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 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 favorite suggestions. This timeframe allows for a completed list in October-November.

The Rules: PLEASE NOTE THE RULE CHANGE
- You have 8 votes to allocate to TOP and BOTTOM picks in whichever manner you choose. eg. You may still vote for your TOP 4 and BOTTOM 4, or you could vote for a TOP 7 and a BOTTOM 1, or a TOP 3 and BOTTOM 5, etc. You are allowed to vote for less than 8 total.
- Voting ends October 8
- One vote per poll per user

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

Poll Entries:
- A book that is included on a New York Public Library Staff Picks list
- A book you can connect to the game of Monopoly (i.e. a property, utility, railroad, set in a hotel, about buying a house, tokens, etc.)
- A book recommended by or mentioned in a podcast, blog, or vlog
- A book about an unlikely friendship
- A book related to or set in a national capital city
- A book with an epigraph (a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme)
- A book with a title that contains an allusion or a quote from another literary work (ie: All the Kings Men is a quote from Humpty Dumpty)
- A book published before 1950
- A book that takes place during a holiday other than Christmas
- A book with an 'unusual' narrator
- A book not originally written in your mother tongue
- A book with a title, subtitle or cover relating to an astronomical term (i.e. moon, star, galaxy, nebula, planet, black hole, comet, eclipse, meteor, solstice, sun, solar, twilight, zenith, zodiac, constellation, etc.)
- A book with a race in it, for example: (i.e. car race, horse race, foot race, boot race, even an electoral race)
- A diverse book
- A book that is getting lots of praise from others on Goodreads (such as a GR friend and/or a fellow group member)

Survey Link

Ahh the rule change with the 8 total votes!! This makes it much more complicated for me to pick, but I love it!

I love the rule change! Thank you mods!

So many good options. I voted for 7, and had a hard time even picking 1 for my bottom choice.

I had a very clear bottom 4, so I'll probably end up voting like normal, despite the rule change haha!

Haha same Emily, I just voted and ended up with a top 4 and bottom 4 still. Oh well.

My favorites were:
- Epigraph because that will be fun to research
- National Capital because I'm from DC and have a ton of books to read centered around DC
- NY Public Library Staff Picks - lots of books already on my TBR!
- Podcast/Blog since I follow tons of celebrity/instagram book clubs (Reese Witherspoon, Belletrist, Spivey's) and already have dedicated Goodreads shelves for them :)

Monopoly was a close fifth!

I ended up voting 4 and 4.

My favorites were:
- A book with a race in it
- A diverse book
- A book that is included on a New York Public Library Staff Picks list
- A book with a title, subtitle or cover relating to an astronomical term

I was a toss up between diverse book, book published before 1950, and epigraph, but I had 4 definites in the bottom, so I just chose one of the three to put in the top.

I was excited about the rule change but there are really only 4 that I like enough to vote for so I'll be voting as usual as well.

It's interesting how some weeks there are so many that I love that it's difficult to narrow down and others where most prompts are just "meh".

Rachelnyc wrote: "I was excited about the rule change but there are really only 4 that I like enough to vote for so I'll be voting as usual as well.

It's interesting how some weeks there are so many that I love tha..."

Rachelnyc, I feel the same way! I think it may have more to do with how I'm feeling when the poll goes up than the actual poll choices haha!

Emily wrote: "Rachelnyc wrote: "I was excited about the rule change but there are really only 4 that I like enough to vote for so I'll be voting as usual as well.

It's interesting how some weeks there are so ma..."

I was wondering about that! Is my mood in general just meh or is it the prompts?! ;) There are only a few I really don't like so I'm sure regardless of the results I'll find great books but I'm definitely not feeling it this week.

Sounds like I'm in the minority.

Nothing is jumping out at me but also nothing is terrible. So the rule change will suit me as I won't feel like I need to downvote things just to get the most out of my votes.

I feel too much contemporary fiction is set in capital cities already so that's my least favourite. It'd be more of a challenge to avoid capitals for a year!

I'm not that interested in reading old classics but I could probably find a pre-1950 Daphne du Maurier to read.

It's good to see the NYPL staff picks include graphic novels and I see at least one Tor novella. I am a bit cautious about lists which always seem to be the same authors all the time, but that one is probably the best I've seen suggested.

