Sara's Better Late Than Never 2018 List

[Sara]

✔ 1. A book with the letters A, T & Y in the title The Day of the Scorpion
✔ 2. A book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list Middlesex
✔ 3. A book from the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards (link) Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
✔ 4. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #1 Earth (in title, cover, content, setting, author...) Airs Above the Ground
✔ 5. A book about or inspired by real events The Winter Sea
✔ 6. A book originally written in a language other than English Jenny
✔ 7. A gothic novel The Hamlet
✔ 8. An "own voices" book* WILDCARD A Division of the Spoils
✔ 9. A book with a body part in the title (heart, bones, teeth, skin, blood, etc) A Morbid Taste for Bones
✔ 10. An author's debut book (their first book to be published) Lie Down in Darkness
✔ 11. A literary fiction All Quiet on the Western Front
✔ 12. A book set in Africa or South America Cry, the Beloved Country
✔ 13. A book with a plot centered around a secret (forbidden love, spies, secret societies, etc) The Book of Lies
✔ 14. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #2 Fire The Girl Who Played with Fire
✔ 15. A book with an unique format/writing structure A Tale for the Time Being
✔ 16. A narrative nonfiction Testament of Youth
✔ 17. A book you expect to make you laugh Cold Comfort Farm
✔ 18. A book with a location in the title The Towers of Silence
✔ 19. A book nominated for the Edgar Award or by a Grand master author (books & authors) The Eighth Circle
✔ 20. A book rated 5 stars by at least one of your friends Provinces of Night
✔ 21. A book written in first person perspective The Queen's Fool
✔ 22. A book you have high expectations or hope for Arrowsmith
✔ 23. A medical or legal thriller State of Wonder
✔ 24. A book with a map A Wizard of Earthsea
✔ 25. A book with an antagonist/villain point of view Wormwood: A Drama of Paris
✔ 26. A book with a text only cover
✔ 27. A book about surviving a hardship (war, famine, major disasters, serious illness, etc) The Taming of the Queen
✔ 28. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #3 Water A Tidewater Morning
✔ 29. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or title (lead pipe, revolver, rope, candlestick, dagger, wrench)
✔ 30. A short book The Frozen Thames
✔ 31. A book set in a country you'd like to visit but have never been to The Stormy Petrel
✔ 32. An alternate history book 11/22/63
✔ 33. A book connected (title, cover, content) to a word "born" in the same year as you (link) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
✔ 34. A suggestion from the AtY 2018 polls, that didn't win but was polarizing or a close-call (link) The Return of the Soldier - Author's name is point of compass
✔ 35. A book featuring a murder The Angel's Game
✔ 36. A book published in the last 3 years (2016, 2017, 2018) by an author you haven't read before The Essex Serpent
✔ 37. A Women's Prize for Fiction winner or nominee (link1, link2) A God in Ruins
✔ 38. A science book or a science fiction book Journey to the Center of the Earth
✔ 39. A book with a form of punctuation in the title The Taxidermist's Daughter
✔ 40. A book from Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime list (link) The Road
✔ 41. A book by an author with the same first and last initials The Power and the Glory
✔ 42. A book that takes place on, in, or underwater The Tilted World
✔ 43. A book with a title that is a whole sentence Death Comes to Pemberley
✔ 44. A ghost story The Shadowy Horses
✔ 45. A book that intimidates/ scares you The Possessed
✔ 46. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #4 Air The Dove in the Eagle's Nest
✔ 47. A book where the main character (or author) is of a different ethnic origin, religion, or sexual identity than your own The Kite Runner
✔ 48. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth) The Secret History
✔ 49. A book from one of the Goodreads Best Books of the Month lists (link) The Night Circus
✔ 50. A book with a warm atmosphere (centered on family, friendship, love or summer) A Man Called Ove
✔ 51. An award-winning short story or short story collection Stone Mattress: Nine Tales
✔ 52. A book published in 2018 Varina

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Welcome! I joined in June last year, so I know the pressure! Good luck!

[Tammy]

Good to see you here, Sara! The ATY challenge is fun and I have no doubt that you will enjoy finding the right book for each weekly topic.

[Sara]

Thanks, Emily. I will try not to have a fit if I fail to finish this year.

Thanks, Tammy. I picked this up from your profile! All those challenges at the Classics group were obviously not enough torture for me. lol.

