[2021] The Wild Discussion Showing 51-100 of 2,279

[°~Amy~°]

I dont think themed polls are necessary. We always end up with a well balances list in the end.

[Rachel]

Jillian wrote: "Emily wrote: "A question for the crowd:

Is there anything you'd like to see or like to see changed with the 2021 voting process?

The mods are hammering down the details now, and we have shortened..."

I think communication is key to avoiding a lot of the confusion. I think some of the problems that have come up in the past were because there were misunderstandings about things such as how decisions were made (ie. by mods or by discussion in the threads), or when decisions seemed to change (ie. deciding on a multi-week only poll, and then allowing more ulti-weeks after that).

With such a big group it's bound to be a fluid process and things will almost definitely change, but it can be a bit frustrating to feel like a consensus has been reached and then things suddenly change again. I know we're generally pretty careful to say upfront that decisions are not set in stone and things will naturally evolve as the process goes on, but I've sometimes felt that certain decisions are presented as a "done deal" when that may not be the case. Hopefully that makes sense.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Themed polls are definitely an option if it's something the group wants, but I tend to agree with Amy that the list will balance itself out in the end. I do think that our system of voting means that you could use all 8 votes to downvote your least favorite prompts if you didn't want any of that type at all.

Rachel, we are definitely working on making as many decisions upfront as we can and being very clear with our policies to make sure everyone is in the loop.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

The mods in this group do an amazing amount of work developing challenges in great detail and creating this opportunity for everyone to participate multiple times in selecting prompts! I think that is the strength of this group, which differentiates it from the many groups where a leader or a couple mods just decide and proclaim the year's list.

[Chelsey]

I don't think theme polls are necessary as long as down votes exist. If balances out that way.

[Sara]

I agree with Robin that this group is unique in letting the members have a say. I am always pleased with the list and the diversity of it in the end. I also think themed polls are unnecessary.

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

In the past, when we've noticed the list was short in some area, people just pointed it out and then there were always a bunch more of that type suggested. That's probably all that we really need. I don't really want to force in a specific allocation of different types. After all, maybe this becomes the year where we just don't want any cover prompts, and that's what makes this year's list special. That won't happen, cause cover prompts are a gold mine of possibilities, but you get my point.

[Anastasia]

Is it really that time of year again? The last few years I have always could not wait to suggest prompts, see what others suggested and vote. This year I did not even notice we were close to setting up next years list.

The mods are great with the rules and being fair about the prompts. With so many things happening in the world it is great that you are able to keep our group on track.

As for themes, I think an over arching theme can be overwhelming for so many people to follow for an extended period of time. It also gives individuals the opportunity to focus their own reading by using personal themes for the year.

Our list maybe bumpy in the making but comes out the better for it in the end.

I vote no to themes.

[[deleted user]]

Jillian wrote: "I also like the idea of some themed polls the more polarizing themes.

My least favorite theme is the list/awards/recommendation but I do realize that they are need for a balanced list."

I haven't done a ATY challenge yet but I agree with this-I really dislike tasks from specific lists/awards. I read mostly 'fluff' and so many of the lists/awards are for literary fiction/book club type books, which just aren't my cup of tea.

Hmmm, maybe a prompt for a book that would NOT be found on a list/would never win an award.... lol.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

ZeeJane, that's such an interesting idea. You could maybe say A book that has no awards listed on its Goodreads page since most books have major awards listed on their page.

[Sara]

I like that one, hope you will submit it.

[Chelsey]

I love the wording of a book that has no awards listed. Really good idea.

[°~Amy~°]

Emily wrote: "ZeeJane, that's such an interesting idea. You could maybe say A book that has no awards listed on its Goodreads page since most books have major awards listed on their page."

I like that idea. I read a few indie authors that will sadly, never be included on any awards list. I like to have spots to fit those indie and small pub books in.

[[deleted user]]

Sara wrote: "I like that one, hope you will submit it."

I joined the group late last year and missed the last ATY set-up, so I have no idea what's going on LOL. But, if I figure out how to submit a suggestion for a prompt I'll present this one, I think it could be a fun one :)

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

On July 1st, we will post our first suggestions thread. You can go there and submit that prompt, and then someone else will second it, and it will go forward for voting! Just be on the lookout for that thread on July 1st.