It will be really interesting to see if the results reflect the new 8 Total Votes rule.

I did 3 Tops and 5 Bottoms. This was the second poll where I wasn't that excited about the prompts. I think for me this is partly because we're getting quite a few repeats or similar prompts so it's just not as interesting.

Okay, I just looked at the NYPL list, and I'm already super excited. I love the filters they have, and I just discovered like 4 books in 5 minutes that I've never heard of but feel like I desperately want to read.

This is great! I voted for seven and only down-voted one! After years of doing challenges I've learned that I can make most topics work for me, but it's still fun to choose ones that I'm excited about.

And I agree with Katie - NYPL has wonderful lists. I get so pulled in every time I go there that I emerge with lots of additions to my TBR.

I just tried to google "books about races" and google is quite certain I didn't mean that final "s" and is only suggesting pages about racism. So ... I'm not real excited about this category because it seems difficult to research.

I wasn't particularly excited about this list but I did end up choosing 5 that I wouldn't hate and 3 that I really don't want to get in at all.

Thank you so much mods for giving the 8 TOTAL VOTES idea a go. I am very curious how it will work out.

Reposting from the suggestions thread:

A book that is included on a New York Public Library Staff Picks list

The lists cover just about any type of book anybody might want to read:
fiction (literary fiction, chick lit, suspense, mystery, comedic, erotica)
short stories
poetry
historical fiction
classic and vintage lit
non-fiction (academic, memoirs, essays, travelogue, cookbooks, etc.)
graphic novels and manga
sci-fi
fantasy

And there are lists for ya and children's books also.

Nadine wrote: "I just tried to google "books about races" and google is quite certain I didn't mean that final "s" and is only suggesting pages about racism. So ... I'm not real excited about this category becaus..."

You will probably need to be more specific in your search query. For example, I googled "novels horse racing" and got a lot of results.

Yeah there's always a way. But we can't vote for all of them! that difficulty was enough to push it off my list, there's several other categories I love a lot more.

dalex wrote: "Nadine wrote: "I just tried to google "books about races" and google is quite certain I didn't mean that final "s" and is only suggesting pages about racism. So ... I'm not real excited about this ..."

I'm hoping races wins because I have so many running-related books on my TBR that I need to get to! Kings of the Road: How Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar Made Running Go Boom will probably be my winner.

If anyone loves running, I highly recommend Running with the Buffaloes: A Season Inside with Mark Wetmore, Adam Goucher, and the University of Colorado Men's Cross-Country Team, Life at These Speeds, and The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It.

I wound up voting for 5 and 3:
Yes on...
Races (see my comment above about why I really hope it wins)
Capital cities (I did suggest it, so I should probably vote for it!)
Allusions (because I LOVE literary allusions)
Monopoly (it's a clever idea)
NY Public Library List (some solid stuff on there).

Voted no on...
The holidays (we already have the "quirky" holiday prompt)
Not in your mother tongue (we have a non-English prompt this year)
Podcasts/blogs/vlogs (too limiting for people won't don't utilize those things---I know some lists were shared in the suggestions, but I don't love the prompt).

The new rule was fun. I used it to pick a top 5 :)

Steve, the quirky holiday prompt didn't make it in... it was polarizing!

I thought this new rule would make the voting easier but it didn't! I had 7 yes votes and them I realized I had 3 no votes so I'm going to follow the discussion thread before voting. I have a few ideas on some of the options:

Races- Ghost and the other books in Jason Reynolds's YA series. ; Dick Francis's mysteries; The Artichoke Queen about a female car racer in the 1950s; The Queen of Whale Cay: The Eccentric Story of 'Joe' Carstairs, Fastest Woman on Water- non-fiction about a female speed boat racer; The Dead Zone by Stephen King (great movie!); The Manchurian Candidate (another great movie!); Fear: Trump in the White House.

Epigraph: The Dune series and Don Quixote. I just started DQ and it is very long but, surprisingly, I like it!

Astronomical: Many SF books would qualify but there are lots of non-SF options especially for the words: moon, sun, and star. Personally, I like title and cover options because I own so many books.

