Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

It's now time to get ready to vote for our first set of prompts! The thread will be open for at least 24 hours before the poll gets posted. This is a good opportunity to ask any question you may have regarding the prompts, do some research or ask for recommendations.

Voting will open in the morning of Monday, August 31 and results will be posted in the morning of Friday, September 4 (CST time).

How it works:
- When the voting opens, follow the link to the mini-poll that will be added at the end of this post
- You have a total of 8 votes this poll to spread across your favourite and least favourite prompts (you can also use less than 8 votes) - You can find examples of acceptable voting practices on the Introduction thread.
- The prompts with the more favorable votes (comparing top votes to bottom votes, and looking at the overall number of votes it received) will be added to the final list (between 2 and 5 depending on how the votes are spread)

We are asking people to include their Goodreads profile address when they vote. To find this, just go to your own profile and then copy the URL/web address. If for some reason you can't link to your Goodreads profile, please post your full Goodreads name with enough identifiable information that we'll be able to access your profile. We’ve introduced this for two reasons:

1. On a few occasions in each poll, people have used more than the allotted number of votes, either because they aren’t familiar with the rules or just by mistake. When this happens our only option is to disregard the vote as we can’t identify the voter to ask them to resubmit. By asking for your profile address we’ll be able to message you and ask you to vote again if you’ve accidentally used more than the allotted number of votes.

2. Unfortunately a very small number of people have voted more than once per poll and so we are asking for this information to prevent duplicate votes.

As a reminder: You have a total of 8 votes to use among your top and bottom votes. The mods have access to each individual vote, so we can see if you use more than 8 votes. If you use more than 8 votes in the poll, your vote will have to be deleted, so please make sure to follow the directions so your voice can be heard.

Possible Prompts:
1. A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads
2. A book by an author on USA Today's list of 100 Black Novelists You Should Read
3. A book that might cause someone to react “You read what?!?”
4. A modern classic published in the 21st century
5. A book that's disturbing
6. A book closely related to what you wanted to be as a kid (job, status, etc.)
7. A book from the NPR Book Concierge
8. A memoir
9. An adventure book
10. A book with a two-word title, where the first word has two syllables and the second word has one syllable
11. A book with a protagonist who works in a job you know nothing (or very little) about
12. A cross genre novel (sci-fi horror, fantasy romance, historical mystery etc)
13. A book that is older than your mom
14. A book that was a bestseller or published in the decade of your birth
15. A book with a sports connection

Feel free to discuss the prompts below, but please remember to be respectful to the other group members.

Vote here: https://www.surveymoz.com/s/22PLCS/

NOTES AND IDEAS FROM THE SUGGESTIONS THREAD

1. A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads
Each month, the mods post a thread asking for members to list their best books of the month. You can find those threads in the Monthly Discussion folders: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
We also compiled a Listopia that have all of the books from every month listed here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

2. A book by an author on USA Today's list of 100 Black Novelists You Should Read
Link to the USA Today article: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gall...
For those people outside of the US, dalex put together a Listopia featuring each of the authors. You do not have to read the book on the listopia, but this is one way to feature each of the authors: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

3. A book that might cause someone to react “You read what?!?”
It could encompass weird unconventional non-fiction topics and other micro-histories, but also fiction books where the plot is just so out-there for you personally. (https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/8...)

Maybe it’s a novel about a steamy romance that your mom would see and say “you read WHAT?!” Maybe it’s a banned book, that a teacher would be surprised you read and say “you read WHAT?!” Maybe it’s a fantasy book where an ogre and a talking donkey rescue a princess in a tower only to find out she’s an ogre too, and when you tell the plot to someone, they’d say “uhh.. you read that?”

Nothing to See Here was a great fiction suggestion from the wild discussion... "you're reading a book where children spontaneously combust into flames when they get agitated?"

I also heard people say a good example would be books you're not the intended audience for, as in why would a die-hard liberal want to read a book by a conservative?

4. A modern classic published in the 21st century
Just google 'modern classic' and the lists are endless

5. A book that's disturbing
Examples: horror books, some books that deal with dystopias, serial killers, psychological disturbances, the holocaust, plagues, death, or war
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

7. A book from the NPR Book Concierge
https://apps.npr.org/best-books/index...
For those having trouble viewing the website, this is a list compiled in 2018: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

9. An adventure book
Goodreads Adventure Shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...
Classic Adventure Books: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...
Nonfiction Adventure Books: https://bookriot.com/something-for-ev...