[[deleted user]]

Emily wrote: "On July 1st, we will post our first suggestions thread. You can go there and submit that prompt, and then someone else will second it, and it will go forward for voting! Just be on the lookout for ..."

Will do, thanks! I am Determined to start participating in this group more, and I'm excited to see how the annual ATY challenge is put together :)

[Steve]

Glancing at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021, nothing really jumps out at me as a good event to tie a prompt into. We already did the Olympics this year, unfortunately!

21 can tie into blackjack, so maybe something related to cards or gambling.

21 gun salute.

21 is the legal drinking age in the US and 21st amendment ended prohibition.

Twenty-One Pilots... Adele's album 21...

It's a number in the Fibonacci sequence.

Just spit balling things since we often try to tie into the number of the year!

[Jill]

The United Nations has declared 2021 as the International Year of Peace and Trust,[1] the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development,[2] and the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables.[3]

[Sophie]

Given that many of us have been confined to some extent during this crisis, I was thinking that if we do a multi-prompt next year, I would suggest a prompt about confinement (e.g., prison, hospitalized, etc) and one about freedom (e.g., escaping war or escaping being “caught”, being released from a relationship or from some kind of a bad situation).

[Sara]

I like that idea, Sophie.

[Sherri]

I like the idea of a book without an award listed on it’s GR page. I also like the idea of a book that won a lesser known award. I think most genres have some kind of award.
I have a couple of other ideas. I enjoy reading graphic novels. I never read one till I started doing reading challenges. Ideas could be, read a graphic novel, read a graphic memoir, read a graphic novel by an LGBTQIA creator. I think we could find a graphic novel prompt for any genre.
For other reading challenges I have read books published by indie presses, micro presses and self published. I find these prompts hard because I have to do research but I have enjoyed the titles I read.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

Jill wrote: "The United Nations has declared 2021 as the International Year of Peace and Trust,[1] the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development,[2] and the International Year of Fruits..."

Ooh, fruits and vegetables sound fun!

Coming of age book would make sense for 21

This is my first time going through this also, since I joined in January of this year. Looking forward to it!

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

We've had suggestions related to cards in the past (multi-weeks, usually, related to the suits or to the face cards). I'm trying to think on how to spin that without bringing up old prompts that were shot down.

Maybe A book connected to the face cards in a deck of cards (king, queen, or jack). That would allow for title, cover, character, plot, etc. and it would be one that could be taken as broadly (a character named Jack) or as firmly (features an actual king and queen) as the person wants.

We could also do a cover prompt that says A book that features one of the suits of cards on the cover. So it would have to have a heart, a spade, a club, or a diamond on the cover.

[Peter]

Emily wrote: "We've had suggestions related to cards in the past (multi-weeks, usually, related to the suits or to the face cards). I'm trying to think on how to spin that without bringing up old prompts that we..."

I wouldn't worry too much about suggesting a prompt that didn't make it in a previous year. For one, it would be an exhausting exercise to figure out if your idea has already been suggested, and second, it might make it in this year based on a number of different factors (ie - it hasn't been on a recent list, it's against a different set of prompts in voting and does better this time, or maybe people just like it more this time). Sometimes it's nice to have old prompts cycle back in.

I'm not a fan of themed polls. I think the voting process works best when people just select the topics they want/don't want rather than trying to vote based on what they think other people want or what the list needs or what we've had in previous years. I don't think there is a need to have a perfectly balanced list - if people really like a bunch of title prompts and we end up heavy on title prompts, then maybe there will be fewer next year. In the end, we are really open to people interpreting the prompts in unique ways and don't police anyone's lists or reading so it's generally (aside from extremely specific prompts) easy to come up with something that works for you, or ask for other people's ideas in how they are tackling it. I think we are really good as a group in coming up with cool new ways to look at prompts that were not necessarily intended originally. And as mentioned above, if we are getting a lot of one type of prompt and not many of another type, once someone points it out we generally get an influx of whatever was lacking.

