Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Hello Team Fortitude!

This event's team challenge is focused on finding that good. In this time's team challenge, you and your teammates will be tasked with reading books to go along with positive news stories from 2020.

Each book read for the team will need to connect in some way to one of the positive news stories. The more connections you find, the more points you can earn.

Theme (i.e. age, storyline, topic, etc.): 1 point
Numbers (i.e. dates, article topics, page count, etc.): 1 point
Location: 2 points
Names (incl. authors, characters): 3 points
Title (article subjects found in title of book): 3 points
Objects (found in article and on cover of the book or major plot-point): 3 points
Own Voices: 5 points

Grand Prize!
Finish a book connected to every positive news story below: 75 points

What about pages?
This is a bit of a bonus. For every 1,000 pages read as a group, you earn one wildcard. Wildcards allow you to cross one article off your list, getting you closer to the grand prize!

For more information about our group challenge (including FAQs), check out this thread.

Members:
Jillian
Jill
Traci
Laurel
Roxana
Chrissy
Devin
Veronica
Marin

Team Spreadsheet will be posted soon.

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

An explanation:
You can record your page count at the top portion of the Tracking tab on the spreadsheet. Every audiobook minute counts as one page.

On the second half, you can put the book title and who read it, and then how it fits for the prompts. It should automatically tabulate the points you earned for each book! Please only post completed books on the Tracking tab!

You can use the planning tab to plan how your books will fit the news articles. Feel free to adjust this tab to fit your group's preferences.

Hi team,

I’ve been wanting to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens forever and I’m hoping to read it this week.

I have An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon and The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary planned to read this week.

I have several other books going that will probably just count towards page count.

My state is on lockdown, and I have the week off from work so I should be able to meet my goals.

Hi everyone! I have the week off and not a ton of plans outside of a bit of cooking. I also have a ton of library holds to get to! First up, I’ll finish To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, but I’ll have to take a look at the stories to see where my options can get us some points!

Hi all! I am really excited to start the week! I have to work on Tuesday and Wednesday but the rest of the week is fairly free sonI think I can get quite a bit read. Plus I am done with all my reading challenges so I am just reading to reduce my TBR.
Will spend tomorrow finishing Little Mercies. I think it will fit the story about foster children but I am going to wait until I finish before committing.

Uff-da! This is a tough one to wrap my head around. I'm excited for the read-a-thon regardless since reading hasn't gone great this month and I have quite a few I still want to finish for fall challenge, to complete ATY and popsugar, and for Native American heritage month.

I need to go finish the book I have ~30 pages left of so I can start fresh tomorrow.

On audio, I'll have enough pages left of Ayesha at Last for it to count, not sure how to stretch things
- "lonely otter at sanctuary finds love" because she finds love (I'm assuming) though she's not an otter
- "provide free college education to children" or "teacher becomes US citizen" because she's a teacher
- maybe "man finally rescued" - ha
- ban dog breed discrimination because there's some discrimination
-????

I am planning on reading a few books by Native Americans this week, so one of those could probably be own voices for "Buys $2,800 of supplies for Navajo Nation" (I'd need to check if any authors are from the Navajo Nation if it would be strict to that instead of Native Americans in general).

Traci, I think your book would be fine for Native Americans.

Hi everyone! Im finishing up The Boy in the Striped Pajamas but have leas than 100 pages so it won't count for anything but page count.
The next one up is Tyler Johnson Was Here.

Hi all!

So, I’m in the middle of The Likeness, by Tana French, with about half of it left, plus I‘m about to start The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Devil and the Dark Water.

The Likeness could work for the “Irish repaying debt of gratitude” article, as it’s set in Ireland, though so far I’m not seeing any names overlap or anything. (Although I think there was a year mentioned that could be in the article, I need to double check.) Or it might work for the housing renovations one, because a lot of the story centers around the renovation of an old Georgian house.

not sure about the others yet, I need to familiarize myself with these articles plus it’s hard to tell before reading the books themselves of course.

Anyway, looking forward to this unusual, clever readathon!


(Sorry I didn’t link the book titles, btw, I’m doing this from the app for the moment 🙃)

Traci, we aren't checking you too closely -- if you think it counts for the article, it counts for the article!

I have just looked at the challenge from my phone but is there anywhere audio hours get tracked for wildcard spots. I’m just seeing page numbers. I have a longish audio book that I’m in the middle of and will listen to for an hour a day but not finish. I’m no good at converting audio hours to page count. So, just feeling disappointed right now since most of my reading will be audio.

