Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion
2019 Challenge - General
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2019 Challenge list is posted!
Cendaquenta wrote: "Yeah, there's plenty of great authors who happen to be musicians, you have a lot of options aside from memoirs.For example, Shel Silverstein - author of successful children's book..."
Agreed 100%! Personally I'm not reading a memoir for that prompt.
There's also Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, Leigh Bardugo and many more too! :)
I found the 2019 list at first glance seemed trickier but once I really thought about some options and checked out some of the ideas on the prompt threads, I found I didn't have any trouble planning out my books, even from my current shelf and TBR list for quite a chunk. :)
Book that inspired a common phrase/idiom seemed really scary for me until I realized that if I'm counting contemporary meanings of a phrase from memes and such it was easy to avoid shakespeare/dickens/other old things etc!!
Believe it or not the hardest for me was 2 books with the same title for 47/48
rachel wrote: "i'm literally feeling the exact opposite! i'm much happier with the list this year because i felt like too many of them last year could only fit non-fiction or literary/classics reads (which is not..."Ah yeah it shows how we're all different. I mainly read literary and classic so it worked a lot better for me. This list is very genre focused. There's nothing wrong with genre fiction, it's just not really my cup of tea barring high fantasy or historical fiction.
Thanks for the suggestion but I'm not really interested in urban fantasy which is Seanan Maguire's genre if I'm not mistaken.
I'm sure I will find something from the library to fit most of the prompts I was just annoyed that I couldn't fill more with my existing TBR.
Saying that, I could fill the family and debut prompts about 10 times over!
Oh, and Madonna authored a whole bunch of picture books. I have a few and they are quite delightful.
Jess wrote: "Thanks for the suggestion but I'm not really interested in urban fantasy which is Seanan Maguire's genre if I'm not mistaken. "She works in a lot of different genres. Plus if you like horror, she also writes that under the pen-name Mira Grant.
I think the discussions help with thinking a bit more creatively about the prompts. I didn't like the musician one either but now I know some authors I was intending to read next year anyway will count because they are musicians as well as writers.
I find the different reactions to the lists very interesting. My favorite prompts are the ones the point you in a certain direction that nudges you outside your comfort zone, but leave room for options if you've already tried that genre/type of book and know you don't like it. For instance, last year's 'Nordic Noir' is very specific and could be hard to find a book that's not harsh and gritty that technically fits the prompt. But 'set on another planet' points you in the direction of sci-fi while leaving room for fantasy (things like the Pern series) or non-fiction if you prefer that.
I just went through last years list and only found three prompts that actually had to be filled by non-fiction or classics, which doesn't seem excessive to me. Rachel, if you don't mind satisfying my curiosity, which prompts did you have trouble finding options you liked for?
And I do understand the TBR problem--any time you have a prompt that only allows you choose from a specific pre-set amount of books (like, over a million ratings on Goodreads, or with certain words in the title) there's a risk of that set not overlapping with a specific TBR list. This year I found that ATY worked better with my owned TBR, and Popsugar I'm going to have to get about half the books from the library.
One weird thought for Jess--the prompt doesn't actually say professional musician--would you consider it too much of a stretch to choose a classics author who you could determine played an instrument?
Mod
CORRECTION: I had forgotten about the "book you see someone reading on TV/movie" UGH yeah I'm dreading that one.
Carmen wrote: "I've been trying to print the list, but the printable version isn't very printable.. help!"Heh. I had to google and find a blog that it was posted on and then copy/paste it into my Word documents. Otherwise I would have used all of the ink in my printer. The original list is pretty to look at, but it would be great if they offered an actual printable version.
