I missed? Or are people just trying to be super diligent about the legend prompt?

I wonder if anyone would view the legend prompt along the lines of a baseball legend (like Babe Ruth), or something that is legendary, like superheros or a war.

Nadine wrote: "I'm struggling to decide between STEM and health/medicine. Medicine is really just a subset of STEM. I like them both, but I'm not going to vote for both of them, because there are so many other go..."

I thought about this too, but ultimately decided on STEM because it's more flexible and can definitely include medicine/health anyways! Hopefully the STEM prompt gets in!

My top 4 were easy and my bottom 4 were hard to narrow down this week. There's no prompts that I hate, but quite a few that I hope won't make it in.

My top 4 were:

A book featuring a historical figure - Because I love historical fiction and I'd take any excuse to read more of it.

A book published in the 1960s - Because I like the specificity of this prompt without it being too constricting. Anyone can find a genre they enjoy from those years, but it does force us away from reading more contemporary stuff (which is my go-to).

A book where the author's name contains A, T, and Y - I like having at least one ATY prompt, in the spirit of the group, and I think this one is a good, open one.

A book dealing with memory - I didn't vote for this one the first time around, but I've done more research and I think I would really enjoy finding a book for this prompt.

My downvotes are: graphic novel/comic, a book based on one of your shelves, a book inspired by a song, and the 2 books with authors of different ages prompt.

I was tempted to downvote unique structure, since we had one similar this year and I ended up just reading a graphic novel for it. In the end, this one is a bit more open (and I love epistolary novels) so I kept it out of my downvotes.

Avery wrote: "Nadine wrote: "I'm struggling to decide between STEM and health/medicine. Medicine is really just a subset of STEM. I like them both, but I'm not going to vote for both of them, because there are s..."

I think there are a lot of books from the Wellcome prize list (which I was basing the health/medicine one on) which don’t quite feel like they are about STEM unless you really stretch the definition. So I voted for both even though some people see will them as the same. I’d like both to get in as I think they can result in very different choices of books.

Sofia wrote: "It will be great to share some more TBR suggestions, I love to read series and I am always looking for good ones..."

Sofia - I didn't vote for this prompt BUT I'm ok if it goes through. I have 2 classic fantasy trilogies I want to read - Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast. There are a few mystery series I like - Maisie Dobbs, Flavia de Lucie, and Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series. Longmire mysteries are probably good, too. I only watch the TV show, though! I'm starting a new series, which I am really excited about, by Britsh sci-fi/mystery author Adam Roberts - The Real-Town Murders. I don't even think the 2nd book is available in the US yet. Good luck finding more series!

Avery wrote: "I'm a little confused why there is discussion on myths. Is there a myth prompt I missed? Or are people just trying to be super diligent about the legend prompt?"

No hidden myth prompt, just thought it would be helpful for me (and maybe other people) to discuss the difference between myths & legends, since they are often paired together. It was really just a curiosity thing on my part, nothing deeper than that.

I have a question on the song prompt. Laura, maybe you could clarify. Does the book have to be inspired by the song as in the author knowingly drew from the song when writing the book, or is it more like a book linked to a song, like in the examples you posted? Does my question make sense?

It was very difficult to narrow down a top 4 this week. There were a lot of prompts, most of them actually that I wouldn't mind having on the final list.

I ended up voting for non-novel format, memory, health /med and authors name with a/t/Y. I am afraid the voting will be split between Stem and health keeping them both of the list but I do hope one or the other makes it.

My first bottom was the 30/60 prompt. I think looking at the evolution of one author over 30 years would be interesting but difficult to research. And comparing two different authors at different ages I don't understand so it had to be a bottom, sorry. My second bottom was the 3 books in a series. I also put the goodreads recommendation in the bottom (I think goodreads gets drunk before recommending books to me. They are alway way off on my tastes lol) and 1960's because I have read most of the most popular books in that decade already.

Honestly, even if my bottoms make it through I won't be upset. This really was a great week suggestion wise. Great job everyone!

My thought was that people would pick a song they like (any song) and then pick a book inspired from it somehow.

So if the song was released in 1963 then they could pick a book published that year.

You could also look at the lyrics of the song and go from there. So if you did "Mama's Broken Heart" then you could potentially do To All the Boys I've Loved Before since it's a romance with a focus on break-ups and her relationship with her mother.

If you did "Some Beach" then you could do a book set on the beach like Jaws or Big Little Lies.

You could also do author/artist names so if you picked a song by Johnny Cash then you could do Johnny Got His Gun.

I just thought it would make for fun discussion in the group to hear which songs people had picked and how they had made the connection to a book.

Since the health and STEM prompts are so similar, I could potentially look at the total for both together and see if that would put it in the top. If so, I could then choose the one with the more votes out of the two.

I haven't even voted yet but I wouldn't want it to be excluded due to the votes being split, as Amy pointed out.

Since I like both ideas (STEM and medicine/health), I like your idea to look at combined votes!

Avery wrote: "I'm a little confused why there is discussion on myths. Is there a myth prompt I missed? Or are people just trying to be super diligent about the legend prompt?

I wonder if anyone would view the ..."