Jillian wrote: "I have just looked at the challenge from my phone but is there anywhere audio hours get tracked for wildcard spots. I’m just seeing page numbers. I have a longish audio book that I’m in the middle ..."

You can just count it directly. So one audio minute is one page. No problem if all your “pages” are audio.

Thank you, Laura!

I finished my first book, Little Mercies. I added it to the spreadsheet for the article about the cafe owner in Texas who employees foster kids who age out of the system. Little Mercies is about a social worker and talks about foster children.
On to A Long Way Home which will work for the story about the man using Google Street View to map his village as the book is what the movie Lion was based on about a young man using Google Earth to find his home in India.

Jill wrote: "I finished my first book, Little Mercies. I added it to the spreadsheet for the article about the cafe owner in Texas who employees foster kids who age out of the system. [book:Litt..."

Good job Jill! So, basically, I'm hearing that your next book will get all the points for that prompt!

I've had some things to take care of today, but will get back to reading now. I'll probably work on audio so I can make myself do the dishes at the same time.

I finished Ayesha at Last, but haven't slotted it in anywhere yet. I put a few spots on the planning tab but feel like I should check out the articles to figure out where to slot it, and that feels like more than I want to do tonight!

I'm reading Black Sun and started listening to With the Fire on High.

I just finished The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and, like those who posted above me, I haven’t plugged it in for an article yet, just logged the pages for the moment, because I can’t get to the links on my phone. Just from the article titles, though, I think it could fit several, so...we’ll see! (Tomorrow! When I’m back on a computer! 😂)

Also, let me be the ten thousandth person to say how good this book was, I read it start to finish today. Really wonderful story.

I did not finish anything yesterday so I just add towards the page total.

I finished The Boy in the Striped Pajamas last night. It only counts for pages read as I only had 65 pages to go. Starting Tyler Johnson Was Here and see how far i get today.

I added two columns to the planning tab - one with the long title since I felt the extra detail helped, the other for people to list any connections as they read the articles (hopefully to save people time as we move along). Use if you want, ignore if you want, however works best for you!

I added Woman of the Ashes for "Free letters for friends feeling blue." I think it fits, as every other chapter is in the form of a letter, but feel free to replace it if you have a book that gets more points for that article. I suspect that the name and number categories are going to be the hardest to find.

Ok, I put The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue down for the Strand bookstore article, but I feel like it could easily be connected to many of the articles. (I'm having a hard time thinking through this challenge, to be honest, lol.) If we end up having other books that work for the Strand article and don't have anything for the Beethoven one, for instance, Addie LaRue would work well there!

Roxana wrote: "I just finished The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and, like those who posted above me, I haven’t plugged it in for an article yet, just logged the pages for the moment, because I can’t get to the ..."

Well, I guess I needed to hear it for the 10,000th time! Added The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue to my TBR.

I finished A Long Way Home and added it to the spreadsheet for the man who used Google Streetview to map his village.
Next up is Windfall. I know it involves a lottery win so it may fit the lottery story but I don’t know if that is the best fit yet.

I read Dangerous Girls to fulfill one of the Fall Challenge prompts. It fits in under the conversion therapy as the main characters are bitten by a vampire and one of them doesn't wan to be converted back to human but wants to embrace her undead life.

Hi Team! I am late to this party, but happy to be part of this. I finished True Grit yesterday with 174 pages to count for the read-a-thon. Will see what story it can fit. Mattie is one tough girl and it is an "own voice" book. I am not sure how "own voice" relates to a good news story, however. In progress are The Butterfly Garden and Your Killin' Heart. Need to look at all the stories to see how these might fit.

Used True Grit> for "Splitting Jackpot..." One of the character's names is Tom which is a one of the men in the story. The story is an own voice story, but I am not clear on how "own voice" relates to the good news story. Can somehow help me understand whether I can count that or not?

The Butterfly Garden will work for the "Garden areas ..." prompt. I should finish that by tomorrow.

Edie, hopefully one of the mods will chime in on the own voices but I think your book would count there too.

I'm in a bit of a reading slump so I'm hoping it improves this week. I still need to figure out my page count for yesterday.

Hey Edie! I believe one of the core elements of "own voices" is that the voice is from a marginalized or under-represented group. Unless I'm missing something, it seems the book and article are focused on white men. But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong :)

Laura wrote: "Hey Edie! I believe one of the core elements of "own voices" is that the voice is from a marginalized or under-represented group. Unless I'm missing something, it seems the book and article are foc..."

