Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
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Group Rules and Member Introductions
Hi I'm Kim and I joined to get some good ideas for books to read and keep me motivated to stick to my plan of reading more books. I read a lot of historical fiction but really enjoy reading a variety of books. I honestly dont need help finding books that i want to read (i always find too many) but i do like how the topics for each week keep me a little more focused. Im looking forward to being a part of the group. Happy New Year!
Sabrina wrote: "Hi guys! My name's Sabrina, I'm a sophomore psychology/pre-med student at Miami University. I've been on goodreads a while now but more in a categorizing capacity then participating in community re..."Hi I'm Karen and I just found this group yesterday. Just in time! In 2017 I did a 26 book challenge and I easily read 28 using most of the prompts for a different challenge. I know I want to read a lot more this year because my to-read list is growing way faster than my read one. I also want to waste less time online. I'm hoping this challenge will keep me busy reading instead.
Sabrina, I'm curious if you have a running list of Vlogbrothers book recommendations you could share. I don't think I want to read all of them, but I would love some inspiration!
Welcome everyone, I hope you enjoy the challenge and have a great reading year. I’m excited to see so many historical fiction fans as that’s one of my favourite genres too and it’s always nice to get recommendations from other people in the group. I’ll be interested to see what historical fiction books you include in your 2018 plans.
Karen wrote: "Sabrina wrote: "Hi guys! My name's Sabrina, I'm a sophomore psychology/pre-med student at Miami University. I've been on goodreads a while now but more in a categorizing capacity then participating..."I have a partial list. As i watch the videos I write in a little notebook any book title mentioned or seen. And I also have a "vlogbrothers" shelf on my goodreads which I can link here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
It's pretty slow going since the first year they posted a video every weekday. But after that it should go by a lot quicker lol.
Hi! I'm Diana. A single mom and lawyer. This is my first time with a group like this. I've been a Goodreads member for a while now and I've been participating in the generic Reading Challenge of which I always fail. I used to be an avid and voracious reader, but with law school and then motherhood, I just failed to find the time or patience or both. I should mention that there is no way I am going to be able to read 52 books this year. It's not happening. There is simply no way. However, three things: First, I hope that this group will keep and hold me to task in increasing my reading for pleasure level from 1-2 books per year to at least one per month (12-13 is my ultimate goal). Second, I will be challenging myself to kill multiple birds with one stone so that I can say that I read a book in each category, just not a single book per category because I just can't with work and mom duties. Third, I'm typically a slow reader, so unless it's a YA novel, getting through one book in a week just wouldn't happen. I really like to immerse myself in the words and comprehend and critique as I go. When I read fast, a book becomes the "cliff notes" version and I lose important dialogue and nuances and I usually have to go back to reread passages that I missed because I don't understand why something is happening.
So that's my story, please accept me for who I am and good luck to everyone! Happy New Year!
Mod
@Diana, maybe you could read to your children and add those children's books to your list?! One book (adult read) per month to yourself and one children's book per month to your children? It would be amazing if your Reading Challenge could broaden their horizons as well! To me this challenge is all about increasing my reading and reading out of my comfort zone. 52 is just a number, in my opinion you're allowed to set your own goals. (and please forgive me my English. I'm Dutch so I'm having some trouble expressing myself as accurate as I would in Dutch)
Stella, it is a good idea to complete the challenge with both adult and children book!Don't worry about your English, it's also not my first language and I write some weird complicated sentences sometimes ;) I did however find that my writing improved massively since I started writing on this group!
Welcome Michele!
Stella wrote: "@Diana, maybe you could read to your children and add those children's books to your list?! One book (adult read) per month to yourself and one children's book per month to your children? It would ..."Well said !! There are several of us taking on picture book versions of the challenge this year :-)
I think all the people who aren't native English speakers do excellent at expressing themselves. I think about it often actually, and I'm super impressed. But then again, I'm monolingual, so I'm just super impressed in general by people who speak & write in multiple languages.
The English language is a required course at Dutch schools. As is German. And French. And we are all required to pass the English exam at our high school exit examination for graduation. But it is easier for us: we watch movies and listen songs in your language every day. How many Dutch bands make it to your Spotify and I'm guessing no Dutch soap opera's on BBC or CBS ;-) But I'm trying to read 5 Dutch books in 7 days right now, so I can take my time with the books I've planned to read in English. I have no problem reading in English but it does take more time and effort (concentration, looking up some words in the dictionary).
Diana wrote: "Hi! I'm Diana. A single mom and lawyer. This is my first time with a group like this. I've been a Goodreads member for a while now and I've been participating in the generic Reading Challenge of wh..."Laura wrote: "Diana, it's not a problem if you only finish a portion of the challenge. I only completed about half last year. Your goals sound perfect for you!"Hey, look around and you will find several of us who created lists for all of the children's and pictures books. I plan on using them also. There are some great ideas here.
