Play Book Tag discussion
February 2020: Survival
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Announcing the tag for February
Survival is also one of my favorite tags. I love both fiction and nonfiction books which fit this tag. I'm going to have to look at my shelf to come up with recommendations and what I might read, but I am excited about it.Having said that it doesn't exactly stretch my reading, but it has the possibility of doing that.
I can't remember what I voted for, but yay! lol I can always find something. Upon first glance I think I might read The Dog Stars. I started it a few years ago but was sidetracked and never went back. There's also the sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and The Knife of Never Letting Go, and First They Killed My Father to consider.
Here's one of my favorite survival stories: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson.There's also Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. Both true stories.
It goes without saying that any book about the 1996 Everest disaster would be a good fit!
Whoot! easy one for me-love this kind of book. I have one to read for another challenge that will be first up The Last Survivor: Legacies of Dachau and I also have Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident on tap for Polls.I can recommend:
Fiction:
Salt to the Sea
The Nightingale
City of Thieves
Non-Fiction
Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
My absolute last choice, not books I particularly like to read, but I definitely have something picked out in case it won:
- graphic novel I've had for a while and since I enjoyed the first one I ever read so much (
), I moved this up my TBR Tower on the bedside table. I figure I can also read some of those Special Forces romance suspense novels for this -- given that survival of the hero and heroine is totally up for grabs through most of the stories! 🤣
More seriously, I would recommend an odd, not particularly easy to read, book, but one that I liked a lot:
. It's also got a great opening. And keep in mind that it is in many respects supposed to be quite funny. It is when you let your mind visualize what is going on.
Yay!! I am excited! Honestly, I would have been excited for any of them. lol. These are my top choices for this month:
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign
Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver
Educated (this one seems like a tenuous connection, but I have been looking for an excuse to get to it so it may be a potential second book after I read one of the others)
annapi wrote: "Here's one of my favorite survival stories: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson.There's also [book:Between a Rock and a Hard Place|16656..."
I will second all of Anna's suggestions. I have recommendations to come, as well...
I would have also been happy with any, but this was my top choice of the three! :-) Now, I have lots of recommendations (I'm only listing here what made my top 10 lists the year I read them, but there are still a lot of them!)
Hmm, I think I'll divide into fiction and non:
Nonfiction:
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest
Disaster / Jon Krakauer
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage / Alfred Lansing
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History / Erik Larson
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption / Laura Hillenbrand
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette / Hampton Sides
Fiction:
The Hunger Games / Suzanne Collins
Kindred / Octavia Butler
Unwind / Neal Shusterman
Doomsday Book / Connie Willis
And that's not even all that made my favourites, but I'll stop there, and go figure out what I'll read.
Oh, there's so many, I don't know how to pick!I do know I plan to read this one for another challenge, anyway:
- The Infinite Sea / Rick Yancey
Since I've already read 16 out of the first 50, I didn't vote for this one, but I do have one marked want to read on the first page, so am all set and plan to read Salt to the Sea.Recommendations include :
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
The Martian by Andy Weir
and of course All the Light We Cannot See
My 3rd choice, but this month's selection was so great that I'm happy anyway! I found 2 on my TBR that I'm excited to finally get to: The Great Alone and Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. I might also follow Theresa's lead and pick up The Best We Could Do, since I felt a bit guilty about not getting around to it when it was the Seattle Reads pick last year...
Well just my luck, I just finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Unfortunately I got lazy in searching the 'thriller' tag for January, and grabbed Into Thin Air off my shelf thinking it might be a 'thriller'. It would probably fit loosely to that tag, but obviously perfect match for 'survival'!
So I'd recommend it to others for February.
Nicole R wrote: "Educated (this one seems like a tenuous connection, but I have been looking for an excuse to get to it so it may be a potential second book"I don't think it is a tenuous connection at all. If you read Educated you will understand.
Yvonne wrote: "Well just my luck, I just finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Unfortunately I got lazy in searching the 'thriller' tag for January, and grabbed Into Thin Air off my shelf thinking it might be ..."
Yvonne, it is tagged thriller, by 67 people - on page 1, middle column towards the bottom - https://www.goodreads.com/work/shelve.... So go ahead and move it to the tag of the month folder!
Nicole R wrote: "Educated (this one seems like a tenuous connection..."Nicole, it is definitely tagged survival, by 60 people - on page 2, first column near the bottom.
