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Laura’s
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Hi all!I am sad to announce that our mod Katie will be stepping down from her moderator position. That means we now have an opening for an additional mod. If interested, just comment here or send a message to me.
Requirements:
- Enough free time to check the group roughly once per day
- More than 150 messages posted in this group
- Comfortable with a computer and Goodreads features
What you will have to do:
- Be friendly/helpful with our members
- Work with the other mods to brainstorm event ideas (polls, projects, read-a-thons, etc.)
- Help with the list-making process (create surveys, moderate suggestions, etc.)
- Edit titles/folder placement
Ive been in a bit of a book hangover since finishing The Grace Year yesterday. I really loved it and now I can’t figure out what I’m in the mood for. I’ve started and abandoned three books :/Hopefully tomorrow will be the fresh start that I need!
I think it’s fine to count it as long as the illustrations are a big part of the story.
This folder is for posting your plans for the Spring Reading Challenge.Please create your own thread which you can use to plan and keep track of your reading. You can also look at other people’s plans and add comments or suggestions for them.
Once you’ve completed the prompts for one month, please post the details here so we can congratulate you (and let you brag a little)!Requests:
1. Please say which task you’ve chosen for each prompt.
2. Please include a Goodreads link to the book and author.
3. If it’s not obvious, please say how the book meets the task requirements - for example if the task was to read a book featuring a professional sportsperson please say what sport they play.
4. If you’ve chosen a task that relates to the book cover, please include the cover in your post (sometimes Goodreads defaults to an edition of the book with a different cover so this will make sure we can see the right cover).
5. If you’ve completed a task that asked you read a book from a choice of lists then please say which of the lists the book appears on.
Use this thread to talk about what you’re reading for March prompts or ask for recommendations.For more information about the challenge see this thread: Spring Reading Challenge: Introduction & Tasks
MAY
May Day
May Day is a May 1 celebration with a long and varied history, dating back millennia. Throughout the years, there have been many different events and festivities worldwide, most with the express purpose of welcoming in a change of season (spring in the Northern Hemisphere). In the 19th century, May Day took on a new meaning, as an International Workers’ Day grew out of the 19th-century movement for labor rights and an eight-hour work day in the United States.
1. Read a book that has the letters MAY (in any order) in the title.
2. Read a book with a colorful cover.
3. Read a book where a character is a tradesman who works with their hands.
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration held on May 5. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican Army's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza. More popularly celebrated in the United States than Mexico, the date has become associated with the celebration of Mexican-American culture.
1. Read a book written by a Mexican or Mexican American author.
2. Read a book set in Mexico.
3. Read a book that is part of a series that contains a multiple of five books in the series (5 books, 10 books, 20 books, etc. in the series, but you can read any book of the series).
May Birthdays: Frank L. Baum
Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author chiefly famous for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and the nascent medium of film; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book would become a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
1. Read a children's/middle grade/YA book. (You can ignore the 100 page rule.)
2. Read a book with a female main character that leaves home.
3. Read a book that was made into a movie.
Mother's Day
The origin of Mother’s Day as we know it took place in the early 1900s. A woman named Anna Jarvis started a campaign for an official holiday honoring mothers in 1905, the year her own mother died. The first larger-scale celebration of the holiday was in 1908, when Jarvis held a public memorial for her mother in her hometown of Grafton, West Virginia. Finally, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation making Mother’s Day an official holiday, to take place the second Sunday of May.
1. Read a book that starts with a letter in MOTHERS DAY.
2. Read a book that features someone's relationship with their mother.
3. Read a book featured on one of these lists:
🌸 20 Books for Moms
🌸 15 Important Books about Motherhood
🌸 25 Modern Mom Must-Reads
Use this thread to talk about what you’re reading for March prompts or ask for recommendations.For more information about the challenge see this thread: Spring Reading Challenge: Introduction & Tasks
APRIL
April Fool's Day
Although April Fools’ Day, also called All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, its exact origins remain a mystery. Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.
1. Read a humorous book.
2. Read a book with a fish on the cover.
3. Read a book whose author's initials are found in APRIL FOOLS DAY.
Spring Sports: Baseball
In September 1845, a group of New York City men founded the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club. One of them—volunteer firefighter and bank clerk Alexander Joy Cartwright—would codify a new set of rules that would form the basis for modern baseball, calling for a diamond-shaped infield, foul lines and the three-strike rule. He also abolished the dangerous practice of tagging runners by throwing balls at them.
1. Read a book written in OR set in the 1800s.
2. Read a book with a 3 in the page number.
3. Read a book off of one of these lists that feature sports:
⚾️ 30 Best Sports Books
⚾️ 25 Best Baseball Books
⚾️ Best Nonfiction Books about Sports
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries. The day is observed worldwide with rallies, conferences, outdoor activities and service projects.