While most of the characters in True Gritare men, the narrator is a 14 year old girl who is trying to avenge her father's murder. Women and girls were certainly marginalized in that era. She is with the men over their strong objections, following them when they had left her behind. So I am still not clear on how the "own voices" is supposed to relate to the article. With the article is about white men, what would an own voices story look like?

Welcome Edie!

I'm struggling some with the own voices aspect as well. It seems to me they should have the same own voices perspective as the story, which means some don't have an own voices option. That also begs the question of what perspective is similar enough or too different to count.

I put Black Sun into the bird turbine prompt. It could also fit the same topics for boy sees stars for the first time, so happy to shift if that would be better.

I haven't figured out where the book I'll finish today can go yet (With the Fire on High) - I thought there might be more food stories!

I think my book, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, will go in the seeing stars slot best, so can you leave that one open? I should finish today or maybe tomorrow.

Chrissy, if some takes that spot we just have to ask Emily to make another spot. In this challenge, we can fill a spot multiple times.

I kept the stars open! Since both worked equally well, this worked great.

Edie wrote: "Laura wrote: "Hey Edie! I believe one of the core elements of "own voices" is that the voice is from a marginalized or under-represented group. Unless I'm missing something, it seems the book and a..."

Thanks for the clarification!

For the prompt, the book would need to be own voices and that “voice” would need to be the same as the one in the article. In this case, your narrator is marginalized but the author is a white man so the book isn’t “own voices”.

The “own voices” points aren’t possible for all the articles.

Hope that make sense!

Laura wrote: "Edie wrote: "Laura wrote: "Hey Edie! I believe one of the core elements of "own voices" is that the voice is from a marginalized or under-represented group. Unless I'm missing something, it seems t..."

Thanks for the clarification. Own voices has always been a bit murky to me. I had not realized that the author had to be potentially the "own voice". That definition fits for books like The Hate U Give. Always good to learn something.

I finished Tyler Johnson Was Here was here and was able to slot it for the "Protest Sign Made by Third Grader...". In the book, there is a protest against police brutality and also mentions many names of real Black people who lot their lives due to police brutality. It can also count for Own Voices because the author is Black as is the young boy the story is about as well as the events in the book are based on real-life events and experiences of the author.

I finished With the Fire on High. I looked at a few possible articles yesterday but didn't find a good fit. I'll look more, but maybe not until tomorrow. I'll stretch something if need be!

Traci wrote: "I finished With the Fire on High. I looked at a few possible articles yesterday but didn't find a good fit. I'll look more, but maybe not until tomorrow. I'll stretch something if n..."

Not a great fit, but I slotted it in!

If anyone has finished a book that they need help slotting in, put it on the planning tab and note "Finished". No promises on good fits or quick slotting, but the team can try to help.

Jillian - I saw the Flatshare on the planning tab for you. I really enjoyed it, I hope you do too!

I'm finding I'm really wanting to read YA and rom coms. Other than a couple for my reading goals for the year, I might just do that for December.

I don't want to work! Okay, back to it.

I finished The Butterfly Garden and put in in the "Garden Areas..." prompt. It doesn't check off many of the boxes, but it is the best fit I could find.

Such a lousy reading day for me today. Work was insane! Don’t know of tomorrow will be any better but I should get some good reading time in during the 4 day weekend!

Traci wrote: "Jillian - I saw the Flatshare on the planning tab for you. I really enjoyed it, I hope you do too!

I'm finding I'm really wanting to read YA and rom coms. Other than a couple for my reading goals..."

I enjoyed it too. I’ve been reading heavier stuff lately so it was nice change of pace.

I’ll look at the spreadsheet and see what works the best. I also had trouble sleeping last night, so I got a ton of audio hours to add.

I've updated the spreadsheet.

I finished Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life today. Starting a classic mystery, The Red Thumb Mark

I finished a book, Topics of Conversation, and slotted it in the only place I could see any matches. Now I’m on to Magic Lessons, and my audiobook A Burning is ongoing.

I added The Silver Chair to the list for the story about the boy writing a word search puzzle. This is the first day I feel like I've been able to get some real reading done, so I'm set up well to finish a couple more books this week.

I finished The Likeness a couple days ago and finally got it into the spreadsheet, putting it under "Irish people repaying debt."

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S. and good morning to all. My bubble Thanksgiving got postponed so I'm going to try to spend a lot of time reading today and not get sucked into the Netflix vortex. I finished Tracks late last night and added it to the spreadsheet so am starting a new book and am halfway through my audiobook.