I thought the discussion was because we had a book based on a myth on 2017, but somebody else already answer that it was just a clarification :P . Regarding Babe Ruth, I really don't know, usually I make my own interpretation of the prompts, but that's me, I guess a mod should answer that question :)

Laura wrote: "Since the health and STEM prompts are so similar, I could potentially look at the total for both together and see if that would put it in the top. If so, I could then choose the one with the more v..."

I don't know if that's fair though, Laura. We had the same issue last week with the National Book Award and the book award list from a different country... since quite a bit of our members are not from the US, the National Book Award could have fallen within the other book award category.

I know NBA got on the list, and I don't know how the votes were distributed. In the end, I voted for both, because I wanted at least one of them to win.

But I know I wouldn't want health/medicine to make it just because some people voted for the STEM prompt. I'd much prefer the STEM prompt over medicine because it's much more broad. I think that medicine might be a sub category of STEM (and even then, not always), and STEM definitely doesn't necessarily mean only health/medicine. So tallying the votes as if it were one prompt doesn't make sense to me.

Laura wrote: "My thought was that people would pick a song they like (any song) and then pick a book inspired from it somehow."

I totally misunderstood this prompt. :/ I thought you literally meant what the prompt says - a book inspired by a song (as in the author wrote a book because they were inspired by a song).

But really it's just like the music prompt we had back in Round 2 or whenever - pick a song and link it to a book somehow?

Thanks Laura, that's what I assumed it meant, but I just wanted to be sure. I think it's a great prompt.

I agree that I don't think STEM & medicine are equivalent enough to combine the votes. Especially because people might vote for both & if we combine the two, it would essentially be a double vote for a single prompt.

I would be happy with either prompt, so I think if neither makes it, we just have an opportunity to resubmit one or the other in a future poll.

I'm happy to see another try at the song/book link, but I won't get my hopes up. I already have a list of 60 books linked to songs by theme, so I am set for my own personal challenge on that. I, like Chinook, feel that my selections are well on their way to the polarizing chopping block.

I will definitely do the author before 30 and after 60 prompt on my own personal rejects list if it doesn't make it through. Earlier in the suggestions process I'd submitted "an author's last book" to bookend the "author's debut novel" that we did this year, but that didn't get the votes.

I found this one tough for reasons mentioned by others. I'd like to see a different format but think non - traditional format and graphic novel votes could pull from each other. I went for the broader version. I also think medicine and stem votes could pull from each other so voted for both in hopes one gets in. My fourth top was historical figure.

Laura wrote: "My thought was that people would pick a song they like (any song) and then pick a book inspired from it somehow. ..."

"A book inspired by a song" is one of my top pics! I love music and finding links to books. Taking the prompt very literally, there is a webpage "Off the Shelf A Bookish Playlist: 10 Books Inspired By Famous Songs". I don't know how to link to the website but here are the titles:

Heart-Shaped Box
Norwegian Wood
High Fidelity
As Time Goes By
Love the One You're With
Bright Lights, Big City
Baby's in Black: Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and The Beatles
Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing

These two were listed but are actually the reverse, a song inspired by a book:
Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush
1984 by David Bowie

Well, now it's time to wait. I got my votes in, but I feel like I should have waited, because it seems to take forever lately for results day to come around. Last week, I waited until Tuesday, and it still felt like forever until we got the results on Friday.

My tops are probably like Chinook's and Tammy's, off to be polarizing or close calls (or not mentioned at all!), but here they are:
-author's name w/A, T, & Y - lots of these on my Kindle

-3 books part of a trilogy/series - I like series, but haven't been reading them lately if I can't fit them into a prompt

-2 books - one by under 30 author, one by over 60 author - I interpreted this as either the same author or different authors, just depending on what the reader wants to do, and I read a variety of authors, so I think it would be fairly easy to do

-fewer than 5,000 Goodreads ratings - I have over 900 of these on my TBR, so I'm good to go there!

I'm pretty sure at least one of my bottom choice will end up in the top, but there are a couple I'm really hoping don't make it. I guess we'll see on Sunday.

I particularly like the song prompt and the 2-author prompt. I am enjoying seeing what you guys come up with. I just joined the voting and hope to eventually engage in the full process.

This was so HARD!!!! My rejects list now includes almost every prompt that has been proposed and it is completely filled out.

For my tops, I didn't down vote the graphic novel that I seconded but I didn't end up voting for it either (Sorry Sheri 😩) Instead I voted for the "not a novel" prompt, which I figured covered all of that.

My other votes were for STEM ( uh...Lab Girl finally), Health/Medicine, because I have a million books to read for that ( its a Nurse thing ), and out of pure selfishness, the 3 part trilogy so I can finally read the Red Rising series !!!!!. I have to do a re -read of the first book since its been about 4 years and I never got around to the rest because I started challenging and never fit them into my plans. Also, I have Iron Gold on my rejects list for a title with metal? It was really hard not to vote for the historical figure.

I down voted a book recommended by GRs because there was nothing but crap I would NEVER read on any of my lists :-( which is awful because I wanted to vote for it thinking there would be some good ideas there. Where does GRs come up with these recommendations??) Also the legend, because even though I love it, I feel like we already had that presented and so its on my rejects list with The Mists of Avalon, the song book because it was in PopSugar this year and it was a hard one for me, and less than 5000 ratings because I already searched that for the lesser known ATY list.

Ugh! I always feel horrible down voting prompts! I want to do almost every single one of them.