1. Read a book with a green cover OR with a plant on the cover.
2. Read a book in which the character travels through more than one country.
3. Read a cli-fi book.
April Birthdays: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Johnson on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. Maya Angelou became one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. With over 50 honorary doctorate degrees Dr. Maya Angelou became a celebrated poet, memoirist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
1. Read a banned book.
2. Read a book by an author who has more than 30 published works.
3. Read a book featuring the Civil Rights movement.
Use this thread to talk about what you’re reading for March prompts or ask for recommendations.For more information about the challenge see this thread: Spring Reading Challenge: Introduction & Tasks
MARCH
Spring
It's starting to look like spring (for some more than others)! While New Year's is often the time for resolutions, there's a certain excitement about the fresh start that happens in the spring. The grass is getting greener, more animals emerge, and the flowers start to bloom.
1. Read a book with a title beginning with a letter in SPRING (you can ignore or use a, an, or the)
2. Read a coming-of-age or inspirational book
3. Read a book with themes related to nature
March Birthdays: Gabriel García Márquez
Most readers know him for his most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude. After all, this is the book that most led to his Nobel Prize for Literature. Gabriel wrote the book while traveling by bus with his family from Colombia to Mexico City and throughout the southern United States, a dream inspired by his interest in the author William Faulkner. Many of his books include themes related to his strong, liberal political views, influenced largely by his grandfather, and the history of Latin America, (guerilla warfare, drug trafficking, the failures of communism, the evils of capitalism, and the dangerous meddling of the CIA).
1. Read a book set in Colombia.
2. Read a book with themes inspired by the author's life or values (family, magical realism, Latin American politics/social issues).
3. Read a book by an author who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
March Madness
One of the most popular sporting events of the year kicks off on March 17, when 68 basketball teams compete in a single-elimination tournament. Some of the players can't get enough of the sport and go on to become coaches. The oldest coach (Jim Calhoun of the UConn Huskies in 2011) to win a title was 68, while the youngest was 31 (Emmett McCracken of the Indiana Hoosiers in 1940). Even spectators can participate in a little competition by filling out a bracket with their predicted winners. But don't get too confident. The odds of a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (that's quintillion). 2008 may have been the most predictable year for the bracket ever, since it was the only time that all four No. 1 teams - Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA, and Memphis - locked horns in the Final Four.
1. Read a book with a page count that appears in the number 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.
2. Read a book published between 1931 and 1968.
3. Read a book set in Kansas, North Carolina, California, or Tennessee.
St. Patrick's Day
March 17 isn't just a day dedicated to basketball. It is also one of the most popular holidays in the world. St. Patrick's Day is historically a religious holiday, with the famous Shamrock, or three-leaf clover, representing the Holy Trinity. St. Patrick, born Maewyn Scott, was actually born in Wales but was taken taken captive and enslaved in Ireland. He eventually became a priest and was known for ridding the country of evil, symbolized as "snakes". Despite this notoriety, biologists have since learned that there weren't actually ever snakes in Ireland due to cold climate and surrounding waters. There are now more people throughout the world who claim Irish heritage than there are in the entire country of Ireland and some of the biggest celebrations occur in Boston, New York City, and Chicago.
1. Read a book written by an author whose initials appear in Maewyn Succat.
2. Read a book with a theme of good vs. evil.
3. In honor of the famous Shamrock, read a book that is third or fourth in a series.
Reserved
FAQ's
Coming Soon...
MARCH
Spring
It's starting to look like spring (for some more than others)! While New Year's is often the time for resolutions, there's a certain excitement about the fresh start that happens in the spring. The grass is getting greener, more animals emerge, and the flowers start to bloom.
1. Read a book with a title beginning with a letter in SPRING (you can ignore or use a, an, or the)
2. Read a coming-of-age or inspirational book
3. Read a book with themes related to nature
March Birthdays: Gabriel García Márquez
Most readers know him for his most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude. After all, this is the book that most led to his Nobel Prize for Literature. Gabriel wrote the book while traveling by bus with his family from Colombia to Mexico City and throughout the southern United States, a dream inspired by his interest in the author William Faulkner. Many of his books include themes related to his strong, liberal political views, influenced largely by his grandfather, and the history of Latin America, (guerilla warfare, drug trafficking, the failures of communism, the evils of capitalism, and the dangerous meddling of the CIA).
1. Read a book set in Colombia.
2. Read a book with themes inspired by the author's life or values (family, magical realism, Latin American politics/social issues).
