Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

A Book with a One-Word Title You Had to Look Up in a Dictionary

Uhm... I'm rather at a loss for words on this one! I like it, but nothing immediately comes to mind!

HERE is a Goodreads Listopia for "One-Word Titles" which will probably help! And did help me!

Shōgun by James Clavell is one I would definitely look up!
Stargirl (Stargirl #1) by Jerry Spinelli I loved that book!
Dubliners by James Joyce is one I wanted to read this year and never got to, so I may cheat just a bit and read this one! (Since I don't really have to look up Dubliners in the dictionary...but it is MY challenge!)

Night by Elie Wiesel is a nonfiction option! I'm sure there are others...

Listopia is HERE

This category made me laugh, because it's a cute idea, AND I have no idea what I'll read for it (so my laughter is a little bit like "oh COME ON NOW").

If anyone has not yet read Fingersmith, and you do not know what that means, you are IN LUCK!!

I see Popsugar recommends Zazen, and okay I did not know that was a word, so that might be my pick.

I don't know if this is a regional thing, but I had to look up Fen by Daisy Johnson when I read it.

Definitely recommend it for people who like short stories with a touch of magical realism.

I love that you can interpret this in a couple of ways.

a.) Simply a one-word title

b.) a one-word title that you don't know

I'm not sure which route I'll go. I might have some fun and take the NF route by checking to see if there are books with words that I'm not familiar with.

I could probably find a title with a word I wasn't sure of the meaning of, but not also combined with a single word title. The single word titles on my radar are either very obvious words or made up because they're referring to a fantasy thing.

Love this one too! Talk about expanding your horizons.

I'm doing Ubik by Philip K Dick for this one!

I'm not above looking up a word in a dictionary to "check" the definition. Whether or not I truly *had to* is a matter of opinion ;)

Ooh! If I could find a book called Just "K-Pop" I could knock out two with one blow. :)

Eleutheria!

Jackie wrote: "I'm not above looking up a word in a dictionary to "check" the definition. Whether or not I truly *had to* is a matter of opinion ;)"



LOL!! That's pretty much the way I'm looking at this one!!

I've been discounting titles like Eragon and Piranesi that are names, not words, but I was surprised to discover that Ubik is (sort of?) a word in that book!! So, I might read that.

I had to look up Wallbanger to find out the exact recipe for the mixed drink and the original source of the drink name, so I'm counting that one.

And when Pachinko first came out, I did not know what that word meant, so that's on my list.

Doni wrote: "Eleutheria!"



That book IS actually on my TBR but I can't use it here, because my DOG is actually from Eleuthera, so I knew what that meant already.

(My dogs are Potcakes, which are strays that were rescued from the Bahamas and brought to the US by rescue groups)

I have Zolitude and Dunbar on my TBR. While I suspect one is a made up word and the other is a name, maybe I will check to see if there's a dictionary definition before reading one of them.

For anyone who doesn’t know what Recursion means, I highly recommend reading Recursion by Blake Crouch if you like sci-fi and thrillers. However, something potentially triggering happens in the first chapter, so please use caution. (I don’t want to give too much away, but this one also fits another prompt.)

I think Matrix by Lauren Groff would probably work for most people, as the specific meaning of "matrix" being referenced is very unfamiliar. (The book is about a medieval community of nuns; it has nothing to do with sci-fi or math.)

I'd recommend it!

Mordacious or its sequel Peripeteia by Sarah Lyon Fleming (you need to like zombie books if you want to read either)

Nadine in NY wrote: "Doni wrote: "Eleutheria!"



That book IS actually on my TBR but I can't use it here, because my DOG is actually from Eleuthera, so I knew what that meant already.

(My dogs are Pot..."

I'm not sure that's the same thing, but I won't ruin it by looking it up for you! ;)

Doni wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "Doni wrote: "Eleutheria!"



That book IS actually on my TBR but I can't use it here, because my DOG is actually from Eleuthera, so I knew what that meant alrea..."



Or maybe I just REALLY, REALLY need this prompt! LOL

I loved Maame by Jessica George which would work well for this prompt.

I just realized that you could use any one word title. It doesn't say that you had to look the word up in 2024. Maybe you didn't know what it meant when you were a kid.

I'm probably going to be using Wahala - a Nigerian word meaning problem or trouble

This one I'm going to look through my personal bookshelves. Since I read a lot of NF, I'm always having to look up words. Hopefully there will be a word on a cover that I'm not familiar with.

Doni wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "Doni wrote: "Eleutheria!"



That book IS actually on my TBR but I can't use it here, because my DOG is actually from Eleuthera, so I knew what that meant alrea..."


gasp! all this time I assumed it was the same place. I just looked it up. IT'S DIFFERENT!

So, I can add this book to my list of possibles ...

Nadine in NY wrote: "Doni wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "Doni wrote: "Eleutheria!"



gasp! all this time I assumed it was the same place. I just looked it up. IT'S DIFFERENT!

So, I can add this book to my list of possibles..."

Yay!

Mary Beth wrote: "I think Matrix by Lauren Groff would probably work for most people, as the specific meaning of "matrix" being referenced is very unfamiliar. (The book is about a medieval community ..."

GREAT book!!

Cendaquenta wrote: "I'm probably going to be using Wahala - a Nigerian word meaning problem or trouble"

This may be the title for me, thanks! It was on my list couple of years ago but I never got around to reading it. Other than that, I'm not finding anything to fulfill this prompt

I don't have a lot of one word titles on my list to choose from, but at first glance I'm looking at maybe Thistlefoot, Vox, Americanah, or Caraval.