I like the Podcast option since I have just started listening to them. It is harder to research but... this is a challenge after all! I have listened to a few on Fictional and LeVar Burton Reads (short fiction) - all SF so far. Fictional has lots of classics like Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, etc. A few other podcasts I've subscribed to but haven't listened to yet are: Overdue, Myths and Legends, What Should I Read Next? We have a Podcast thread. If this prompt goes through, we could add ideas and books suggested or listened to on that thread.

I would've been perfectly happy with a top 4 and a bottom 4 this week, but with the rule change, I feel like I had to take advantage of it, so I did a top 5 and a bottom 3. I'm hoping at least some of my tops make it because otherwise, being able to pick more tops could be bad for making my reject challenge seriously grow.

If anyone wants to do some research and find out if a book on your TBR list has an epigraph, you can check on LibraryThing. Just type the book title in "Search This Site," click on the book title, and then on the book page scroll down to "Common Knowledge." This is a pretty extensive section of information including an epigraph (if the book has one). Occasionally the section isn't filled in, especially for lesser known books or newer publications, but it's usually accurate. (Hope it's ok to post about LT here on GR!)

I had a top six and a bottom two.

- A book recommended by or mentioned in a podcast - I have not been listening to podcasts lately because my audiobook listening has taken over, but even from previous listens I can think of so many offhand that I could put here.

- A book related to or set in a national capital city - this amuses me and I think I’d make it so that it can’t be Washington because that would be too easy.

- A book published before 1950 - I’m so bad at pushing back past 1950 but I do end up enjoying many classics

- A book with astronomical term - this felt unique to me, challenge prompt-wise.

- A book with a race - I have been surprised by how good some sports books can be even though I don’t go in thinking I’ll love a sports pick. But I also like that this has he option to go politics if that’s whaf I’m feeling when I come to it.

- A diverse book - I want to read all the diverse books.

Down
-holiday other than Christmas - last year this was my big block with finishing Pop Sugar. I wanted to find something that wasn’t Christian or American and it was so hard. All my attempts just pulled up lists and lists of childten’s Books and in the end that’s what I slotted in - the dozen or so children’s Books about holidays I’d read to the girls over thanksgiving, Halloween, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.

-Monopoly game - I just wasn’t feeling it.

Chinook wrote: "A book with a race - I have been surprised by how good some sports books can be even though I don’t go in thinking I’ll love a sports pick. But I also like that this has he option to go politics if that’s whaf I’m feeling when I come to it. "

It could also be the space race.

Even though I said otherwise in a previous comment, I went with 5 tops just because I can!

NYPL - Ok, I'm slightly biased since this is my home library but I have found some great reads here that I would never have read.

Monopoly - I thought this was a cute idea plus I work in real estate so I felt obligated!

Podcast/blog - I keep saying I want to listen to podcasts about books so here's my chance. To those who mentioned this being a more complicated topic to research, keep in mind that sites like Book Riot and The Millions are considered blogs.

Capital city - I like that I could KIS and read another book set in my beloved Paris or BIO by finding something set in a more obscure country that I need for my Around the World Challenge.

Diverse book because I am always looking to diversify my reading!

I love that we can split our votes up however we want! Of course, I had seven that I wanted to vote yes on and four that I wanted to vote no on, so I still had to narrow it down. In the end, I had five yes votes & three no votes. My yesses were:

New York Public Library Staff Picks lists - we don't have a lot in the way of lists so far, and I liked a lot of the books that I saw when I glanced at the page.

Podcast/Blog/Vlog - as I've already mentioned, I love My Favorite Murder and have added a ton of books they've mentioned or recommended to my TBR. I also looked at the lists that someone posted on the suggestions page, and found a ton of good books on those lists, too!

Holiday other than Christmas - I doubt this will win, because there seem to be a lot of holiday haters here, but I love all the holidays, so I'm pretty much always going to vote for holiday prompts.

Book with a race in it - I think there could be a lot of interesting ideas with this, so I voted for it before really even looking into it, because I think there will be a lot of fun books to find.

Diverse book - echoing Rachelnyc's sentiment, I'm always looking to diversify my reading. I have quite a few diverse books already that I want to read, so this will be a good prompt to fit one of them in.