3. Read a book by an author who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
March Madness
One of the most popular sporting events of the year kicks off on March 17, when 68 basketball teams compete in a single-elimination tournament. Some of the players can't get enough of the sport and go on to become coaches. The oldest coach (Jim Calhoun of the UConn Huskies in 2011) to win a title was 68, while the youngest was 31 (Emmett McCracken of the Indiana Hoosiers in 1940). Even spectators can participate in a little competition by filling out a bracket with their predicted winners. But don't get too confident. The odds of a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (that's quintillion). 2008 may have been the most predictable year for the bracket ever, since it was the only time that all four No. 1 teams - Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA, and Memphis - locked horns in the Final Four.
1. Read a book with a page count that appears in the number 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.
2. Read a book published between 1931 and 1968.
3. Read a book set in Kansas, North Carolina, California, or Tennessee.
St. Patrick's Day
March 17 isn't just a day dedicated to basketball. It is also one of the most popular holidays in the world. St. Patrick's Day is historically a religious holiday, with the famous Shamrock, or three-leaf clover, representing the Holy Trinity. St. Patrick, born Maewyn Scott, was actually born in Wales but was taken taken captive and enslaved in Ireland. He eventually became a priest and was known for ridding the country of evil, symbolized as "snakes". Despite this notoriety, biologists have since learned that there weren't actually ever snakes in Ireland due to cold climate and surrounding waters. There are now more people throughout the world who claim Irish heritage than there are in the entire country of Ireland and some of the biggest celebrations occur in Boston, New York City, and Chicago.
1. Read a book written by an author whose initials appear in Maewyn Succat.
2. Read a book with a theme of good vs. evil.
3. In honor of the famous Shamrock, read a book that is third or fourth in a series.
APRIL
April Fool's Day
Although April Fools’ Day, also called All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, its exact origins remain a mystery. Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.
1. Read a humorous book.
2. Read a book with a fish on the cover.
3. Read a book whose author's initials are found in APRIL FOOLS DAY.
Spring Sports: Baseball
In September 1845, a group of New York City men founded the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club. One of them—volunteer firefighter and bank clerk Alexander Joy Cartwright—would codify a new set of rules that would form the basis for modern baseball, calling for a diamond-shaped infield, foul lines and the three-strike rule. He also abolished the dangerous practice of tagging runners by throwing balls at them.
1. Read a book written in OR set in the 1800s.
2. Read a book with a 3 in the page number.
3. Read a book off of one of these lists that feature sports:
⚾️ 30 Best Sports Books
⚾️ 25 Best Baseball Books
⚾️ Best Nonfiction Books about Sports
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries. The day is observed worldwide with rallies, conferences, outdoor activities and service projects.
1. Read a book with a green cover OR with a plant on the cover.
2. Read a book in which the character travels through more than one country.
3. Read a cli-fi book.
April Birthdays: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Johnson on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. Maya Angelou became one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. With over 50 honorary doctorate degrees Dr. Maya Angelou became a celebrated poet, memoirist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.
1. Read a banned book.
2. Read a book by an author who has more than 30 published works.
3. Read a book featuring the Civil Rights movement.
MAY
May Day
May Day is a May 1 celebration with a long and varied history, dating back millennia. Throughout the years, there have been many different events and festivities worldwide, most with the express purpose of welcoming in a change of season (spring in the Northern Hemisphere). In the 19th century, May Day took on a new meaning, as an International Workers’ Day grew out of the 19th-century movement for labor rights and an eight-hour work day in the United States.
1. Read a book that has the letters MAY (in any order) in the title.
2. Read a book with a colorful cover.
3. Read a book where a character is a tradesman who works with their hands.
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration held on May 5. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican Army's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza. More popularly celebrated in the United States than Mexico, the date has become associated with the celebration of Mexican-American culture.
1. Read a book written by a Mexican or Mexican American author.
2. Read a book set in Mexico.
3. Read a book that is part of a series that contains a multiple of five books in the series (5 books, 10 books, 20 books, etc. in the series, but you can read any book of the series).
May Birthdays: Frank L. Baum
Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author chiefly famous for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and the nascent medium of film; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book would become a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
1. Read a children's/middle grade/YA book. (You can ignore the 100 page rule.)
2. Read a book with a female main character that leaves home.
3. Read a book that was made into a movie.
Mother's Day
The origin of Mother’s Day as we know it took place in the early 1900s. A woman named Anna Jarvis started a campaign for an official holiday honoring mothers in 1905, the year her own mother died. The first larger-scale celebration of the holiday was in 1908, when Jarvis held a public memorial for her mother in her hometown of Grafton, West Virginia. Finally, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation making Mother’s Day an official holiday, to take place the second Sunday of May.
