03. A book that you are prompted to read because of something you read in 2019

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Reading challenges can often limit our ability to read multiple books on the same topic or author, or keep us from completing series because the rest of the books don't fit in with the challenge prompts. Use this prompt to read something that sparked your interest in 2019.

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Suggestions:
This is a personal prompt, but we have suggestions on how you can approach it.

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And, when in doubt, you can use any of these lists to inspire your 2020 read, or you can check out all of our Weekly Threads and use the discussion as a jumping off point for your book.

ATY Group Listopia

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Optional Questions
1. What are you reading for this category?
2. What prompted you to read this book?

[Johanne]

I'm currently reading The Amber Spyglass by Pullman (His Dark Materials #3) and every chapter starts with a poem (or part of a poem), so I am either going this route and read a collection of poems with one of those quoted, or take the easy road and read a next book in a series.

[Serendipity]

Possibly just anything I added to my TBR this year since most of it is there because of a review or comment so read about it. I’m hoping for something a bit more meaningful but an insurance plan is always good.

[Angie]

I have two options:

One is The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr I read The Alienist and was blown away by it, so I want to read the sequel.

The other option is The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson. After seeing it at the book store, I read a number of glowing posts about it in one my other groups.

Both books have a mode of transportation on the cover, so I'll read one of them for that category and the other for this one.

[Teri]

I was thinking of reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote for the #1 prompt, but it be an even better fit for this one. I read Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep which talks a lot about her time working with Truman Capote on researching the book, which is what reminded me that I've been meaning to read it for ages.

My second choice is Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson as I read The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton. Bryan Stevenson and his group were the attorneys who helped Mr. Hinton on death row.

[Dana]

I’m going easy with this one, and reading Gemina, which is the next in the Illuminae trilogy (I’m currently reading).

[SadieReadsAgain]

I've got a good bunch of choices on my physical/TBR shelves.

Books by authors I read last year
Bluebeard's Egg
Little Fires Everywhere
Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything
So Many Ways to Begin
The Little Friend
White Teeth

Linked by theme/setting/topic
Courtney Love: The Real Story (because I read a musician memoir)
Dear Fatty (because a read a book by/about a woman living in a bigger body)
Five Quarters of the Orange (because I read a book with orange in the title)
The End of Alice (because I read a book featuring a man who preyed on children)
Night (because I read two WW2 books, one set in a camp)
Sexing the Cherry (because I read some lesbian literature)
The Changeling (because I read a book set in 1950's Glasgow)
The Guilty Feminist: From Our Noble Goals to Our Worst Hypocrisies (because I read other feminist books)
The Road (because I read an apocalypse dystopian)
Chernobyl Strawberries: A Memoir (because I read a book set on the other side of the Iron Curtain)
The Importance of Being Ernest (because I read a play)
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (because I read a novel about another author)

[Hannah]

I think for this one I will read something by Kamila Shamsie. I read Home Fire and loved it so much I added all her books to my tbr.

If I used this author for an author you have only read once and want to something different for this prompt I will probably use the next book in a series I’ve started.

[Pam]

My first choice is The Good Soldier Švejk, a 752 page Czech classic. I had planned on reading it anyway but am more interested now that I've read Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia. If I go with something shorter then my other options are: Wool: The Graphic Novel or Dust since I read Wool and Shift in 2019.

[Traci]

Option 1: Krik? Krak! because I read The Dew Breaker and found it to be such an interesting collection of linked short stories. Though I might read this for a book by an author you've only read once before.

Options 2: a book I discovered from Modern Mrs Darcy's blog - Resistance Women, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World, or What We Were Promised.

[Ann]

I started a historical fiction series this year so will probably continue with it. Next will be The Paris Spy It is a great series and I have learned so much about history that I never knew.

[Marie]

I love author twitter, I follow quite a few writers, some I've not even read yet, including V.E. Schwab.

Earlier this year I really enjoyed her updates from a convention in Australia where she met the actor Steven Strait, was building up the courage to give him a copy of Vicious, talking herself out of it, and then finally doing it. So when this prompt was suggested Vicious was obviously the perfect book for me to choose.