10. A book with a two-word title, where the first word has two syllables and the second word has one syllable
2-1 syllable pattern, to go with 21!
Ex. Lonesome Dove, Little Bee, Purple Rain

14. A book that was a bestseller or published in the decade of your birth
Listopia for most popular books published by year, on the top right you can change the year: https://www.goodreads.com/book/popula...
Best books by decade: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6...
Bestsellers of the last 100 years: https://lithub.com/here-are-the-bigge...
Lists of The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_o...

I love all three of the lists this round:

-A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads
-A book by an author on USA Today's list of 100 Black Novelists You Should Read
-A book from the NPR Book Concierge

I will be voting for all three and kind of wish they had not all come in the same round because I don't think there is any chance they will all get through.

Not sure yet about the rest of my votes.

Out of the gate, I'm voting for You read what?!, a memoir, and the two-word title.

I need to look into the list prompts more to decide which, if any, I want to vote for. I feel like the NPR list is so big it's a gimme so would lean toward the ATY Best Book of the Month list.

I do like the top 100 black novelists, but we already have the BIPOC and book about racism/race. But maybe it's not a bad thing to have multiple prompts in that area, so I may vote for it.

Debating between older than your mom (<1935) and the decade of your birth (the 70s).

At first glance I like the list prompts, modern classic and memoir. I also like the idea of the bestseller one but I'm really not loving the 90s options.

I'm not a big fan of adventure stories or sports so those will probably be downvotes.

The syllable one seems like it may be too anglo-centric. I'm not sure if this is a common pattern in other languages?

I love these prompts! Most weeks I've had more downvotes than upvotes but this time I don't even know how I'll narrow it down to just 8 upvotes. Yay, excited!

I really like the cross genre option. I read Six Wakes this year for the mystery genre prompt, and that would fit in well for this prompt too. It's a murder mystery set on a spaceship, so it's both scifi and mystery. I really like reading genre-defying crossovers like that.

I like a lot of these prompts! I agree that the NPR list is pretty big, but when it was a prompt in 2019, I still had to poke around to find something that worked that I really wanted to read, so... I probably won't vote for it (just because it was a recent prompt) but I'm not going to downvote it.

I'll be using mostly upvotes this time around.

That USA Today page was annoying, but dalex's listopia made it very easy to see who is on the list. I'll be up-voting that one, a lot of my favorite authors are on the list.


This is what I found for modern classics of the 21st century:
100 Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far)
The 21 Best Novels of the 21st Century
TBH, I don't really like many of the books chosen for those two lists, because I've already read all the books there that appealed to me, but the category is pretty wide open and not at all confined to those lists, so I could work with it. The lists help give me an idea of the type of book to think of.

At first glance, I'm a lot less excited about this list than the previous round. I actually really like the NPR lists, so I might vote for that one, although it doesn't sound like it will be too popular. The Black authors list is pretty good too. I saw a few names on there that I was planning on reading anyway (Talia Hibbert, for example).

I'm not really a fan of the modern classics, the book from the decade of my birth, or the book older than my mom. Memoir is also likely a downvote for me. If it gets through, I'll most likely go the graphic memoir route.

I'm on the fence about the "You read what?!" prompt. I really can't think of anything I would read that would cause that kind of reaction, so it's currently somewhere between a non-vote and a downvote for me.

There are a lot of these I don't care one way or the other about. Any books before my mother was born can be more or less a freebie. The year/decade you were born has been on so many challenges, and I don't really see a modern classic after only 20 years

This is a pretty polarising list for me. My first reaction to virtually every prompt was an automatic upvote or automatic downvote. Nothing really in the middle. I’ll have to think carefully. I often don’t use all my votes and just use them for those I feel strongly about one way or the other. Think all eight will be getting a workout this week!

Any book before my mother was born would mean a book published before 1962 for me.. of which I have only read one of this year lol. It would definitely push me outside of my reading comfort zone.

I really like the NPR lists and the website even works for me this year!😁 I am definitely voting for the ATY best of one too. I like the black novelists list purely to push me to read some of N.K. Jemisin's older books. Like Joanne said, it's kinda a shame these all dropped in the same poll!

I don't really get what a 21st century classic is. I can't judge whether or not a book I haven't read yet is going to be considered a classic in the future. Honestly I don't really get what makes a classic a classic. I usually go by age or if they are published by a classics imprint.