Apparently I have read all but about 5 on the first page.....I have 4 complete series from the list yet to start on my TBR and 3 in progress plus a bunch of individual novels and IRL survival stories.
My issue will be choosing where to start and which will have to wait while I go to work to buy more books.
What a range....actual survival manuals, horror stories, real world adventure, fantasy, romance, autobiography; what a great tag surely there is something for everyone with a tag this open?
annapi wrote: "Here's one of my favorite survival stories: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson.There's also [book:Between a Rock and a Hard Place|16656..."
I've been eyeing Touching the Void for a while, so I'm definitely planning to get to it next month! I'm also just generally quite excited about this tag, so I'll probably get to a couple others as well.
Without giving too much away because *SPOILERS*, I would like to argue that Far From the Madding Crowd fits 'survival' because of certain events that happen in the novel would have been unusual in the time Hardy was writing!
I'm thinking at least one of these as they'll cross-over with poll ballot, even if not necessarily tagged 'survival':
Educated (education)
The Passage (rocky mountains)
The Last Runaway (antebellum)
The Invention of Nature (volcanoes)
Ghosts of the Tsunami (weather)
Station Eleven (great lakes)
The Snow Child (pioneers)
Gomorrah (mafia)
Dopesick (appalachia)
The Grapes of Wrath (great depression)
A Voyage for Madmen (sailing)
The Last of the Mohicans (frontier)
Educated (education)
The Passage (rocky mountains)
The Last Runaway (antebellum)
The Invention of Nature (volcanoes)
Ghosts of the Tsunami (weather)
Station Eleven (great lakes)
The Snow Child (pioneers)
Gomorrah (mafia)
Dopesick (appalachia)
The Grapes of Wrath (great depression)
A Voyage for Madmen (sailing)
The Last of the Mohicans (frontier)
Quite excited for this one. There are so many great choices!
Nicole R wrote: "Yay!! I am excited! Honestly, I would have been excited for any of them. lol. These are my top choices for this month:
[book:Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in ..."
I have Empires of The Blue Water on my TBR too-looks really interesting!
AJ wrote: "I'm super excited for this tag!Just a reminder to those who love The Hunger Games that the new one is coming out in May. The original trilogy is tagged survival so it may be a good opportunity to..."
The Nightingale was a favorite of mine hope you get to it!
Jenny wrote: "I'm thinking at least one of these as they'll cross-over with poll ballot, even if not necessarily tagged 'survival':Educated (education)
The Passage (rocky mountains)
The Last Runaway (antebellu..."
Jenny, Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone will work for sure! I read it and loved it-hope you get to it!
This is the first Tag in a long time that I actually love. Don't know about anyone else, but I have had enough thrillers to last me a long time..😁
Joanne wrote: "I have Empires of The Blue Water on my TBR too-looks really interesting!"I think someone here read and reviewed it for Poll Ballot Tally. I didn't look, but I bet it is tagged "pirates"!
AJ wrote: "I'm super excited for this tag!Just a reminder to those who love The Hunger Games that the new one is coming out in May. The original trilogy is tagged survival so it may be a good opportunity to..."
AJ, these are great options! I adored The Martian when I read it several years ago, but be forewarned that it is full of F words! lol. But, the main character is so snarky, and I loved that.
LibraryCin wrote: "I would have also been happy with any, but this was my top choice of the three! :-) Now, I have lots of recommendations (I'm only listing here what made my top 10 lists the year I read them, but ..."
Cindy, you hit on one of my favorite books: In the Kingdom of Ice! For those of you who are audio fans, this one was excellently done.
Jenny wrote: "I'm thinking at least one of these as they'll cross-over with poll ballot, even if not necessarily tagged 'survival':Educated (education)
The Passage (rocky mountains)
The Last Runaway (antebellu..."
Maybe a few of us will read Educated. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is a book that I will want to discuss.
Jenny wrote: "Without giving too much away because *SPOILERS*, I would like to argue that Far From the Madding Crowd fits 'survival' because of certain events that happen in the novel would have been unusual in ..."Hahaha! I think I am going to hold out on that one until there is a better tag that it fits. I like to be pretty narrow in my tag interpretation.
But, if it doesn't fit a tag in the next 6 months or so, I think I will probably get to it anyway.
I am 77% through educated. I’ve been reading it with my son since August. Very slowly. I think I can wait another week to finish it.