Hi! I'm Caitlyn! Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), I still call Seattle home. I half-heartedly did this challenge last year, but felt like I couldn't commit to being a part of the discussion. Even though I plan to read less this year, and am not sure I'll make through the 52 books in this challenge, I'd like to be here to talk about them.
Hi! I'm Maggie. I live in Nashville. This is my first time doing this challenge. A few years ago, I used to love doing the seasonal ones, but now with two kiddos and work, this seems way more doable! It was so fun assigning books for the tasks and I really focused on using books already in my home/kindle library. Looking forward to getting to know you all!
Hi! Im Lee. This is my first time doing this challenge! I love to read and usually can make it through 50 books in a year, I would love to try and do it with certain topics. It will be a good challenge! I look foward to this.
I've been posting a lot the last few days but am just now getting 'round to make my introduction. So...hi!I live in the middle of nowhere in Ohio with my wife and seven cats. I am employed as an administrative specialist at a local college.
Reading is just one of my many hobbies. My favorite genres are science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, and historical fiction.
I look forward to being part of this group. Good luck with the challenge everybody!
Hi all!! I'm Ericka. I live in México, and this is the first time I've joined a group to do a challenge! It looks very fun and I'm going to give it my best.I mostly read YA and Computer Science related books (it's my second career, the first one was focused on IT Management), but this year I want to try more genres!
I'm really excited to be a part of this group, since all of you seem like very nice people! I wish us all luck with the challenge :)
Hi there! I'm newly retired and reading and listening to Overdrive books constantly. From Cincinnati, Ohio. Read mostly historical fiction but love to venture into other genres. The suggestions in the 52 topics are intriguing so here we go. Gotta to see if the 6 books I've read so far can squeeze into them! Just finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Hi, I'm Agata. I tried to do this challenge last year, but I failed so now I will try my hardest to succeed. I live in Poland and I've graduated from university quite recently. Now, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my adult life :) My favourite genres are fantasy and science fiction and I really like YA, but to be honest I will read everything as long as it's interesting.
Good luck to all the readers with this challenge!
Rose wrote: "Hi there! I'm newly retired and reading and listening to Overdrive books constantly. From Cincinnati, Ohio. Read mostly historical fiction but love to venture into other genres. The suggestions in ..."small world, I'm also from cincinnati :D
Hello everyone, German bookworm here :)I am joining you from over at the PopSugar Reading Challenge (which I am doing for the fourth time this year), but this is the first time I am doing two prompt-based challenges at once. I did not really plan that, but somebody in the other group asked about other challenges, and then I remembered that I was done pretty fast with the PS challenge last year, and I just wanted to see if I could do it.
My average yearly reading amounts to a little over 100 books, so I should be able to do the two challenges and use separate books for them. I do not want to count books for two prompts at once, not even across challenges. That may change later in the year, though ... depends on how I'm doing.
Another thing: I have a mile-high TBR pile, which I am giving priority this year. So I tried to prefill the prompts (both for this challenge and the PS challenge) with existing books from my TBR, because I do not want to get more new books than I absolutely have to (like new releases from my favorite authors etc.); the goal is to decimate the pile of unread books already here^^ That is why I have only pledged 45 books here so far (those I was able to fill from the TBR). Later in the year I will check how I'm doing and how both challenges are coming along, and then I might or might not tackle the remaining categories (some are pretty far out of my comfort zone).
I'll try to catch up and then get into pace, alternating books between the two challenges as I go. I'm very curious to see how it will work out, if it even does.
Thanks for having me :)
Welcome to the group Conny. I hope you enjoy the challenge. Quite a few of us are doing the Popsugar challenge, or other reading challenges alongside this one. If you’re interested you can see people’s plans, and add your own if you like, in this folder.
Hi, just joined and trying to navigate my way around right now and figure things out. I'm from California and teach high school English. Looking forward to reading some books and sharing some ideas about those books.
Welcome Franky! If you're in the mood for some frantic reading, we're currently doing a week-long read-a-thon. You can join us in this folder.
I'm Lori and I live in London. This looks like such a fun challenge. I'm looking forward to joining in with the group.
Hi everyone, I'm Melody. Not exactly new to GR, but in the past I really only used the platform to keep tabs on the books that I've read rather than take advantage of the social media aspect of it. I've only (very) recently decided to be more social (eep!) because I realized I want to have a venue on which to discuss the books I read!I'm kind of haphazard with my reading selections and genres, and though I tend to be drawn towards whimsical or fantastical elements in stories, I don't think I read a whole lot of straight fantasy. I've taken it upon myself to try and read a book (or two or three) from every country as an ongoing personal challenge, but I hope this group will help me give a bit of structure in deciding which of the books on my massively huge TBR list to read next.