5 Tops and 3 Downs .... I really hope the one with astronomical term get chosen, I have the perfect book for that theme :)

Steve wrote: "I wound up voting for 5 and 3:
Yes on...
Races (see my comment above about why I really hope it wins)
Capital cities (I did suggest it, so I should probably vote for it!)
Allusions (because I LOVE..."

I love literary allusions, too, Steve. There are so many great books that have wonderful allusions right there in their title. There is something so cool about one artist winking to another artist and basically saying, "I dig your work." Makes me want to read the other book, too. I like to think of it as the sampling of the literary world.

Tammy, I love your sentiments. “I dig your work.” I love seeing how art influences others in their own.

Love, love, love the voting change. I voted 7 up and 1 down. Reading the comments I am sorry the NYPL wasn't one of my votes. .. at least I didn't vote it down. Unlike a number of voters, I really liked this collection of prompts and will be happy with some that I didn't vote for. My down vote was for a holiday other than Christmas.

And now I have checked out the NYPL list and am even sorrier I didn't vote for it. Hope it wins!

That was really hard! I had my top 4 pretty early on in the suggestion process, when we'd reached about half the suggestions and just waited to see if anything would change my mind. I ended up with about 6 or 7 that I really wanted, and 5 or 6 that I considered downvoting.

I really like the change to the voting process, but it made it harder in a way for me to narrow it down. I ended up with a top 5, and bottom 3 although I was strongly considering just doing 4 and 4 like usual.

I ended up voting for the unlikely friendship, unusual narrator, Monopoly, New York Library Staff Picks, and astronomical term.

My bottom votes were for the book published before 1950, the book translated from another language (I've done this one to death in other challenges over the past few years and I'm tired of it), and the capital city prompt.

I liked the new voting system as well. And I liked most of the prompts so I didn't down vote anything. I gave my votes to NYPL, Monopoly, podcast, epitaph, allusion, holiday other than Christmas (I was a fan of the wacky holiday idea), unusual narrator and diverse. It's going to be interesting to see if the new voting system affects the results in any way - more winners, fewer close calls etc.

I like the rule change! I voted for 7 and only down voted the one I feel strongly about (holiday other than Christmas). I thought about down voting the Race prompt until I saw the comment above... I’m a runner too and I’m sure I can find a nonfiction book I can read for that prompt. There are some great ones out there like Born to Run.

I'm very curious to see how the change to the voting system affects the results, in terms of the number of top picks we get, and especially how many close calls we end up with.

I just want to point out that this holiday prompt is nothing like the unusual holiday prompt (for those of you who are voting for this one because you liked that one).

This one very specifically says, "A book that takes place during a holiday other than Christmas" instead of just a book that has some connection to a holiday. I think it would be very difficult to find a book that takes place on National Moldy Cheese Day! Just saying. :lol:

In the end I went for:
NYPL staff picks
Monopoly
Astronomical term
Diverse
Not originally written in mother tongue
Literary allusion

I don't mind the holiday one as it can be interpreted using the UK meaning.

Ellie you have a good point holiday can mean while on holiday. :)

Then again, pretty much any day of the year could be considered a holiday, & if you want to BIO, you can relate a book to an obscure holiday as well. :)

I'm hoping that one doesn't get in, but if it does, I'll probably stretch it to be the obscure holiday prompt I was hoping would make it in haha!

Love the new voting system, too. Since this was a past nominations poll, I’m sorry I didn’t nominate the list of GR readers’ book recommendations (under 5000 ratings, I think) that was included in one of the earlier polls. Oh, well 😧

Stacey wrote: "Love the new voting system, too. Since this was a past nominations poll, I’m sorry I didn’t nominate the list of GR readers’ book recommendations (under 5000 ratings, I think) that was included in ..."

I would vote for that again. There is always next week!

Also chiming in to say that I really like the new voting system. In the end I went 6-2 because I liked so many on this list. (I'm most excited about the unusual narrator prompt -- I hope that one gets in).

I voted three up and five down. I think I was less invested because I missed the suggestion period :P

Perri wrote: "I voted three up and five down. I think I was less invested because I missed the suggestion period :P"

I was the opposite Perri, 5 up and 3 down :-)

https://www.tor.com/2018/10/01/always...

I thought if it makes it in, it would be good to have this article on epigraphs somewhere.