One other thing I've noticed over the past couple years is that there are more and more suggestions that are trying to be universally appealing prompts and we end up getting a lot of suggestions that are "a book that X or has X on the cover" etc. To me prompts that have an "or" caveat are two prompts and kind of feel like they are fishing for votes because they are trying to appeal to people who like different types of prompts at the same time. I'd really prefer if we just had suggestions for topics without any additional caveats, but ultimately it's not a huge issue.

edit: I don't mean to exclude the word "or" out of all prompts. Something like... A book that has a cat or dog on the cover isn't what I mean. I mean something like... A book that has a cat or dog on the cover or has a cat or dog in in the story. The second example is what I mean, where the "or" basically gives a completely second option.

[Kelly]

Peter wrote: "One other thing I've noticed over the past couple years is that there are more and more suggestions that are trying to be universally appealing prompts and we end up getting a lot of suggestions that are "a book that X or has X on the cover" etc..."

I completely agree! I wish we could all just agree to let loose interpretations of the prompts slide, rather than expand the wording of each prompt to be appealing to the maximum number of people. Like... if you interpret a prompt in a way that allows you to avoid reading something you dislike, who's going to argue with that?

[Jill]

I agree with Peter. There is no way that we can keep coming up with prompts we haven't had before. A lot of the prompts we have had, have just been the old ones reworded. I think people can interpret them the way they feel suits them.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Oh yea for sure. I just didn't particularly like the previous card-related prompts (I'm pretty sure I've downvoted all of them 😂) so I was trying to think of prompts I would enjoy that were related to cards.

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

Peter I am so with you on the 'or' prompts, especially when so many could just be reworded. Like a prompt that says 'a book with a horse in it or has a horse on the cover' could just be rewritten to be 'a horse-related book'. But I am biased towards concise prompts :)

[Laurel]

Emily wrote: "Oh yea for sure. I just didn't particularly like the previous card-related prompts (I'm pretty sure I've downvoted all of them 😂) so I was trying to think of prompts I would enjoy that were related..."

Maybe card games (bridge, hearts, spades, poker, solitaire)?

[Anastasia]

I dislike the list prompts because they tend to be US centered. I want to read much more diversely.

The prompts I like the most are the ones that are more off the wall. Like the Olympic prompt, Maximilian Hell prompt or the major theme of survival. They are open but give some guidance to narrow down a book. I ended up with some really interesting reads that way.

[Sophie]

Emily wrote: "Oh yea for sure. I just didn't particularly like the previous card-related prompts (I'm pretty sure I've downvoted all of them 😂) so I was trying to think of prompts I would enjoy that were related..."

What about something more general, Emily, such as “A book related in some way to a deck of cards” People can make it what they wish. They could choose to go with specific cards, games, use the title, cover, theme, etc.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I like more specificity in my prompts... So having one of the suits of cards on the cover or a book connected to the face cards would narrow it down just a bit to make it a bit easier to search for.

The more I think about it, the more I like A book connected to one of the face cards in a deck of cards. Kings, queens, and jacks will be fun to read.

[Alexx]

I've been a part of this group for about three years now but only got involved in the voting process towards the end of it last year so I'm really excited to get a bit more involved this year!

I'm pretty easy going, and I honestly don't think there has been a single prompt that I haven't enjoyed or haven't managed to find a book to read for it. Like someone else said earlier on in this thread, I too just scroll through lists until I find a book that is on my TBR.

One thing I'd love to do next year though is read more books by diverse authors. The majority of books on my TBR are by white male authors and whilst I do want to get through it, I also acknowledge that I should be reading more diverse. Whether that's through specific prompts (e.g. A book by a BAME author) or by finding books by diverse authors to fit the prompts, I don't mind!

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I haven't heard of the acronym BAME (it's not something we use in America), but I like it a lot! I would 100% suggest that prompt if I were you.

[Sherri]

Speaking of diversity. A book by a BIPOC author.
Another thing to think about concerning the deck of cards discussion. How about a book related to a deck of tarot cards? It could be faces on the cards. A character in a book reads tarot cards.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

I think I saw tarot cards in an earlier year's prompts, but it's wide enough to be used again.

I am in a lot of book groups but I don't now BAME or BIPOC, can you explain? Of course POC is person of color, but I don't know the rest.