All the modern classics I do want to read are published somewhere after when my mum was born and before I was born...

Beth wrote: "At first glance I like the list prompts, modern classic and memoir. I also like the idea of the bestseller one but I'm really not loving the 90s options.

I'm not a big fan of adventure stories or ..."

Curious to know more about your anglo-centric comment. If the concern is that it would require reading a book with an English-language title, shouldn't we start having the same conversations about the list-based prompts? Many of those lists are almost entirely English language books as well.

Wow, voting is going to be hard because I like almost every one of these prompts. I think my only downvote would be the memoir (no offense to the person who suggested it, I just hate memoirs 🤷🏻‍♀️) I'm really glad the cross-genre prompt got submitted, if for no other reason than getting to browse the listopia for it!

I really like "a book that is older than your mom"--that phrasing is absolutely hilarious.

Not enthused about "bestseller or published in the decade of your birth"--really too broad for me. I liked how it was originally suggested as the year of your birth, and would have voted for that, since I prefer specificity over freebies.

I'm sure many other languages have something that would fit 2-1 syllable title. In Swedish for example you could do Doktor Glas. Are there very many people who do the challenge entirely not in English?

My mom was born in 1918! Not a problem since I read a lot of classics.

The question about the 2-1 syllables was if other languages had titles with that kind of syllables. It would be fine for French, Spanish or German.

There is a lot I like on this list, but I don't know how I'll vote yet. Still doing some research.

I normally don't like lists and I probably was one the people who complained about the NPR list. Today, I found the list easy to navigate from my phone and saw several books I wanted to read just in the 2019 section.

I feel like there is starting to be a straw man argument going on if certain prompts are not open to other languages. It would be helpful is there are members who are unable to complete a prompt in their language to let us know versus just feeling like it is not open. I don't think anyone wants to unintentionally excluded anyone but I also think we should not be jumping to conclusions either.

I just did my first impression up and down votes and I have 6 possible up votes and 7 possible down votes. Hmmm...what am I going to do!

I asked myself this twice this month “You read what?!?” I had some pretty weird reads this month. So, it is the only one that is a definite up vote.

My complaint about the lists continually suggested is how American centric they are. The only list I will vote for is the AtYB one. Many of those books are more diverse.

I like the "You read what?" , cross genre novel and the sports connection. The last can be a BIO with one of the previous sports suggestions.

This list is alot! Normally there are enough prompts I don't care about that voting is easy but I have Thoughts on every prompt!

Emily wrote: "Any book before my mother was born would mean a book published before 1962 for me.. of which I have only read one of this year lol. It would definitely push me outside of my reading comfort zone."

For those of us already older than your mom, a book older than my Mom puts it before 1914. Sorry but this will be down vote as I've already read most of what I want to read from that long ago.

I'm liking this list a lot. I'm seeing more upvotes than down for me. I will say for the cross-genre book, one of my favorite books overall I've read in the last few years wasThe Time Traveler's Wife. Sci-Fi/Romance and I really don't enjoy reading romance but this one is definitely one of my favorite books overall. Just a thought for those considering it.

I will ask, is it possible for the “you read what?!?” prompt to have the italics for the word “what?!?” ? I feel like that is part of the prompt - but totally get it for consistency sake if it all needs to be the same font. I just read it as “uhh... you read what?!?“ as you spit out your drink haha!

I suggested the sports prompt because I thought it would push some of us, including myself, out of our comfort zone. I don't think I have ever read a memoir or biography of an athlete, although there are plenty I would like to read! In addition to memoirs/biographies and specific sports related books (in my case yoga), there are lots of fiction options where sports play a major or a minor role. Here's a GR list of Sports Fiction Books:

Here are a few that I thought of (outside of obvious ones):

The Artichoke Queen - female race care driver
While the World Is Still Asleep - trilogy about women racing bicycles, starting in 1890s Berlin
The Queen of Whale Cay: The Eccentric Story of 'Joe' Carstairs, Fastest Woman on Water - nonfiction about the fastest female speedboat racer
Me by Elton John - Chapter on British football
Cutting for Stone - Cricket
Indian Horse- Hockey
Underworld - Baseball
Harry Potter series - Quidditch

I love "You read What???" and cross-genre.