[[deleted user]]

In another group I'm a part of we did a Kingtober challenge in October, to read something by Stephen King. I decided to tackle his massive book It, and totally fell in Love with King! So now I have a new, personal challenge to read 50 of his books and I'll be using this prompt to read 'Salem's Lot

[Shelley]

I put down all of my sequels that I added this year since I add the next one in the series as soon as I finish the one before it. It's 10 different books. Yikes.

[Hannah]

Ann wrote: "I started a historical fiction series this year so will probably continue with it. Next will be The Paris Spy It is a great series and I have learned so much about history that I ne..."

I love this series! I’ve read all of the books published so far since the summer, and I can’t wait for book 9 to be published in February 😊. This series would also work as a mystery if anyone needed more ideas.

[Marie (UK)]

i think i might read the second book in the Nora Roberts series that started with Blue Dahlia

so that would be Black Rose

[Stacey]

I am going to read The Stonecutter as it is the next book in a Scandinavian crime series I am reading by Camilla Lackberg. I am actually currently reading the second book The Preacher and I am really enjoying it.

[Wendy]

I read Moby-Dick, or, the Whale this year and was shocked at how much I loved it. I'd tackled it about a decade ago and liked it but ran out of steam midway. Not this time! I was there for every last bit of whaling-minutiae (sometimes you have to read the right book at the right time in your life). Anyway, I'm inspired to read more by Melville, more about Melville, more about whales, and more by/about Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he dedicated the book. Looking forward to it!

[e]

I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
so I'm going to read Go Set a Watchman because of that

[Joanne]

I don't just want to read the next book in a series, so I really looked for something I specifically picked up after reading a different book. My choice will be:
Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, which I added to my tbr after reading Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief last year.

[LindaLH]

I plan to read My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout for week 2. I enjoyed her Olive Kitteridge.

[Maggie]

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternakwas my favorite book in 2019, so right now I'm reading The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott to satisfy this prompt. It's a true story about the mission to smuggle the manuscript for Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR to be published. Incredible book so far!

[Tanya]

Starting with this one. I read The Wedding Date last year, so I'm going to read The Proposal, I'm in the mood for a cute rom com.

[Maple]

I read Refugee for week 3. I cannot remember what it was exactly from 2019 that prompted me to read this book, but it was an excellent read and I highly recommend it. It's touching and deep. I appreciated that it is told from the refugee experience from three different time periods (WWII, 1990's, and "today"), and from three different countries/situations.

So far this has been my favorite read of the year.

[Erica]

Although I’m counting Ball Lightning as having been read in 2020, I started it in 2019, and it inspired me to read Accessory to War by Neil Degrasse Tyson because they are both about the science of developing weapons for war.

[Laurel]

I'm a librarian at a university, and as part of my job, was looking through some original documents related to the Native American tribes in my state. I went down a real rabbit hole and ended up with a review of this children's book, which was excellent:



Indian No More by Charlene Willing McManis was inspired by the author's own experience as a Umpqua child whose family was relocated to Los Angeles after their tribal status was terminated by the government in the 1950s. The main character is an 8-year-old girl who is uprooted from her reservation and has to face the casual prejudices of the big city (e.g., kids in her neighborhood think she lived in a tipi before moving to the city, which the Umpqua never did).

The author died before the book was finished, but a writing friend and her editor (both Cherokee women) worked to get it completed and published.

[Anne]

I'm reading 'island of Secrets' by Patricia Wilson, I was inspired to read it as last year I read Secrets of Santorini by the same author and really enjoyed it.

[Emily]

I read Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters for this prompt because I reread Little Women in December and was inspired to pick this one up because of it.

[Wendy]

I read and enjoyed both Moby-Dick, or, the Whale by Herman Melville and The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne last year, so I've opted to read The Whale: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard about the alleged relationship between these two authors.

[Kelly Sj]

I've become mildly obsessed with medical and surgical history over the last couple years, and so I'm reading Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery by Richard Hollingham. In 2017, I read The Citadel by A.J. Cronin, in 2018 it was The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris, which was excellent, and in 2019 The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman.

[Stine]

I started reading The Name of the Wind for the second time just before Christmas, so I just had to make this prompt about The Wise Man's Fear

I've only read these books once before, and I'm glad to say that I upped my rating from 4 to 5 stars on the second reading. <3

[Concetta]

1. What are you reading for this category?

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

2. What prompted you to read this book?

I read the first book of this trilogy, Mistborn: The Final Empire, at the end of 2019 and loved it. I am very excited to move forward in this series.