Nadine wrote: "CORRECTION: I had forgotten about the "book you see someone reading on TV/movie" UGH yeah I'm dreading that one.."So just thought of this and it would be stretching the prompt. I watch youtube as if it was tv.. So use that space as a wild card and go watch a youtube book video
Well, my problem is that I want to read ALL the books that you guys recommend... I like that some prompts I have to plan, and some will work out during the year. Fx I like that I have to wait and watch what people read on TV/movies. I also liked this year's 'stranger reading in a public place', so I guess I like some serendipity and scavenger hunt elements of the prompts. Guess we are all different :)
Jess wrote: "Did anyone else find planning for this list super difficult? Last year my TBR was about half the size that it was this year (thanks Goodreads) but I still found it fairly easy to find something for..."You could always stretch the prompt and instead of an author who is a musician, you could find a book where the main character is a musician. But I also agree that there are a lot of authors who play an instrument. They don't necessarily have to be professional musicians. :-)
Tracy wrote: "Carmen wrote: "I've been trying to print the list, but the printable version isn't very printable.. help!"Heh. I had to google and find a blog that it was posted on and then copy/paste it into my..."
Yeah I know right! I got it printed now, but I'm not overly happy with it as the Regular list gets cut off to the second page. Ohwell. I started planning (even more organized than last year I think, with a folder and everything G A S P; I wrote all the prompts down for PS and ATY and filled in books with pencils for a tentative list.
I said I wouldn't plan until I finished this year's challenge but here we are. My brain can't help itself, so I figured I might as wel write it down.
For the "book seen on TV/movie" prompt, an easy way around it would be to watch a documentary on a classic author (they tend to start scenes with the presenter "reading" one of the works) or a book award ceremony that is televised, e.g. the Man Booker.
I dug deep in my memories of all the shows and movies I’ve seen and watch and remembered Charlie reading The Hobbit to her mother in Supernatural. That was that prompt fixed for me! It’ll be a reread, but I (once again) hope to read Lord of the Rings next year and The Hobbit just needs reading again then so I was very happy!
I really need your help you guys, I am feeling completely uninspired by this years challenge! How to I get motivated to do it?
Maja wrote: "I really need your help you guys, I am feeling completely uninspired by this years challenge! How to I get motivated to do it?"Due to mental health issues I've been feeling meh about everything, but then when I started planning a bit I got so excited! I wish I could start immediately!
Carmen wrote: "Maja wrote: "I really need your help you guys, I am feeling completely uninspired by this years challenge! How to I get motivated to do it?"Due to mental health issues I've been feeling meh about..."
Sorry to hear about your troubles, my problem is also mental health related, so maybe I should just start planning and I will get myself excited. Thanks for the suggestion :)
Thanks to the thread for the musician prompt I found out that Barbara Kingsolver is a trained classical pianist so that prompt is now sorted. I'm feeling a bit more positive about this list after looking at some of the individual threads for the tricky ones.
On the book that you see someone reading on TV or a movie, I might stretch that to just that it was mentioned. Or, at the very least, just that they are holding it.
There’s always the Rory Gilmore Challenge which contains over 200 books she read on the show.
I’m so glad I’m not alone in not loving this list. I was looking forward to planning and now I can’t seem to get started.I could plug in Stephen King for a lot of these prompts with minimal thought at all:
- a book that makes you feel nostalgic
- a book becoming a movie
- a book that should be made into a movie (there’s gotta be at least one thing he’s written that’s not a movie yet)
- a book by a musician
- a re-read of a favorite
- a book you meant to read in 2018
- a book with multiple POVs
- a book with a 2 word title
- a ghost story
- a book featuring an imaginary or extinct creature
- a book published in 2019
- a book about a hobby
- a book with a million ratings
I mean I know the man is prolific but sheesh.
Even if you don’t like King- there are SO MANY “gimmes” on this list.
Article of clothing on the cover? Love, pop, sugar, challenge, spicy, bitter, sweet in the title?
I’m baffled.
I’m half tempted to have a Stephen King readathon and see just how many of his books I can plug in.
Mod
I could plug in Stephen King for a lot of these prompts with minimal thoug...
... - a book with a million ratings ..."
