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

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

This post will be updated after each mini-poll as topics are confirmed. Please note this is not the final reading order; that will be decided after all 52 prompts have been selected.

LIST PROGRESS: 52/52 Prompts Selected

TITLE
A book whose title has ten or fewer letters
Two books with a pair of opposites in their titles: Book 1
Two books with a pair of opposites in their titles: Book 2
A book title that could be a country song
A book with an animal, vegetable (plant), or mineral in the title
A book with a weird or intriguing title


COVER
A book with a cover that has an image of something that starts with A, T, or Y
A book with a serpentine element on the cover
A book with waves on the cover
A book with a sunset vibes on the cover
A book with a cover that has a building or cityscape
A book with a common household object on the cover


CHARACTER
A book involving a "group" with at least 4 members that's not a family
A book about witches, goddesses, or nuns
A book featuring adult friendships
A book with a main character who is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal


SETTING
A book set in a fictional location
A book set in a manor, mansion, or estate
A book set primarily in nature
A book with a coastal setting
A book set in the winter
A book set underground, under sea or in an underworld
A history or historical fiction book set prior to 1925


THEME/GENRE/PLOT
A science fiction or fantasy novel written by a woman
A mystery or true crime book
Two books with a connection from different genres: Book 1
Two books with a connection from different genres: Book 2
A haunting book
A book that deals with time travel, alternate universes, or alternate timelines
A book of secrets, lies, or deception
A book with a character dealing with death
A book that involves digging up the past
A collection of short stories or novellas, essays, poetry, or a mix of various brief writings


AUTHOR/PUBLISHING/PAGE LENGTH
A book published in 2025
A book by an author with a common noun in their name
A book by an author you enjoyed but haven't gotten around to reading again for some time
A book by an author that uses 3 names
A translated novel from Asia
A book by an Irish author
A book by an author whose publishing career spans at least ten years


RECOMMENDATIONS (GR, FRIENDS, CHALLENGES, LISTS, AWARDS)
A book that fits a prompt from the 2016 ATY list
A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads in 2024 or 2025
A book from the NPR “Books We Love” lists
A prompt suggestion for this year that did not make the list
A book that has been long-listed for the Tournament of Books in any year


OTHER
A book that involves art, music, dancing or acting
A book connected in some way to any collective noun for animals
A book relating to fire
A book connected to something mentioned in the Do Re Mi song
A book related to one of the traditional full moon names
A book you'd consider a comfort read
A monster book

THE RULES

As always, our first rule is the Golden Rule. We expect all group members to treat each other with respect and dignity. Let’s remember that we’re all doing the challenge differently and for different reasons, so avoid judging others’ choices or suggestions.

Voting Rules
- Each person may only suggest or second one topic per poll.
- Each person may only vote once in each poll. The survey site allows us to identify people who vote multiple times and duplicate votes will be excluded. Surveys that we receive without links to Goodreads profiles will also be excluded.
- Prompts that are in the bottom of any poll cannot be resubmitted in later polls unless substantially reworked.
- Prompts that are submitted in 3 polls and do not make it to the final list cannot be resubmitted in later polls unless substantially reworked.

Multi-Week Polls
- We will have one dedicated poll for multi-week prompts.
- Multi-week prompts are NOT allowed to be submitted in any other poll.
- We will cap the amount of weeks used by multi-week prompts at 6 weeks total. This could be filled by a combination of three 2-week prompts, a 4-week prompt and a 2-week prompt, or two 3-week prompts.
This is not a requirement to meet, however. If the winning prompts are a 2-week and a 3-week, putting us at a total of 5, we will allow that to stand. We will just restrict the total weeks used to 6 maximum.

Pre-Poll
- We will have one pre-poll that begins the week before our first suggestions thread opens.
- This pre-poll will consist of the prompts chosen during our May Mini-thon.
- Voting rules for this poll will posted on the Voting thread when the pre-poll opens.

When Voting
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. We’ve introduced this for two reasons:

1. On a few occasions in each poll, people have used more than the allotted number of votes, either because they aren’t familiar with the rules or just by mistake. When this happens our only option is to disregard the vote as we can’t identify the voter to ask them to resubmit. By asking for your profile address we’ll be able to message you and ask you to vote again if you’ve accidentally used more than the allotted number of votes.

2. Unfortunately a very small number of people have voted more than once per poll and so we are asking for this information to prevent duplicate votes.

This thread is only for moderator announcements. For discussion about the 2025 reading list please go to The Wild Discussion thread, and for questions about the process, please see our FAQs thread.

The entire Around the Year challenge list is generated by the group members. We enjoyed the process so much in the past nine years that we are creating another list for 2025.

The process will start on July 1 and we aim to have a completed list by sometime in September or October. Everyone is very welcome to participate, whether this is your first or tenth year.

How it will work:
The topics will be chosen through a series of mini-polls. For each mini-poll there will be a suggestion thread where you can propose a topic. A suggestion needs to be seconded by one other person before it’s included in the poll. Once the required number of suggestions have been seconded the thread will close for new suggestions. There will be a break of around 24 hours between the suggestions thread closing and the poll opening for voting. This is to allow people to discuss the options before voting opens.

The mods will create a poll for members to choose their favorite suggestions. Each member has eight votes, which you can use to vote for your “top” and/or “bottom” choices. (See below for an example.) Polls will stay open for three days, and the mods will announce the results shortly after. The number of winning suggestions from each poll may vary depending on the distribution of votes.