1. Read a book that starts with a letter in MOTHERS DAY.
2. Read a book that features someone's relationship with their mother.
3. Read a book featured on one of these lists:
🌸 20 Books for Moms
🌸 15 Important Books about Motherhood
🌸 25 Modern Mom Must-Reads
Welcome to the next Around the Year in 52 Books seasonal challenge. Our Spring challenge starts on 1 March 2020 and finishes on 31 May 2020.The challenge has twelve prompts in total, divided into four for each month of the season. For each prompt there is a choice of three tasks. Some are easy, some are more difficult - it’s your choice which you want to complete. You only need to complete one of the three tasks to record a prompt as completed.
The challenge is what you make it. You can truly go for it and complete all 36 tasks, simplify it and complete only one month, or stick with the 12.
How to join the challenge
1. First check out the prompts and choice of tasks in post two of this thread.
2. Next you need to set up a thread to keep track of your books for the challenge. You can create a new thread for your challenge in this folder.
3. If you need ideas or inspiration for any of the prompts, or you’d like to share recommendations then you can do so here:
🌿 March prompts discussion
🌿 April prompts discussion
🌿 May prompts discussion
4. When you’ve completed all four prompts for one month, post the details in this thread.
What books can be counted?
Generally books should be 100 pages or more, but if you’ve found the perfect book and it’s 90 pages then it’s your choice whether to count it. Or, if you’re really stuck on one task and you want to read a picture book or short story just to mark it as complete then go right ahead. The aim is to have fun and enjoy what you read, so nobody is going to judge anyone else for their book choices.
If you have any questions about the challenge then you can post them in this thread. The FAQs in post three below will also be updated as people ask questions so you might find your question has been answered there.
Happy reading, and we hope you enjoy the challenge!
Last year we started mapping out the books that were read by the group for the ATY challenge. It was extremely exciting to see a visual display of our "travels". So this year we're going to take it up a notch and create a timeline of our reads. Rules:
Only submit the books you've finished reading.
Sure, a lot of us have our reading plans solidified for the whole year but plans have a way of changing even when we don't expect it. It is for this reason we ask that you only submit books that you're done reading. This way, if that book you thought you'd love ends up in your did-not-finish pile or you take an unexpected hiatus from the group, we won't have to go back and try and figure out what was or wasn't read and we can end the year with a pretty accurate record.
Around the Year Challenge books only, please.
We're going to limit this to books for the main challenge to keep things simpler. If you want to create your own timeline, the mods would be happy to send you the info on the site used.
Fiction, non-fiction, doesn't matter.
As long as the book is provides reasonable information about the dates in which it takes place, you can share all books read. Some books let us know a general idea of setting (i.e. present time). This timeline is only going to provide books by the decade (with specific years when possible) so a general idea is likely fine.
Multiple years/decades:
For now, you can feel free to include multiple years for a single book. As you will see in the early books added (Recursion, for example), we can list a book once within a decade even if there are multiple years represented. Just keep in mind, your book will likely not be the "Featured Book" for the displayed decade.
Special requests?
I have created a preliminary timeline based on predicted decades. Please just post your book's info in the comments and I can expand the timeline if needed (i.e. before or after current decades)
The software allows the timeline to be updated as soon as I enter data in the source spreadsheet. Just click the link below to see the current graphic. Note, the source spreadsheet will be updated when possible, likely 2-3 times per month.
Around the Year 2020 Reading Timeline
Updated: 1/1/2021
There's a lot of prompts in the current category so I think it's a good idea to just go ahead and use wild cards. Like Tracy said, you read it so you earned it :)
1. An extra day: what is one book that brought a little something extra?2. Taking a big leap: what is one book that you are/were afraid to read?
3. Every 4 years: what is the 4th book you read this year?
4. 366 days in the year: looking at your 3rd shelf (or page), name the 6th book on that shelf, and name the 6th book after that!
5. Leaping ahead: name 4 books that you want to read by the next leap year [alternative: name something on your bookish bucket list that you want to complete by the next leap year].
6. Leapfrog: name a book on your TBR that has green in it.
7. Bad luck: what bookish things do you steer clear from?
I just finished The Grace Year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit any of the prompts that we need still. Now on to pick my next book 🎉
Sorry guys, I didn’t manage to finish The Grace Year last night. I am really into it but just not enough reading time during the work week. It looks like most of us are good with using the wild cards so I’m going to input that now.
On to the next level!
I'm hoping to finish The Grace Year tonight but that might be overly optimistic. I did start listening to Educated yesterday so I can add my totals for both once I get home tonight :)