Hi Melody and welcome to our group! I hope you'll like it here and you'll benefit from discussing books with us 😃A few of us are also trying to read from every country, you're welcome to join the discussion here.
Hi all, I'm Dan from the UK and I'm a reader... I'm particularly a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, but also love dystopian fiction too. I'm joining this group as I'm hoping it will force me to expand my reading habits a bit further because I tend to love most genres I read, I just don't have the impetus to try new things often.
I'm looking forward to getting involved with the group!
DSM wrote: "Hi all, I'm Dan from the UK and I'm a reader... I'm particularly a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, but also love dystopian fiction too. I'm joining this group as I'm hoping it will force me to expand ..."
Welcome to the group! We are in the midst of voting to create the 2019 list. I hope you will jump into that after you've had time to orient yourself to the group :)
DSM wrote: "Hi all, I'm Dan from the UK and I'm a reader... I'm particularly a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, but also love dystopian fiction too. I'm joining this group as I'm hoping it will force me to expand ..."
You would not believe how this group got me out of my genre and into new books and, surprisingly, I liked the majority of them. A few I had to push myself to finish and only one I tossed away. Good luck to you.
Hello, I'm Sara. I picked up a link to this group from a friend's group listings. I love challenges and this looks like something I would enjoy. I'm late to the party, but I might try to double up and do all 52 before the end of the year or at least do the second half of 2018. I find doing challenges helps to push me out of my comfort zone a little, which is often a good thing.
Welcome Sarah! You can also try to fit the books read until now in the challenge prompt if you want :)
Thanks, Sophie. I believe I will use this challenge for the second half of the year and just plug in books I read from today. I might not finished, but that isn't truly the point--the point is to read something new or different and to enjoy it. (I have to remind myself of that now and then).
This group is great to remind us of it! I never thought I’d have broaden my horizons this much before joining 😃
Hi, my name is Charlotte. Recent GR member and first time ATY participant. The topics are very diverse and interesting this year especially compared to some other reading challenges out there. I look forward to completing this one.Fav genres: History, fantasy, sci-fi, literary fiction, biography, science, geography, historical fiction, horror, and mythology.
Welcome Charlotte! I hope you're going to have fun in our group :)Don't hesitate to participate in next year's list in the Projects folder.
Hello. I was from the 2015 group. I was quite active there and I think a bit in 2016 too. I went AWOL in 2017, and only now have I decided to join the 2018 challenge when 2018 is already halfway done. (Oh how time flies.)I've been reading mostly series this year, or books by the same author (which also felt like they were practically the same books just with different character names), and thought I needed to expand my horizons, which I remembered that this challenge did!
I'm glad to see this group still going at it. :D
Welcome back, Ana! It’s nice to have you back. 😁
My name is Liz, & I just recently discovered this group. After having a chance to browse through it more, I am so excited to throw myself into the challenge! I have a weakness for reading challenges, & this particular one is so straightforward, flexible & fun! I'm already trying to fit as many books as I have already read this year into the categories. I wish I could read faster because I want to be able to complete all of the prompts by the end of the year. Thank you for all the work that is put into this group, so that it can be an active & fun place to come to.
Welcome Liz, I hope you’re going to have fun with us! Don’t hesitate to participate in next year’s list too!
Hi, I´m Johanne. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I´m a children´s librarian at a large public library, I have a master´s degree in children´s literature and have a side job as a reviewer supporting the Danish public libraries´ acqusition of children´s and YA books. Last year I didn´t read much else than workrelated children´s and YA books, and romance. I got tired of wasting my selfchosen reading time with romance (nothing wrong with that, but it gets old), so I decided to join the Popsugar challenge. Found the GR group, lots of nice people raving about AtY in the Popsugar group, I got curious. Today I´m procrastinating (I´m supposed to be writing two reviews that are past their deadline...) and instead started counting how many books I´ve already read this year that fits the AtY. Turns out it´s 32! So here I am :)
Johanne wrote: "Hi, I´m Johanne. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I´m a children´s librarian at a large public library, I have a master´s degree in children´s literature and have a side job as a reviewer supporting ..."Welcome! Your jobs sound cool.
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Hamnet (other topics)Like Water for Chocolate (other topics)
It (other topics)
Invisible (other topics)
The Leavers (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Nnedi Okorafor (other topics)William Saroyan (other topics)
Hamlin Garland (other topics)
I primarily read for pleasure as I'm trying to fall asleep. I read daily with my preschoolers at one of my part time jobs. And I love reading with my younger daughter.
Happy New Year!