Then a new suggestion thread will open and we’ll repeat the process until we have chosen 50 topics for the 2025 list (two topics will be chosen by winners of two reading competitions within the group).

How to participate:
*If you want to suggest a topic you can do so whenever a new suggestion thread opens. You don’t have to suggest a topic in order to participate in the poll.
*When a new poll is posted follow the link to the survey site and vote for your favorite and/or least favorite prompts.
*Look out for the results and the opening of a new suggestion thread.
*The topics chosen for the 2025 list will be posted in this thread and the topics that were suggested but not chosen will be posted on a separate thread (to be linked here later).

Voting Process
You have eight votes in total which you can use to vote for your top and bottom choices. You can use less than eight votes if you wish.

For example:
Voter 1
Top: Suggestions 1, 4, 7, 9
Bottom: Suggestions 2, 10, 11, 12
Total: 8 votes

Voter 2
Top: Suggestions 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14
Bottom: None
Total: 8 votes

Voter 3
Top: Suggestions 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14
Bottom: Suggestions 3, 10
Total: 8 votes

Voter 4
Top: Suggestions 1, 6
Bottom: Suggestion 12
Total: 3 votes

Hey everyone! It's time to get started on our 2025 list making! Can you believe it?! Some rules for this thread:

- This thread is meant for brainstorming prompts for upcoming polls. Please keep all discussion about prompts that are currently being voted on in the proper (suggestions, voting, results) thread.

- If you have questions about the voting process, please see THIS THREAD. We cannot guarantee an answer to your question if you post it in the Wild Discussion.

- As always, please respect the members of this group. We are a large group made up of unique perspectives, and we want to treat each other with dignity and respect. Any violation of these rules will result in 1) a warning or 2) removal from the group.

Happy planning!

Yes!

For pen names, when in doubt, use the name on the book that the author wrote. I think what Jackie meant in that FAQ is that you can't use J.K. Rowling for a Robert Gailbraith book, or you can't use an "also known as" when the book was penned under a different name.

Another example is that you *should* use Christina Lauren for a book written by "Christina Lauren", even though that is a penname for two authors who write and publish together.

Although we are requiring first and last initial, so I don't know that Bono (or Madonna, or Prince, etc.) would work since we need two initials there.

Basically, when we are checking to see if a book fits a prompt, we are using the author name on Goodreads, not any other names the author may have that would fit.

EDIT: Realizing that I thought y'all were asking about the FAQ where it talks about author name prompts.

For the pen name prompt, I think any author who writes books under multiple names, OR writes a book under a name that is not their legal name, would count. Use your discretion, and if we have a question about it, we will ask you to clarify your reasoning.

Ciara, if they wrote the books under the name before they legally changed it, then it would count. But if they legally changed their name and that's the only way they are known to the literary and outside world, it would not.

Dubhease, I'd say Bono is not a pen name... it's the only way he is known in the world, so it would not count. Think of a pen name as a difference between the literary world and the regular world.

Educational! It's been edited.

Oh of course, that's fine! You're welcome to join any of our challenges whenever you want to!

Oh dang, I didn't realize we had run out of room there! I added a few more, though the challenge ends Friday so I don't think there will be many people adding their names now.

As someone with an 18 month old, the omg-life-is-HARD newborn stage is still a fresh memory. I know it was helpful to read books that showed that I was not alone in it... no one can really prepare you for how hard it is, even if you are paying attention. Lord knows I took the classes and listened to the podcasts and read the books and I still had no idea what hit me.

That being said, now that we are into toddlerhood, I don't have much of an urge to read the newborn accounts... if only because there's a bit of PTSD from it.

I don't know that I'll finish May on time. Failed with April, starting from behind with May, got distracted with my own May Mini-thon... the circle of life.

Currently one book behind and it's KILLING me, but I'm also reading two books that don't go towards ATY so... I am my own worst enemy.

It's nearly summer for those of us in the northern hemisphere! Let's talk about our favorite books of May.

Answer the following questions:

- Title
- Author
- Rating
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio)
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable)
- Brief reason why it was the best

Best Books Listopia

Thanks yall! Leaving education to go work with my husband at the business he started so it will definitely be a good change!

MAY 21: Hey all! I am having a job change and needed to move the Community Spreadsheet to my personal email address as owner (rather than my work one).

The link for the new Community Spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

It should have retained all of your information (though it will not have the version history from before the move). If you have any issues, please reach out!

A forewarning for all of you spreadsheeters who may have the link to the Community Spreadsheet saved somewhere.

I'm moving jobs, and I (unfortunately) made the community spreadsheet on my work account. So I (finally) caught it when no one was on the doc, and copied it over onto my personal account.

This generates a new link and removes all of the revision history so... downsides. But upside is that I'll be able to control it from here on out.

THE NEW SPREADSHEET LINK IS HERE: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

I've also changed it on the homepage and changed the old one to just give the link to the new one. Eep.

Haha I was trying to keep it "mini" and was originally going to run it Monday-Friday, but I kept expanding it so it was nearly a normal length read-a-thon lol

That's right, NancyJ! That's why we are giving 3 votes... plenty of room for you to vote how you'd like to vote!

Correct, Edie. It will be the pre-poll before the 2025 polling process begins!

All good! It's officially closed now!

Sorry y'all, I closed it because the read-a-thon was over yesterday. I'll open it again and close it when I wake up tomorrow morning... please do not add any books that you did not finish before going to sleep on Saturday!