[Tammy]

Tell me about it, Sara. I'm doing A-Z Title, A-Z Author, a triple threat on this one (156 books), the Classics Bingo and a self imposed selection of 88 books. And I still find myself doing side reads. You are doing the Pulitzer Winners (I think). Do you have a Century challenge going? That is one that I'd like to be an ongoing challenge but I never set it up.

[Pam]

Hi Sara! Welcome to the group! I recognize your profile pic from another group, maybe SRC? This group is a lot of fun! Enjoy! 📚📚📚

[Sara]

Tammy wrote: "Tell me about it, Sara. I'm doing A-Z Title, A-Z Author, a triple threat on this one (156 books), the Classics Bingo and a self imposed selection of 88 books. And I still find myself doing side rea..."

I have about six on-going challenges, including the Pulitzer one, and three of the challenges at the Classics group. I finished my Bingo challenge already, so I thought (bravely) that this would be a substitute for that. I don't have the Century challenge, but I have a challenge to read a book from the 100 years preceding my birth that I am remiss in keeping up with.

Sounds like you and I are both people who tend to bite off more than they can chew?

[Sara]

Pam wrote: "Hi Sara! Welcome to the group! I recognize your profile pic from another group, maybe SRC? This group is a lot of fun! Enjoy! 📚📚📚"

Exactly right, Pam. I do the SRC erratically. I have not yet posted any of my reads there this summer, but I have been keeping the list. I seldom let a list dictate what I read, but somehow it is fun to see how many things I can fit into one. I can never finish an SRC list, which is frustrating, (so I generally set myself a score--like 600 and shoot for that), but I should be able to finish the number of books required here.

Lovely to see you here and thanks so much for the welcome.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I’d love to know what groups you are all in! I do this one and the Wacky Reading Challenges group, but I’m looking for more fun groups to join.

[Sara]

Emily wrote: "I’d love to know what groups you are all in! I do this one and the Wacky Reading Challenges group, but I’m looking for more fun groups to join."

I do the challenges at the Catching Up on Classics group. The group is meant to encourage classics but some other genres fit fine into the challenges. They have bingo, a women's writers challenge, and an old and new challenge. They also have a place to chart your own personal challenges where I am doing the Pulitzer Prize Winners. https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

The other group is https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
This group has a list somewhat like the list here. The list sets tasks and each task is worth a given amount of points. The list changes every three months...thus "seasonal". Lots of variety and lots of fun.

Check them out, Emily. Nice to meet you, BTW.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Just joined the Classics group! Thanks for the suggestion/invite!

[Sara]

Great! I'll see you there.

[Sara]

Finished my first entry The Stormy Petrel.

[Sara]

Passed the halfway point. I would have to keep the same pace to finish and I'm ticking off the easier ones, so I'm not sure I will. But, I am enjoying this and will definitely plan to play from the beginning next year.

[Tracy]

OMG I have no idea how you guys all do the SRC challenges lol. I was in that group at one point and participated, but then un-joined. I've seen it mentioned here recently a couple of times and decided to check it out again...so many rules!!!! I got overwhelmed and ran away lmao.

[Sara]

LOL. Interesting, because I dropped that group when I found this one. It was entirely too time consuming--more time keeping track than reading books. I found that they were constantly disallowing books I entered for crazy reasons (she disallowed a book because she felt the color on the cover wasn't really yellow but light orange--geez, I was holding the book and it looked yellow to me.) Not worth the effort. I'm enjoying this group MUCH more.

[Tracy]

Sara wrote: "LOL. Interesting, because I dropped that group when I found this one. It was entirely too time consuming--more time keeping track than reading books. I found that they were constantly disallowing b..."

I just don't understand stringent book rules, I mean I get following the prompts , but honestly my brain was frying reading all the restrictions in the rules threads, and I really get annoyed with book policing. It takes all of the fun out of the challenge. ATY is definitely my absolute favorite group of bookish people. Last night I re-joined the Pop Sugar and Book Riot groups, which I had also dropped last year because of policing, but I thought I'd give it another try and get involved since Im working on them. So right now I'm trying to catch up on the threads I'm behind on and probably clogging up everyones feeds lol. But I'm almost done.