I really really dislike anything that has to do with myself, thank you childhood trauma, so job job I wanted as a child, my birth decade and especially my MOTHER are all downvotes.

Modern Classics I just don't understand. Looking at the lists, it seems like every book that people liked is on some list somewhere. Can I just pick any book that has been popular in the 21st century and read that? It seems odd to me.

I don't really like lists in general and I almost feel like including the black authors list when we already have two POC related prompts is just looking like we are trying TOO hard. Yes, that issue deserves a LOT of attention, but there are many other issues that deserve a lot of attention too. I'm not sure why mental health, LGBTQIA+ and disability related prompts aren't getting through. It makes me sad honestly.

The rest of the prompts are fine but right now I have 7 down and 2 up.

I will definitely vote for A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads. Keep adding those books everyone! I also like an adventure book and the Black Novelist list. I will probably vote for the two-word title just to push myself to finally read Moby Dick!! The cross-genre book may be an up vote, also.

I love the "you read WHAT!?" I thought of it with capital letters. It actually could be something that isn't weird to you. For instance, my brother reads about obscure films from many countries. It's normal for him but not common. Or it could be something that you also find weird or surprising.

An adventure book would be a genre prompt that is a little different. It can include lots of historical fiction as well as memoirs and nonfiction. I would have said I don't read many adventures but I have a weakness for swashbuckling, pirates, and sea stories. It could also include sci-fi/fantasy if you choose to interpret it that way.

°~Amy~° wrote: "I'm not sure why mental health, LGBTQIA+ and disability related prompts aren't getting through. It makes me sad honestly...."

It would make more sense to be annoyed at the trivial prompts taking the space of those issues than singling out a list of black authors as being one race prompt too many. Neither the racism or BIPOC prompts require you to read a black author. Fine if you don't want another list prompt...but this sounds like how a few years ago publishers would say they already have one black author on their lists so no space for any more.

I would much rather have the trans/NB, mental health and disability prompts take the place of the 21st century classic, mum and decade of birth prompts.

Ellie, I believe Amy is pointing out our completed list of prompts is skewed towards one topic and needs to be more diverse.

Personally I think she is correct.

Amy, I agree that we need more diversity in our list -- I was starting to sort them out and realized that we don't have one LGBTQIA+ prompt yet. That being said, we have only had one suggested. It's not that they aren't making it through to the final list... it's that no one is suggesting them in the first place.

I totally get that race relations are at the forefront of people's minds right now, and Ellie is completely correct -- both the race relations prompt and the BIPOC prompt don't specifically point out authors who are Black. Plenty of non-Black folk have discussed race relations in their books (especially fiction books featuring second-gen immigrant families), and BIPOC specifically means that you can pick up any non-white author.

All that to say, I think the list of Black authors is a really good list of really good authors, and it has a good mix of genres that can appeal to people looking for nonfiction or sci-fi or contemporary fiction or classics.

I suggested the Black Novelist list and I did take in to consideration that it is possibly similar to prompts already on the list. But I decided that it’s really not.

The racism prompt is a much broader focus than just black people. Consider how Asians are currently being treated because of covid (which a certain politician insists on calling the China virus) or Hispanic people because of current immigrant issues or Middle Eastern people because of 911. It’s really a huge issue covering a broad spectrum of nationalities.

And Bipoc is only one-third about black people. You could read a book by an indigenous person or anyone considered an “author of color.”

Really, the Black Novelists list is the *only* prompt that requires the reader to focus on black people.

Avery wrote: "I will ask, is it possible for the “you read what?!?” prompt to have the italics for the word “what?!?” ? I feel like that is part of the prompt - but totally get it for consistency sake if it all ..."


hahah that is how I wrote it down on the list I keep to track my votes!

I changed it in the first post but can't italicize in the poll haha.

That being said: Poll is open!

https://www.surveymoz.com/s/22PLCS/

Thanks, Emily!

I have a question about what the ATY Best Book of the Month threads are. Correct me if I'm wrong. The books on this thread/list can be any random book someone reads that month, and not applicable to whatever the month's prompts are. If I just read a random book that didn't apply to that month's prompts, or say if I read a book for prompt 1 in month 8, I could still vote that book in for month 8? So essentially this list of books is just completely random? And every reader can pick up to 12 best books in 1 year?

Correct. It's basically a "hey, what's the best book you've read lately?" type thread. It can apply to the ATY challenge, or not, and it just showcases our group members' wide variety of tastes in books haha.