Hey now. (And this came as a shock to me too) Not a single Stephen King book has over one million ratings on GR. The Shining comes the closest with just over 900k. So there ya go - a category to search for ;-) (It's not an exciting search, I'll admit. This is one of the categories I am least enthusiastic about. After a million ratings, I've either read it, or don't want to read it. Why, Popsugar, why? why do you make me read it??)
Haha- yeah I noticed that too after I commented. I’m sort of shocked.I’m sure there’s another shameless Stephen King plug I could find. But you get my point. These prompts just feel thoughtless to me. I like the advanced prompts a lot, but almost everything in the regular list is just meh. Feels pointless.
What do I care if I’ve read a book with a specific title or clothing on the cover? They're just silly.
I am so happy to hear that I wasn't the only one slightly disappointed by this years challenge. I completely agree with Sarah and Mercedes, these prompts don't pique my interest, they just feel meh... But I will take your suggestion Mercedes and tweak the prompts to fit my own TBR list. I think that what I mostly disliked about these prompts, that they made me have to add to my TBR list, nothing fitted what was already on there. And like Sarah has pointed out, many of the prompts actually seem to be very much like each other, so that the same book (or author) could work for many different prompts...
There are other challenges that are better suited towards challenging your reading but I personally like the scavenger hunt aspect of some of the prompts. It means I can finish the challenge whilst reading books I want to read, rather than have to read books just because they fit prompts. It's impossible to please everybody and the list does include a good mix of easy "fun" prompts and some that push you out of your comfort zone. You just have to scan through this week's update thread to see that many people favourites are someone else's hated!
The ATY group has a good thread going with "bring it on" and "keep it simple" options for their prompts. There are ways to bend them to suit your own tastes.
One thing I appreciate about this list is that it's not rigid. There are some genre-specific prompts, but not too many. I skipped the 2016 challenge because the prompts were so terrible. I think that was the year with National Book Award winner, Oprah's book club, political memoir, written by a celebrity, self-help, autobiography, and satire. So many prompts/genres I hate. I'd much rather have a flexible list, even if they do feel a little random.
Mercedes wrote: "Nadine wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I’m so glad I’m not alone in not loving this list. I was looking forward to planning and now I can’t seem to get started.I could plug in Stephen King for a lot of the..."
Especially since they made us wait so long! lol.
Think I'm skipping PopSugar this year. Maybe I'll make a spreadsheet and maybe I'll plug in whatever I read.. but as you say- I don't need help in the quantity department. I read on average a hundred books a year.
Even the set in Scandinavia vs. Nordic Noir. There is a big difference there. I can find plenty of books set in Scandinavia, a good historical fiction would suit me just fine.. but it isn't really pushing me out of my comfort zone.
This is not meant as a criticism of anyone, just an observation. I think PopSugar is suffering from you can please some of the people.... There were complaints about the Nordic Noir prompt for being too specific. People complained about the Holiday prompts because they don't read holiday books. There are complaints about not being able to fit all the books that they were already going to read into the prompts. And, now there are complaints about not pushing out of comfort zone, and being too general.So, I guess I'm saying, maybe they are trying to be all things to all people?
Katy wrote: "This is not meant as a criticism of anyone, just an observation. I think PopSugar is suffering from you can please some of the people.... There were complaints about the Nordic Noir prompt for bein..."I get what you're saying and that's totally justified! They can't please everyone and they can't be expected to. I'm not trying to bring anyone down. If other people love the list that's great and I'm happy for them.
I'm just saying for me it was a little disappointing.
Title and cover prompts interest me the least by far and it doesn’t feel like a well balanced list this year. That said, I wasn’t super enthused about lots of the 2018 prompts upon first seeing them and in the end I’ve enjoyed the year.
I am confident I can find something I want to read for all the prompts. My only problem is time, which is the thing that makes me halfdread some of them, like monastery, because what I want to read most are doorstoppers. Or first in a series, and I have too many of those going on at once. I am a very eclectic reader, so that probablyhelps. This year I dreaded 'true crime' and 'bestseller from the year you finished high school' most, but I still found books I enjoyed for those.