The only other group that Im in and I LOVE is called Bound Together. Its a book club for women only, which does 3 reads a month and you can participate in one , all three or none. Its a really great group of supportive women with some great chats and everyone who is participating really gets to know each other. Some of them have even met up in real life :-)

they do a few simple challenges and activities, Bingo, Quarterly challenge and most recently a book -to-movie- group activity, and a short story of the month thread. Its a great relaxed group that Ive been involved in , I think since I started GRs in 2012. A nice break from the challenge groups.

[Rachelnyc]

I've given up on a few groups because of weird policies and power trips by the mods. This is definitely my favorite group but I am going to check out the Classics group and the group Tracy just mentioned.

Sara, you're doing great for having just started in June!

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I'm in Wacky Reading Challenges group (after seeing Jody posting in it) and it's really fun. Lots of laid back challenges and a variety of types of challenges (Spell Out, prompt-based, word search, etc.)... I've never had them deny me a book as qualifying. They take the position like they do here, where it's your challenge and you can fulfill it how you see fit.

[Sara]

I think when they get into police mode they lose the point. The point is to encourage people to read. If you are reading, why do they care if it stretches the bounds of the prompt? Not like you are competing or there is a prize at the end. I think the idea here is to make reading a bit more fun...and that works for me.

I've made a note of all these other interesting groups you guys have mentioned. I am a member of too many already and I try to participate if I join, but you never know when the urge for something new will hit.

Thanks, Rachelnyc, I wish I had known and could have started on time, but I will do the best I can to finish anyway. I am looking forward to next year and trying to do the prompts in order.

[Rachelnyc]

I'll look into the Wacky Reading group too, sounds like fun!

I am a member of several but only participate in a couple so I think I will try to streamline and only join the groups I know I will participate.

I am so impressed with everyone who reads in order. I am such a mood reader, and I rely mostly on the library, so I think it would be frustrating for me and take some of the fun out. I know I would never have finished so early if I had tried reading in order but I applaud all of you who do!

[Tracy]

Rachelnyc wrote: "I'll look into the Wacky Reading group too, sounds like fun!

I am a member of several but only participate in a couple so I think I will try to streamline and only join the groups I know I will pa..."

Oh I hope I see some of you over in BT!! I can't recommend it enough :-)

I streamlined over a year ago and my only 2 groups were ATY and BT. Thats plenty to keep me busy. I did just add back Pop sugar and Book Riot, we'll see if I keep them, I may not, I saw a lot of familiar faces over there though. Never realized Nadine was a mod!

I was in Wacky challenges for awhile but it got to be too much, I was over planning and not getting anything done but I think I exited the group and kept one of the challenges as a personal challenge in my infinity thread, along with a few others from groups I was in but dropped. Keeping it simple makes me happier :-)

Sara, you're doing an amazing job with your challenge. I hope you're enjoying it!

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Rachelnyc wrote: "I'll look into the Wacky Reading group too, sounds like fun!

I am a member of several but only participate in a couple so I think I will try to streamline and only join the groups I know I will pa..."

I thought that too Rachel, but I think it depends on how many books you read a year. Last year, there's no way I could have read in order because I read exactly 52 and I am definitely a mood reader. Next year, I'm going to try to hit 100 books in the year, so I'm going to try to read ATY in order. I think I'll be able to manage with more flexibility to put aside the challenge for a bit if I'm not feeling up to reading whatever I have planned for the next prompt.

[Sara]

I'm going to make a stab at reading in order. If it doesn't work out, then I will desert it and just go random. Nothing to lose...and always stay flexible.

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

I tried out SRC...and then dropped it. I get that what they're doing is a contest of sorts, with points and everything, and it's important to make sure that points are awarded consistently and somewhat strictly. Still, it was just entirely too much work for me and I felt the points earning entirely left behind being inspired by the prompts.

The only groups I maintain an active presence in are ATY and PS. I'm in the BookRiot group but I only ever check those forums if I'm having trouble finding a book for a prompt. The policing in that one gets harsh, and it seems so unnecessary. Like sure, warn me if I've chosen a book that isn't going to fit, but don't tell me I can't stretch a prompt.

[Sara]

The time frame was a little tight at the SRC as well, Jackie. I will enjoy this group much more, I think. There was also no real interaction and that is also part of the fun.

I have two other groups that have challenges as part of their format, so I have a few side challenges going on as well, including my personal challenge to read all the Pulitzer winners. That is plenty to keep me interested and occupied.

[Sara]

Three more books to go to finish. I will make it, but it will be tight.

[Veronica]

Good luck Sarah! You can do it!