Emily’s Comments (group member since Jan 04, 2017)

Emily’s comments from the Around the Year in 52 Books group.

It's time for our next round of suggestions!

Just a reminder that you can find a full list of prompts already on the 2025 list in the third post on this thread.

How Suggestions Work:
- The topics for the 2025 reading challenge list will be determined by a series of mini-polls, the number of which depends on the number of prompts winning in each mini-polls
- Suggestions for each poll will be opened until 15 suggestions are received and “seconded”.
- The voting thread will open the day after suggestions go live. You can find the schedule here.

Rules:
- Each member can only suggest OR second one prompt
- Suggestions close after 15 total seconded prompts

When suggesting and seconding, feel free to provide examples and descriptions that may help other members understand the prompt better. These descriptions and examples will be copied over to the voting thread for further discussion.

As always, please express any and all feedback (respectfully, of course), either here or in The Wild Discussion.


Moving on to Voting:
1. A book set wholly or partly in an underworld
2. A book with a character who wears a mask
3. A vacation book
4. A book of secrets, lies, or deception
5. A book from a non-human point of view
6. A book with ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ in the title
7. A book related to fashion or the fashion industry
8. A book connected to a place you’ve lived in
9. A book with a main character that has a pet
10. A book with a character who is not heterosexual OR cis-gender
11. A book set in a fictional location
12. A book with a friend or loved one's name on the cover
13. A book where part of or all of the story is set in an Olympic host city
14. A book involving serendipity
15. A book related in some way to parenting a child of any age

To Be Seconded:
- A book by an author who has the same initials as you
- A book about improving yourself

Suggestions will be a bit delayed, probably closer to 12:30!

I tried StoryGraph for a while, but updating my personal spreadsheet, my Instagram, GR, and StoryGraph every time I finished a book was too much haha! I do like the graphs and stuff they put together, but my spreadsheet does similar things so I dropped it.

Yea, I know there was some pushback about LGBT authors feeling like they needed to "out" themselves if they wrote LGBT characters, or authors revealing mental illnesses/disabilities when writing characters facing the same stuff.

I agree Jillian - we have so many more genre prompts than we normally ever have!

I wouldn't be too down on the list just yet. We are only 1/3 through the voting process, and the prompts that are more creative often get in closer to the end of the polling when there's less competition for creativity. Having a poll with 15 excellent options means that the votes get split across them all.

Shakespeare had enough up votes to make the top of the list, but it also had a lot of down votes (not enough to be considered polarizing, but a significant amount). It could be worth considering that before resubmitting - prompts like that often do better with rewording than resubmitting as is. (Same thing with mushrooms, obviously, with the polarizing designation)

Results are posted for Poll 6!

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The next round of suggestions will open around noon CDT on Tuesday, August 6.

Another round of results!

Top:
A book that deals with time travel, alternate universes, or alternate timelines
A book by an author you enjoyed but haven't gotten around to reading again for some time

Bottom:
A book about or involving modern media

Close Call:
A book by an author whose publishing career spans at least ten years

Polarizing:
A book connected to mushrooms

The next round of suggestions will open around noon CDT on Tuesday, August 6.

I have a spreadsheet that tracks mine!

Realistic Fiction 19%
Sci-Fi 15%
Fantasy 12%
Historical Fiction 18%
Mystery/Thriller 11%
Romance/Rom-Com 8%
Nonfiction (Non-Memoir) 1%
Memoir/Biography 10%
Other 5%

Not super surprising that contemporary fiction is in my top, and historical fiction is always pretty high too.

Pamela wrote: "Where's "A book with a body part in the title (heart, bones, teeth, skin, blood, etc)" I was so excited to vote for that!"

We didn't choose it for the final list, I guess! Sorry - there were SO MANY good ones on the 2018 list!

That's a perfect definition, Dixie. Basically, a book featuring a marginalized character written by an author coming from the same community. While that's obviously more common in book publishing now, back in 2018, it was a lot harder for marginalized authors to get published. This prompt was an effort to push people to read more marginalized authors.

Jill wrote: "Seeing this list reminds me of how much I loved the 2018 Challenge!"

Agreed! The mods had a hard time narrowing it down to 15.

Tracy, to answer your question, each mod picks 5 prompts we liked the most. It was a tough choice for this list!

Oops thanks Tracy! I am very bad at copying and pasting lol.

And I agree. I downvoted Clue this time around because I remember how hard it was in 2018!

I don't think Dixie was being negative about people who don't participate in the discussion. It's more that, with so many people voting, the more generic prompts rise to the top because those are the ones that are more likely to be thrown in someone's poll as a "well I have a few more votes to cast, might as well put it on this one", while the more unique ones are more polarizing.

Voting is open for the Anniversary List: 2018 poll!

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And today is the last day to vote on Poll 6 for our 2025 list!

It is now time to vote for our ANNIVERSARY LIST: Throwing it back to 2016!

For more information about this special Anniversary List, see this thread.

Voting will open in the morning of Sunday, August 4 and results will be posted in the morning of Friday, August 9 (CDT 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 favorite and least favorite prompts (you can also use less than 8 votes)
- You can find examples of acceptable voting practices on the Introduction thread.

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.

As this is an ANNIVERSARY LIST poll, only ONE prompt will make the final list. Use your votes wisely!

Poll Prompts:
7. A gothic novel
8. An "own voices" book
10. An author's debut book
12. A book set in Africa or South America
15. A book with an unique format/writing structure
16. A narrative nonfiction
17. A book you expect to make you laugh
24. A book with a map
26. A book with a text only cover
29. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or title (lead pipe, revolver, rope, candlestick, dagger, wrench)
37. A Women's Prize for Fiction winner or nominee
38. A science or science fiction book
41. A book by an author with the same first and last initials
43. A book with a title that is a whole sentence
48. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth)

VOTE HERE: https://forms.gle/QzFj5YgaZ647QfBAA

My best book was The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Intriguing, captivating, a little gritty, but an excellent summer camp book! I used it for the land prompt.

Thanks for taking care of that Gail. On a spreadsheet that is so heavily trafficked like this one, things get a bit wonky sometimes.

We've been averaging over 200 votes for regular polls and this poll had 162 votes.

No, there were about 50 less votes on this poll than on our normal polls. I'm not surprised, as this is an extra challenge and we may have people who are not voting because they won't be doing it.

It will be an additional 10 prompts on the challenge. Optional! We will still have our regular 52 prompts for the year.