Emily wrote: "Amy, I agree that we need more diversity in our list -- I was starting to sort them out and realized that we don't have one LGBTQIA+ prompt yet. That being said, we have only had one suggested. It'..."

I agree, they aren't being suggested, but when they are, they don't get in which I feel makes people less likely to try again. That is sad but it is what it is.

My biggest fear with having three POC prompts (as great as they all are) is that it starts looking like tokenism. That's what I meant by looking like we were trying to hard. It could be construed that we are screaming "hey look at us, we aren't racists because we have not one, not two, but THREE race prompts on our list!" That would be unfortunate. If we had more diverse prompts on the list to balance it all out, it wouldn't be an issue at all. And, we'd be learning and giving some love to even more marginalized groups in the process. It isn't about eliminating one issue to make room for others it's about including ALL of them.

Anyway, I was just throwing it out there. I read a high percentage of diverse authors anyway and I know a lot of people in here do as well and that is all that matters.

I wasn't excited about the prompts but once I researched I think I upvoted 6 of them and only downvoted two.

Hmm I like the idea of modern classic, but I feel like it is really subjective. There's not quite a way to know if a 21st century book is a classic yet. I think the reason I am drawn to it is because I like contemporary/real life/current (aka modern) and literary (aka classic??) fiction, but I know that's not the intent. Maybe I'd prefer a Contemporary Literary book prompt.

I up voted 6 and down voted 2. This was a hard one to narrow down from my initial thoughts but I'm feeling positive this morning so I up voted more. Now, I'm going to have to try and wait patiently for results day.

For the modern classic, I'd probably go with something that's prize winning or nominated (Booker, National Book Award, etc.) that's been published in the last few years.

Now that I'm thinking about it, does "modern" only mean that it is published recently in the 21st century, or does it also mean that the setting/plot is "modern"?

I love the Black authors list (and I generally DON'T like the list prompts) and I'm really surprised - but feel like I should have known better - at the push back here. This isn't "tokenism" unless you treat it that way and make these the only books by non-white authors that you read for the year.

A book about racism is not a novel by a great black author, and it may not be written by a black author at all. Examples:
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gómez
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria E. Anzaldúa


And obviously a new-to-you BIPOC author is not necessarily a Black author. "B" is just one letter in BIPOC. I won't list examples here since "new-to-you" is different for all of us.

The great thing about this group is that everyone gets to contribute to the list. If you aren't seeing a category you want to see, suggest it, and suggest it again.

I feel like Memoir kind of negates the reason for (or at least my reason for nominating) the non-fiction excluding memoir. I feel like it's really easy to find memoirs and it's very common for non-fiction to go straight to memoirs, so even though in a normal vote I'd like memoir, I almost want to down-vote it now.

At the same time, I also don't think I'd normally feel like up-voting adventure book, but for some reason this time, I think it's a fun and nice change to normal genre prompts, and I would like more genre prompts on the list.

As a person who identifies on the rainbow spectrum (lgbtqia+) I do not have the strong opinions that some people do that that needs to be represented on the list. I honestly think most people don't know an author's orientation so it makes that type of prompt unappealing just because it's difficult.

I would, perhaps, like to see a prompt about a book dealing with lgbtqia+ issues because I think there's a lot that people are unaware of, for example, how lgbtqia+ people were treated historically, the severity of discrimination, landmark events in lgbtqia+ liberation, etc.

dalex wrote: "As a person who identifies on the rainbow spectrum (lgbtqia+) I do not have the strong opinions that some people do that that needs to be represented on the list. I honestly think most people are n..."

Great to have your input on this. Without the prompt requiring nonfiction, I imagine I will go on reading romance and fantasy for LGBTQ+ prompts, which I enjoy but seems a bit of a cop out on my part.

I would love a nonfiction prompt about LGBTQIA+ issues, however if nonfiction is hard to get through, and so are the rainbow prompts, I think that would make it even harder to get one through encompassing both.

I don't think rainbow prompts are hard to get through. We've had one on our list every year for the last few years. We've just literally only had ONE suggested this year, and it was a close call. Now I will say that nonfiction may be harder to get through, since we already have one on the list and people are iffy about reading nonfiction.

But you could suggest maybe a book featuring a historical moment in the LGBTQIA+ community, and that way, it could be fiction or nonfiction.