I think of survival for a shelf tag in terms of individuals against nature, cases of torture and imprisonment, war situations, people facing genocide, family members under oppression of domestic violence and child abuse, humanity in the context of apocalypse and its aftermath.I second recommendations for The Kingdom of Ice, Unbroken, Into Thin Air, The Perfect Storm, Dog Stars, The Martian, Station Eleven, and Hunger Games.
Some additional recommendations:
Against nature
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest--Wade Davis
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex--Nathaniel Philbrick
The Serpent's Coil--Farley Mowat
The Rope--Nevada Barr
Year of Wonders--Geraldine Brooks
Imprisonment and torture
Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish-Richard Flanagan
The Narrow Road to the Deep North--Richard Flanagan
The Sympathizer--Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Orphan Master's Son--Adam Johnson
War
Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae--Stephen Pressfield
War--Sebastian Junger
City of Thieves--David Benioff
Coal Black Horse--Charles Frazier
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission--Hampton Sides
The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat--Bob Drury
Genocide and slavery
The Dying Grass: A Novel of the Nez Perce War--William Vollman
The Drowned and the Saved--Primo Levi
Berlin Wild--Elly Welt
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response--Peter Balakian
The Sandcastle Girls--Chris Bohjalian
The Rape of Nanking-Iris Chang
Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness--Tracy Kidder
Sweetsmoke--David Fuller
Apocalyptic tales
The Road--Cormac McCarthy
Oryx and Crake--Margaret Atwood
Dead Astronauts--Jeff Vandermeer
Dawn-Octavia Butler
Seveneves--Neal Stephenson
Alas, Babylon--Pat Frank
Blindness--Jose Saramago
Family abuse
The Glass Castle--Jeanette Wells
Angela's Ashes--Frank McCourt
The Color Purple--Alice Walker
The Kite Runner--Khaled Hosseini
I will consider reading:
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History--Erik Larsen
What Is the What--David Eggers
The Plague--Albert Camus
I think this was my vote. Definitely lots of options.My recommendations:
Code Name Verity - YA WWII historical fiction.
The Wild Robot - one of my favorite reads of 2018. It's middle-grade fiction about a robot washed up on an island after, I think, a shipwreck, and how it survives and learns to mother a gosling it meets, and it's just a lovely read.
Follow the River - historical fiction based on a real story of a woman kidnapped by Native Americans who ends up making a very long trek home. Read it years ago, and it still sticks with me.
Illuminae - Space opera epistolary novel following the survivors of an attack meant to be a coverup of corporate misconduct. Also phenomenal as an audio book, restoring my faith in full-cast recordings.
I have a pretty good list of things I'd like to get to for this. We're doing a reading challenge at work for middle-grade and YA books, and there's no shortage of things. Way more contenders than I'll probably get to, but I do hope my reading mojo picks up from what it has been.I'd like to read Gemina, the sequel to Illuminae, which I read last year.
Ditto for Crooked Kingdom, follow-up to Six of Crows, also read last year.
I also noticed Year of Wonders, my white elephant catch from December, is on this list, so I might read it this month.
I ordered Code Name Verity from the library for survival. So glad you recommended it, Hebah! But I think my February read for Survival is Once We We’re Brothers. I have wanted to read this book for forever, and it’s shocking to me that I never have. I also own it, And let me tell you my husband is desperate for me to get rid of the towering turret that’s in our hallway. He has also probably noticed but has been too kind to mention the inordinate amount of books that line my trunk of my car. But in addition to that, the once we were brothers series is my series of the year. There’s five of them, and three have been on my TBR. So I had planned to start this book in February no matter what, but knew that if survival won that it was the perfect fit.
Hebah says it’s YA, which doesn’t usually draw my attention. But everyone seems to live this book and I am a lover of WW2 and spies. So I am all in! At least to of us for February maybe?
Hebah wrote: "Ditto for Crooked Kingdom, follow-up to Six of Crows, also read last year.."ooo, Six of Crows is on my TBR. Holly Black's The Cruel Prince is too. I should see if they would fit "survival" and maybe add a little YA to my mix.
Nicole R wrote: "Hebah wrote: "Ditto for Crooked Kingdom, follow-up to Six of Crows, also read last year.."ooo, Six of Crows is on my TBR. Holly Black's The Cruel Prince is too. I ..."
