2025 Reading Challenge discussion

The theme for November is fireworks. As always, this is completely open to interpretation, so as long as you can tell us why you think it should fit the theme, it counts.

Please nominate only one book and ensure you either link the book or give the name of the author as well to avoid confusion. You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your own. Nominations cannot have been chosen for a past group read (past buddy reads are fine).

This thread will be closed on September 25th, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose the ten most nominated. If there is still a tie to get into the top ten, we'll go back to the Goodreads average rating to see which is highest.

I will nominate


The Night Counter by Alia Yunis

The cover looks like exploding fireworks

After 85 long years, Fatimah Abdullah is dying, and she knows when her time will come. In fact, it should come just nine days from tonight, the 992nd nightly visit of Scheherazade, the beautiful and immortal storyteller from the epic The Arabian Nights.

Just as Scheherazade spun magical stories for 1,001 nights to save her own life, Fatima has spent each night telling Scheherazade her life stories, all the while knowing that on the 1,001st night, her storytelling will end forever.

OK, I know this is rather tenuous, but it kind of fits... I'm nominating Firefly Lane because I figure fireflies are a little bit like fireworks - if I look at a creek wall where there are masses of them, I end up 'oohing' and 'aahing' like I do with fireworks!

Here is part of the blurb from GR:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives."

I'll second Firefly Lane!

I was going to nominate Firefly Lane but it seems that I'm not alone, so I'll second it :)

I nominate Touch of Power by Maria Snyder. Fireworks to me are magical, colorful, powerful, exciting...like this book.

I nominate:

Boom! by Mark Haddon

(The title refers to the sound fireworks make)

In explosive, highly charged, and hilarious middle-grade adventure from Mark Haddon, acclaimed author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. From the moment that Jim and his best friend, Charlie, bug the staff room and overhear two of their teachers speaking to each other in a secret language, they know there's an adventure on its way. But what does "spudvetch" actually mean, and why do Mr. Kidd's eyes flicker with fluorescent blue light when Charlie says it to him? Perhaps Kidd and Pearce are bank robbers talking in code. Perhaps they're spies. Perhaps they are aliens. Whatever it is, Jimbo and Charlie are determined to find out. There really is an adventure on its way. A nuclear-powered, one-hundred-ton adventure with reclining seats and a buffet car. And as it gathers speed and begins to spin out of control, it can only end one way . . . with a BOOM!

I would like to nominate Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The title is so reminiscent of fireworks to me, especially seeing them when I was a kid.

Book Description:
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

Great idea, Alicia! I'd like to second Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

I'll second The Night Counter - it sounds like a great story

I would like to nominate 1776. It's the story of the birth of the United States, which we celebrate with fireworks every year.

Just a few more days for nominations!