I wasn't entirely enthused by the list when I first saw it but once I started planning, I found some (hopefully!) great books for everything. I have a few other challenges I am doing in 2019 so I haven't decided whether to do the advanced list again. There are a few prompts that I really like and that will definitely help stretch my reading like Cli-fi but others that I have zero interest in, looking at you LitRPG!
When the list came out, I considered not participating. After further thought, I am in. I am even doing some planning, trying to shrink a TBR list that is over 600 books. Although I still have a couple books to go to finish off the 2018 challenge, I am ready for a new set of challenges in January.
Rachelnyc wrote: "I wasn't entirely enthused by the list when I first saw it but once I started planning, I found some (hopefully!) great books for everything. I have a few other challenges I am doing in 2019 so I h..."I hear you on the multiple challenges...er...challenge! I like to keep my reading flexible so I try not to overplan, but some of these prompts definitely require a bit of forethought.
I didn't even know either of these genres was a thing, so I appreciate the broadening of horizons, etc. That being said, Cli-fi sounds infinitely more interesting to me than LitRPG. I'm likely going to go with something LitRPG-light because I don't want to end up in the same situation I'm in this year where I'm struggling with one or two prompts in the fourth quarter because I have zero interest in that genre (*shakes fist at true crime*).
Katy wrote: "This is not meant as a criticism of anyone, just an observation. I think PopSugar is suffering from you can please some of the people.... There were complaints about the Nordic Noir prompt for bein..."My particular nitpick with the 2019 prompts is that many of them are too closely similar to 2018's. For example, Nordic Noir might have been too specific for some, so a Scandi prompt is def more inclusive, but why stick with that region at all? We just had it. Make it the Iberian peninsula, or the Caribbean, if you want to encourage geographical variety. I mean, did we really need to lump all of Asia, Africa and South America into one prompt?
I understand why others are disappointed for their own reasons as well, though as you rightfully pointed out, they can't please everyone. None of us is being forced to do this challenge if we don't want to. For all my criticism, I'm still planning on participating next year, and am in happy planning mode right now!
Here's the thing with the challenge: every year there is at least one prompt that I think will be super easy that I end up struggling to find a book for (this year it was Halloween). Conversely, there are prompts that I start out thinking oh dear god no, and then I read the prompt thread and I completely change my mind about it. The prompts that intrigue me initially aren't always the ones that end up being a great experience and vice versa.
Oh and one other thing I've noticed this year: this list doesn't include any prompts that make inherent assumptions about the participant, other than that you like to read and that you occasionally see tv shows or movies. In the past there have been prompts about books published the year you graduated high school, a book that you bought while traveling, a book that you saw a stranger reading in public...These prompts made a lot of people feel sort of left out because they didn't graduate high school, couldn't afford to travel, didn't live in a place where they would see people reading in public, etc. This year's list feels less inherently America-centric too. I get that the earlier lists were probably geared towards Popsugar's core demographic, but it's really nice to have list that doesn't make assumptions about where you live, your education level, or your financial situation. And thank god I don't have to read another book that I was assigned but didn't read. I'm all out of those.
Mod
This has been so true for me every year too!!
Well, I wasn't even planning my reading for 2019 yet, and just while searching my personal library for one of my copies of The Odyssey, I have already spotted and set aside many books tbat fit 2019 prompts! Also a couple of library holds coming up after January 1 fit perfectly.Of course the one book I want to start on New Year's Day seems to be hiding in my apartment.
Until then, I think I will wallow in Christmas cozies and romances.
Jackie wrote: "Oh and one other thing I've noticed this year: this list doesn't include any prompts that make inherent assumptions about the participant, other than that you like to read and that you occasionally..."Yes to this. The author with the same name was a lot easier for some people than others. I don't even have that unusual a name but was still pretty limited. Then I had to contend with a book set in the 80's, a bestseller from 1999 and a local author from Hampshire (my town was a no go). I feel 2019 is much more a "we're all in it together" type of list.
I think that’s a great observation. I’m glad that changed.
