Play Book Tag discussion
Member ChallengeTracking 2016-20
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Starred books/totals indicate books chosen specifically for the challenge.
(Joined in Dec 2018)
✅December - geek reads - 3 (2*): Ender's Game*, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, & The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*)
2018 total: 3 books (2 chosen specifically for the monthly tag)
✅January - action-adventure - 2*: The Martian* & The Girl With All the Gifts*
✅February - life - 2 (1*): The Art of Gathering & Reasons to Stay Alive*
✅March - debut - 2*: The Labrador Pact* & The Virgin Suicides*
✅April - history - 2: The Soul of America & American Nations (didn't get points for these as I didn't post reviews during the month but now that I finally have, I've decided to reinstate them on this list as it's just for my records...)
✅May - beautiful - 1*: All the Light We Cannot See*
✅June - retellings - 2*: Spinning Silver* & Deathless*
✅July - London - 2*: A Ladder to the Sky* & The Ghost Map*
✅August - 21st century - 3 (2*): Middle England, 21 lessons for the 21st century*, & Between the World and Me*
✅September - cultural - 4 (2*): The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down*, The Map of Love, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, & The Age of Insight*
✅October - crime fiction - 4*: Big Sky* & Where the Crawdads Sing*, American Rust*, In the Woods*
✅November - american history - 3*: Kindred*, Historians on Hamilton* & In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History* (didn't report the last 2 in time for points)
✅December - 2005 - 1*: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything*
2019 total: 28 books (22 chosen specifically for the monthly tag)

I'm not doing this every month - I'm prioritising cultures I know less about already, so I made the decision that I'd try to read at least one book whenever the chosen culture is not European.
✅January - Iraq - 2: Frankenstein in Baghdad - also The Watermelon boys but not during the month
*
✅March - Korea - 2: The Birth of Korean Cool & White Chrysanthemum
*
✅May - Brazil - 1: The Caregiver
*
✅July - Syria - 3: The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, The Map of Salt and Stars, & We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled
✅August - Australia - 1:Island Home
✅September - Egypt - 1:The Map of Love
*
✅November - Native American - 1: There, There
✅December - Dominican Repuplic - 1: In the Time of the Butterflies
Total: 12 books, all read specifically for this challenge.

I'm counting anything where the book being set in a particular state feels meaningful, i.e. where I feel I've come away with a greater understanding of the experience of living in that state, either now or in the past. Ideally the author would also be from the state, but I'm not going to make this a firm requirement.
Using https://bookriot.com/2018/08/22/best-... as a starting point to gather ideas.
* Alabama
* Alaska
* Arizona
* Arkansas
* California
* Colorado
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Florida
* Georgia
* Hawaii
* Idaho
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Iowa
* Kansas
* Kentucky
* Louisiana
* Maine
✅Maryland - Kindred
✅Massachusetts - The Heretic's Daughter
✅Michigan - Middlesex (read Jan 2019, so I'm counting it)
* Minnesota
* Mississippi
* Missouri
* Montana
* Nebraska
* Nevada
* New Hampshire
* New Jersey
* New Mexico
* New York
✅North Carolina - Where the Crawdads Sing
* North Dakota
* Ohio
* Oklahoma
* Oregon
✅Pennsylvania - American Rust
* Rhode Island
* South Carolina
* South Dakota
* Tennessee
* Texas
* Utah
* Vermont
* Virginia
✅Washington - Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet, & Snow falling on cedars
* West Virginia
* Wisconsin
* Wyoming

I fell into this one by accident - I decided that with Hallowe'en coming up I'd read for the creepy tag for October even though it didn't win, then realised that this fit the Fall Flurries challenge too, so I may as well carry on...
✅October - creepy / supernatural themed books for Hallowe'en - 3: A Discovery of Witches, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, & We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
(- also picked up In the Country in honour of Filipino American History Month, although I think I read it later)
✅November - read The Forever War with Veterans' Day in mind (& then, later, continued this theme with Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War)
( - Native American theme was covered by the monthly tag - I read There There)
✅December - Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
Books mentioned in this topic
Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (other topics)The Forever War (other topics)
There There (other topics)
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (other topics)
In the Time of the Butterflies (other topics)
More...
Challenges I'm currently doing:
1) PBT monthly tags
2) PBT Horizons
3) US states
4) Fall Flurries