The Panopticon, Graveminder, Lexicon, and Cabal could be good choices for some too.

Diana wrote: "I don't have a lot of one word titles on my list to choose from, but at first glance I'm looking at maybe Thistlefoot, Vox, Americanah, or [book:Cara..."

Thistlefoot sounds really good so I think I will read that. Thanks for sharing.

Nadine in NY wrote: "Doni wrote: "Eleutheria!"



That book IS actually on my TBR but I can't use it here, because my DOG is actually from Eleuthera, so I knew what that meant already.

(My dogs are Pot..."

omg, I haved a Potcat :) It's not it's own breed like the dogs, but my cat is a rescue from the Bahamas.

The very first one (currently) on the listopia, Apeirogon, sounds good to me, so I'll read that.

Denise wrote: "omg, I haved a Potcat :) It's not it's own breed like the dogs, but my cat is a rescue from the Bahamas...."



Awesome!!! :-)

Ooh, I actually have a recommendation! Semiosis is a really great and unusual sci-fi - exploration of a planet and meeting its inhabitants.

Going with politics here.

Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism

I hear the word 'fascism' and 'fascist' everywhere on the news, but I still have no idea what it means or what it's about.

I might read Hench, I just assumed it was a shortened version of henchmen but turns out it's also British slang by itself, so I learnt something new.

Chrissy wrote: "Ooh, I actually have a recommendation! Semiosis is a really great and unusual sci-fi - exploration of a planet and meeting its inhabitants."



good one! I honestly have no idea what that means - some sort of biological process I assume? osmosis ... mitosis ... semiosis! And it's been on my TBR too. I HAD BEEN planning to read Ubiq for this, but maybe I'll switch Ubiq to my back up plan and choose Semiosis first.


(NOTE: I looked it up. I was wrong. It's not biological at all.)

I might want to read Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto for this, but I also like some of the suggestions in this discussion!

Another possibility is that I could read Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman, but I’d probably want to read Scythe first.

Neal Shusterman has quite a few books with 1-word titles, including: Scythe, Thunderhead, Gleanings, all the books in the Unwind series, and all the books in the Skinjacker trilogy (Everlost, Everwild, and Everfound).

I'll be using Recitatif

I own a copy of Cryptonomicon and haven't gotten to it (it's a brick), so maybe if I want to play by the rules, I'll read that.

Ha! The dictionary doesn't know what it means, either.

This is incredibly limiting in its strict interpretation, since most of us probably have extensive vocabularies from all this reading!

The only ones I could find that fit were Palimpsest and Apeirogon, both terms I had encountered but forgotten. However, Palimpsest doesn't appeal to me.

Apeirogon would be quite timely, since it's the friendship between a Palestinian man and an Israeli man. But right now, I think it would be too much for me. I'm going to put it on my TBR for some time when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't so rough, because it sounds like a great story.

I'm probably going to stick with "one word title", unless I find a single-word title in a language other than English that appeals.

If you're looking for unusual single-word titles, here's two novels I enjoyed:
Semiosis by Sue Burke
Jingo by Terry Pratchett

Semiosis is multi-generational sci fi about humans making a home on a planet with intelligent plant life. It's not often I read science fiction that feels this original!

Jingo is one of Pratchett's excellent Discworld novels, about the dangers of blind patriotism. But since it is Pratchett, it's cleverly disguised as ridiculous fantasy.

Nadine in NY wrote: "Chrissy wrote: "Ooh, I actually have a recommendation! Semiosis is a really great and unusual sci-fi - exploration of a planet and meeting its inhabitants."



good one! I honestly ..."
Semiosis is excellent! DO IT!

After looking at many lists, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this because I've yet to see a word I didn't know other than someone's name or a place name so I guess one of those?

Cornerofmadness wrote: "After looking at many lists, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this because I've yet to see a word I didn't know other than someone's name or a place name so I guess one of those?"

Have you consideredApeirogon or Zazen?

This is going to be a challenge for those of us with expansive vocabularies. I'm going to stretch this to *any book with a one word title* because I can always look up that word in a dictionary even if it's a word I already know. I *had to look it up* to fulfill this prompt, even if I didn't have to look it up to know what it means.

Dani wrote: "Cornerofmadness wrote: "After looking at many lists, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this because I've yet to see a word I didn't know other than someone's name or a place name so I guess on..."

Dani wrote: "Cornerofmadness wrote: "After looking at many lists, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this because I've yet to see a word I didn't know other than someone's name or a place name so I guess on..."


Thanks. I know both (Apeirogons feature in a math horror story I just finished and need to submit to the anthology open call) and neither are books I'd read. I have one now (though it is a made up fantasy name)

Ruth wrote: "This is going to be a challenge for those of us with expansive vocabularies. I'm going to stretch this to *any book with a one word title* because I can always look up that word in a dictionary eve..."

Clever! xD As a linguist, I had a hard time with this prompt, because the word would have to be a very technical one for me. The way you put it, I know exactly what one word title book I will read for this! :D

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is a good one for thus category, although it’s a long book.

An odd title, but one I read a few years ago for that year's challenge: Incognegro. It was kind of fascinating, and a quick read.

Can we use Urban Dictionary or just the standards (Oxford and Webster)?