2025 Reading Challenge discussion

Hi everyone!

Time to nominate books for June! The theme is Change.

~Please remember to state a connection to the theme when you nominate.

~Books we have read less than three years ago are not eligble. To see which books are not eligble, see this google sheet:

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

~ Each person can nominate 1 book.

~ Book must be available both as a physical copy and as an ebook.

~ Authors: Please do not nominate your own book.

~ Please do not nominate books that are part of a series, unless it is the first book.

~ You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your nomination.


This thread will be closed by April 26th, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose "seconded" books first. 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 nominate A Little Life as it tracks the changes in the lives of four friends over several decades.

i nominate

Chocolat is a timeless novel of a straitlaced village's awakening to joy and sensuality. In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred years, beautiful newcomer Vianne Rocher and her exquisite chocolate shop arrive and instantly begin to play havoc with Lenten vows.

I nominate Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. Michael Henchard's life goes through profound changes after his drunken and impulsive decision to sell his wife and infant daughter to a passing sailor at a county fair.

second- Mayor Of Casterbridge

Not to be too on the nose, but I nominate The Change by Kirsten Miller. "Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick—a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp revenge fantasy about three women whose midlife crisis brings unexpected new powers—putting them on a collision course with the evil that lurks in their wealthy beach town."

It's a hefty one but I'd like to nominate 11/22/63 by Stephen King


Connection to the theme :
"On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. Unless..."
Changing the past? The future? You get the picture ;)

I nominate Still Alice by Lisa Genova. About one of the most difficult changes of all.

I'll second Still Alice

I will nominate The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

The whole theme is how Nina's staid world begins to change after the death of the father she never knew, but the connection also appears in the synopsis:

The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.

When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is?

Nina considers her options.

1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)

It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

Rosalyn wrote: "i nominate

Chocolat is a timeless novel of a straitlaced village's awakening to joy and sensuality. In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred y..."

second

Third vote for the Mayor of Casterbridge

Ciara wrote: "Not to be too on the nose, but I nominate The Change by Kirsten Miller. "Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick—a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp revenge fantasy abou..."

I'll second this one!

Does anyone else have the David Bowie song stuck in their head?
🎶Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!🎶


I’m going to nominate Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes. The description reads

Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope--she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.

That’s because Sam Kemp – in the bleakest point of her life – has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag--she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence that makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself.

I nominate I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman-
this is an excerpt from the description:

Then everything changes... and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been... and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.

so with May's Group Read vote ending in a tie, which book will we read?

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "so with May's Group Read vote ending in a tie, which book will we read?"

Maybe both? 🤷‍♀️ I forget what's been done in the past, but it'll be interesting to see which it will be.

I'd like to nominate Metamorphis.

The link is both in the title and the plot.
The main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one day to find that he has transformed into a giant insect.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "so with May's Group Read vote ending in a tie, which book will we read?"

We decided to open the poll for a few more days to break the tie. So if you didn't vote for Flowers for Algernon or The Nightingale yet, you can change your vote to help decide :)

M wrote: "It's a hefty one but I'd like to nominate 11/22/63 by Stephen King


Connection to the theme :
"On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out..."

I second 11/22/63

I'd like to second A Little Life. It's sitting on my TBR waiting for me to be in a good enough mood to want to read it this month.

Closing nominations.

Poll is up!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...