Six of Crows is on the list too! It's sooooo good. I don't often crave heist stories, but when I read a good one, it's so satisfying. Ends on a cliffhanger though, fyi, so if that's going to bother you, have the sequel on hand.
Hebah wrote: "Six of Crows is on the list too! It's sooooo good. I don't often crave heist stories, but when I read a good one, it's so satisfying. Ends on a cliffhanger though, fyi, so if that's going to bother you, have the sequel on hand.."Okay, so I have not read a bunch of Leigh Bardugo books, but I do know that she has the Grishaverse trilogy that apparently takes place in the same universe as Six of Crows but happens before Six of Crows and really has very little overlap. It starts with Shadow and Bone.
Did you read those first? Or at all? I am trying to decide exactly where to start with my foray into Bardugo.
Nicole R wrote: "Hebah wrote: "Six of Crows is on the list too! It's sooooo good. I don't often crave heist stories, but when I read a good one, it's so satisfying. Ends on a cliffhanger though, fyi, so if that's g..."I read the trilogy first and am personally glad I did because her writing really improved across the books, and I think going from the duology to the trilogy could be a bit jarring. It's not strictly necessary, though. There are a few cameos from the trilogy in the Six of Crows books, the type that's rewarding for a returning reader but not essential to know for the story at hand.
Hebah wrote: "I have a pretty good list of things I'd like to get to for this. We're doing a reading challenge at work for middle-grade and YA books, and there's no shortage of things. Way more contenders than I..."Year of Wonders is a great read
Amy wrote: "I ordered Code Name Verity from the library for survival. So glad you recommended it, Hebah! But I think my February read for Survival is Once We We’re Brothers. I have wanted to read this book for..."I may join you with the brothers if I can get a hold of a copy
Amy wrote: "Hebah says it’s YA, which doesn’t usually draw my attention. But everyone seems to live this book and I am a lover of WW2 and spies. So I am all in! At least to of us for February maybe?"I know you will like this one-more "new adult" than young adult IMO
Hebah wrote: "Nicole R wrote: "Hebah wrote: "Ditto for Crooked Kingdom, follow-up to Six of Crows, also read last year.."ooo, Six of Crows is on my TBR. Holly Black's [book:The Cruel Prince|260..."
I liked this Duo too
Nicole R wrote: "Hebah wrote: "Six of Crows is on the list too! It's sooooo good. I don't often crave heist stories, but when I read a good one, it's so satisfying. Ends on a cliffhanger though, fyi, so if that's g..."I have read them all-there is a slight overlap, I started with Grisha series and looking back I think if I had gone the other way some things would have been confusing-but that's just my unsolicited opinion
annapi wrote: "Here's one of my favorite survival stories: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson.There's also [book:Between a Rock and a Hard Place|16656..."
I am definitely reading Touching the Void next month! It's been on my TBR forever.
Nicole R wrote: "Yay!! I am excited! Honestly, I would have been excited for any of them. lol. These are my top choices for this month:
[book:Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in ..."
I actually think Educated totally fits . . .not a stretch.
Yvonne wrote: "Well just my luck, I just finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Unfortunately I got lazy in searching the 'thriller' tag for January, and grabbed Into Thin Air off my shelf thinking it might be ..."
Lol! Oh dear. Well Into Thin Air is an amazing read no matter what month you read it for! I hope you can find something else for this month that tweaks your interest.
forsanolim wrote: "annapi wrote: "Here's one of my favorite survival stories: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson.There's also [book:Between a Rock and a H..."
YAY! We can read it together . . .
Michael wrote: "I think of survival for a shelf tag in terms of individuals against nature, cases of torture and imprisonment, war situations, people facing genocide, family members under oppression of domestic vi..."Amazing recommendations as per usual. My TBR is not thanking you, lol.
My favorite sub category of the ones you mentioned is man vs. nature.
Play Book Tag
Books mentioned in this topic
Still Alice (other topics)Hatchet (other topics)
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (other topics)
Holes (other topics)
Divergent (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Ruta Sepetys (other topics)Ruta Sepetys (other topics)
Khaled Hosseini (other topics)
Peter Gulgowski (other topics)
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The tag for February is:
survival
Please share your reading plans and recommendations below.
Remember, for the regular monthly reads, the book can be shelved as survival on Goodreads, or be a book that is not yet shelved that way but you feel should be.
One way to find books to read for this tag is to please visit:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...
We encourage people to link to additional lists below if they find them.
Happy reading!