2018 was my first year to participate in the challenge, but I am so looking forward to 2019! I love that the prompts are much more general for next year. I read 75 books (so far) this year, but I still had a horrible time trying to make books fit into the prompts. I was pretty bummed when I looked back over the list and realized I didn't love very many of the books I read for the challenge. I'm hoping I can stick to books that have been at the top of my tbr for 2019!
Does anyone else have troubles with the printable version? It's really long so it won't fit nicely on a regular piece of printing paper... I had to use a cut programme to make it smaller, but it still doesn't really have a nice format. It seems to be the pdf version, instead of the printable version. Also, the background is really dark so I can't check it off... Sorry if I sound very complaining!
Yeah, it's not a printable version at all! For a basic printable you can copy the list (from this group) into Google Docs and change the numbers to a bullet list (with the checkbox graphic for the bullets). Then change it to use multiple columns (bullets and columns are under the Format tab).You can add simple shapes too like hearts and stars in Docs if you want to pretty it up too.
Sorry but I have to voice it (and hope nobody's offended): I am getting so frustrated by this challenge!Last year I didn't join the challenge because there were several prompts I knew I either don't have/won't find a single book for or I really don't want to go there and now it's the second year in row I'm considering to do skip for the same reason.
The last time I watched a movie (and that was only beacuse of the Jane Austen Challenge in a different group) was three or four years ago and before it was another two or three years I watched televistion - I'm aware I'm a part of a miniscule minority in this area but still it's so frustrating to see #14. A book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie and just the idea makes me shudder incontrollably (the only good thing is I watched several years ago the Jane Austen Book Club and so if I join I'll re-read something by Austen or hope to remember a book from another movie/series)
I hate SF (especially set in space) & paranormal (especially ghost stories) so #36. A ghost story & 20. A book set in space will be a real struggle if I join.
Right now I think I'll join inofficially (for me only - in my private challenge thread in a different group) and go for all the realistic prompts and 1-2 of those I really dread. We'll see - 2019 hasn't started yet so I have some weeks to change my mind.
To help with the movie/TV one, if you want, the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge list of books is popular and has a lot of options. You can google it and you’ll pull up the list.
For the others- could you read picture books? Or short stories? That way you fill the prompt without it taking up a lot of your reading time.
I’m sure there are also some fantasy or non-fiction options that aren’t sci-fi that are at least partially set in space too. 🙂
Agnieszka wrote: "Sorry but I have to voice it (and hope nobody's offended): I am getting so frustrated by this challenge!Last year I didn't join the challenge because there were several prompts I knew I either do..."
A lot of people seem to have had that reaction to this year's list, so I don't think anyone is going to be offended. :-)
I will say, that for me part of the fun of the challenge is not just stretching my reading to fit the prompts, but occasionally figuring out how to stretch a prompt to fit my reading.
There's no reason you have to read sci-fi to fill the space prompt--you could read non-fiction about astronauts, NASA, etc, or stretch it a little to read any book with an astronaut as a character, even if they're not in space at the time.
I understand the ghost story struggle, as I would feel the same way if I hadn't happened to run across a YA series I liked this year that fits that prompt. Maybe something like this would work for you? Huntress Or, you can often find books recommended in the threads that *almost* fit the prompt (a book that hints at a ghost without it being a big part of the story, or a book that makes you think there's a ghost, and in the end there's not). If nothing else you can fall back on a picture book like this: Gus Was a Friendly Ghost.
Of course, if you just prefer to pick and choose prompts, there's nothing wrong with that either! I just don't want you to feel like you're stuck when you still have other options out there.
Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Ghosted (other topics)Gunpowder Moon (other topics)
The Lady Astronaut of Mars (other topics)
The Sherwood Ring (other topics)
Time After Time (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Barbara Kingsolver (other topics)Mira Grant (other topics)
Shel Silverstein (other topics)
Shel Silverstein (other topics)
For example, Shel Silverstein - author of successful children's books, also a songwriter, singer, composer etc. etc.