[Cheri]

What I love about the challenge is the variety of types of prompts, which allows me to read what I already know I love and also to explore new areas (my kids were amazed/impressed when I read manga!). For most prompts I scour my TBR to find things that fit and end up discovering all sorts of books I'd forgotten I put there.

My favorite prompts allow for a fun search -- like the ones this year involving "We Didn't Start the Fire" or Maximillian Hell. Two types of prompts that are hardest for me are 1) those relating to specific genres that I already have tried and don't much care for and 2) cover prompts, because I do the vast majority of my reading on Kindle and so I'm pretty unaware of covers, which are really hard to look at in tiny thumbnail photos on GR.

Can't wait for the prompt nominating process to begin!

[Hannah]

Robin wrote: "I think I saw tarot cards in an earlier year's prompts, but it's wide enough to be used again.

I am in a lot of book groups but I don't now BAME or BIPOC, can you explain? Of course POC is person ..."

BAME is used in the UK to refer to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people.

Not sure about BIPOC, but I assume Black Indigenous People of Colour.

[Molly]

Has A book by a black woman been a prompt before? If not I would like to see it as an option for 2021

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Yea, BAME and BIPOC seem to cover the same groups of people - basically non-white. I hope one of those prompts makes it in the list! Molly, we haven't had any that target both women and POC, but I'd vote for it!

Cheri, I read a lot from the library, where you never know what you'll get on the cover of a book, so I usually just use the default edition of the book on Goodreads when I'm searching, and if the default works, then I count it. Same for page numbers.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

Yes, page numbers are an issue with ebooks because I generally make the print bigger, which means more pages. So I have to look at the main edition on GR.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I just opened up my TBR and wished I had ATY prompts to plan for 😂 Can't wait to start voting!

I was thinking about prompts today (because, why not?) and I'm wondering about a prompt like

A book related to money

It could be a self-help book, like Dave Ramsey or Rich Dad, Poor Dad, or it can feature characters who have a lot of money (or no money). Maybe characters gain an inheritance or there's a theft of money. What do y'all think?

[Serendipity]

I’d love to see a prompt like an book relating to social justice’. I don’t know it would get voted in though because I know a lot of people like to read to escape, don’t want it to get political etc.

[Serendipity]

Another prompt I’d be keen on is a book set in a country you haven’t yet read or by an author from that country. I know it has the dreaded or but we’ve used that approach a lot in the past with prompts set in or by authors from Scandinavia, Mediterranean country, Africa or South America, Far East Country etc. It would also tie in well with the ATY map.

[Sherri]

I like that prompt

[Sherri]

I also like the social justice prompt. I like reading outside my comfort zone. I like the money prompt.

[Hannah]

I think a social justice prompt could be worded in such a way that would allow for fictional/fantasy examples - maybe something like "a book in which a character struggles against/overcomes oppression," which would allow for some who want to use it to read something relevant to real life social justice and others to choose something maybe dystopian or fantasy based.

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

Hannah wrote: "I think a social justice prompt could be worded in such a way that would allow for fictional/fantasy examples - maybe something like "a book in which a character struggles against/overcomes oppress..."

I like that wording a lot; after all, scifi and fantasy have long been used as a way to discuss social issues within a different framework. Maybe just say 'a book in which a character encounters oppression' as a simpler way to put it.

[Suzanne]

Emily wrote: "I just opened up my TBR and wished I had ATY prompts to plan for 😂 Can't wait to start voting!

I was thinking about prompts today (because, why not?) and I'm wondering about a prompt like

A book..."

I was just thinking about suggesting a prompt related to money! You read my mind.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

Yes, both of those are good ideas. Money applies to so many books, for instance lots of Jane Austen, Dickens and so on, on the lighter side Shopaholic, and of course nonfiction.

Social justice can include all kinds of issues, real and fictional. And good point that books which might seem escapist are often relevant to the real world. Sci-fi writers know this. Both Gene Rodenberry with Star Trek and Rod Serling with Twilight Zone wanted to put on TV series that addressed social issues but the networks wouldn't accept them. So they put their concerns into fictional universes.