[Amber]

1. What are you reading for this category?
Then She Was Gone

2. What prompted you to read this book?
I read Watching You last year and it was my first Lisa Jewell book. I really loved her story telling and wanted to read more from her. I picked up 2 more books by her for this year.

[Bryony]

I was pretty sure what I’d read for this prompt as soon as it was chosen. I read Record of a Spaceborn Few which is the final book in Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers trilogy. I read the second book last year and loved it so I’d been really looking forward to this book and it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

[Bana AZ]

I read the very short story The Chef by Andy Weir. Gave it 3 stars.

I've read Artemis, The Egg (another short story) in previous years and The Martian from last year. This guy has a lot of short stories for free reading on the web.

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My 2020 list.

[Lisa]

I read a few Ann patchett books last year, so I’m reading the Dutch house for this.

[Errlee]

I have a few options for this one but I think I am going to go with Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell. I read Carry On and Fangirl last year, and I'm in the mood for a quick light read (and I wasn't sure where else I could fit this one in).

[Errlee]

Lisa wrote: "I read a few Ann patchett books last year, so I’m reading the Dutch house for this."

I read that just before xmas and quite liked it - I love Anne Patchett. Not sure if this was her best, but even not her best is pretty good.

[Ellie]

I read Before Mars by Emma Newman, since I read and loved After Atlas last year. This one wasn't quite a five star read, just because I felt I worked it out way before the characters. However she does an excellent job of weaving together mental health issues with gripping science fiction plots. This one touches on post-natal depression. Now I just need to find a place to fit in the next book.

[ToboReads]

Adding to the Ann Patchett love, I read The Dutch House last year as my first read by her and loved it, so I chose State of Wonder for this prompt because I picked it up at a used book sale and had it on my TBR shelf!

[Kathy]

I read the book Girls in Their Married Bliss by Edna O'Brien. It is the final book in The Country Girls series. I read the second book in the series in 2019, The Lonely Girl (also titled "The Girl With the Green Eyes").

[Cheryl A.]

1. What are you reading for this category?
I read an ARC 'Staging Wars' by Grace Topping

2. What prompted you to read this book?
I read her debut Staging is Murder last year and loved it. She offered me an ARC and I was honored to be able to read this before the public!

[Laura]

1. What are you reading for this category?
A Cry in the Dark by Denise Grover Swank

2. What prompted you to read this book?
It is a spin-off from another series by the same author and she was featured in the book Come Rain or Shine last year.

[Chelsey]

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2. I somehow have managed to never read the books after all these years. I started the series in 2019 and am finishing them this year. Loving it!

[susan dwyer]

I am going to read Northern Lights book 1, because I enjoyed reading The Ruby in the Smoke a novel by Philip Pullman.

[Sarah]

Amber wrote: "1. What are you reading for this category?
Then She Was Gone

2. What prompted you to read this book?
I read Watching You last year and it was my first [author:Lisa ..."

I LOVE Lisa Jewel! I can't remember which one I read first but as soon as I finished, I ordered another! WOW! Always some sort of twist!

[Errlee]

I just finished Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell for this one.

I read Fangirl and Carry On last year and now I am well and truly hooked on Simon Snow so hoping she keeps going with the series.

It was a good quick read and thoroughly enjoyable - a nice counterbalance to Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller, which I was reading at the same time and was fantastic but hard to read. It made me so angry at times, I had to put it down and pick up Wayward Son and breathe.

[Chrissy]

I read Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese last year and thought it was great, and I was also interested in learning more about the residential schools and their impact on native communities from reading The Marrow Thieves and watching the most recent season of Anne with an E. So, I read Indian Horse this weekend and it is SO GOOD! Everyone in Canada or the US should read it. Plus, it was beautiful and sad but not depressing.

[Marie (UK)]

I started the JD Robb series "in Death" last year and I cannot get enough of Eve Dallas and her sidekick Delia peabody. I listen to most on Audio they are on Scribd, really well narrated and very easy listening - BUT don't drive whilst listening to the sex scenes

[Samantha]

1. What are you reading for this category? Waking Gods - Edit, I borrowed the 3rd book Only Human from the library and read that by mistake but still fits the category :).
2. What prompted you to read this book? I read book one in the series Sleeping Giants