[2021] The Wild Discussion Showing 2,051-2,100 of 2,279

[Thomas]

Honestly I never pay it much attention. I have picked for the catergory

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

The whole thing seems silly to me since most people have read only one or a few of the books in each category. How can I rate something best of the year when I don't know the competition? It favors well-known authors and series.

[Nadine in NY]

Robin P wrote: "The whole thing seems silly to me since most people have read only one or a few of the books in each category. How can I rate something best of the year when I don't know the competition? It favors..."


Yep. It's not a "literary prize" I put much stock in - it's a popularity contest and I rarely like any of the winners. But I still pay attention because sometimes books are popular for a reason.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

It's the same thing with Barack Obama's new book as well. It's nominated but hasn't been released yet.

[Sara]

Robin P wrote: "The whole thing seems silly to me since most people have read only one or a few of the books in each category. How can I rate something best of the year when I don't know the competition? It favors..."

Precisely how I feel about it, Robin.

[Ellie]

There's room in the world for both panel judged prizes and popular vote awards. I've read 18 books from the first round, and they are mostly good books that don't deserve to be dismissed just because they are "popular".

It's not perfect but it's a bit of fun and helps authors get a bit of extra publicity (they are not all massive bestsellers).

[Beth]

Agree with what others have said about the GR awards - it bothers me that you don't need to have read a book to vote for it.

However I still like to browse through the categories each year and usually have a few on my TBR. I don't tend to gravitate towards new releases so that's why I like it to be a prompt on our challenge.

[Kat]

I've always wondered how they pick the 15 books that make the first list. Almost 600 books were published on 3rd September alone and they just picked a handful of them to make the list. With so many books that are already out to be read it doesn't seem fair that a book that hasn't even been released yet can count and maybe even end up winning.

I read mostly on Libby so I'm not usually up to date with new releases. I've been able to add a lot of books to my TBR though and some should make it into my plan next year.

[Ellie]

Kat wrote: "I've always wondered how they pick the 15 books that make the first list. Almost 600 books were published on 3rd September alone and they just picked a handful of them to make the list. With so man..."

Based on what they say in the rules, it's a combination of high ratings and number of people reading and/or shelving the book. So some of those new releases will have good reviews from people with advanced copies plus a lot of people shelving them as to read. Hence they make the list even though they are not out yet.

They don't auto add in any books with a less than 3.5 average rating either.

[Jillian]

Even though the GR award is really a popularity contest, I prefer these popular books over the ones that win more prestigious awards.

[Thomas]

How is everyone interpreting present? For some reason i am fading that one trickier to work out.

[Nancy]

Jillian wrote: "Even though the GR award is really a popularity contest, I prefer these popular books over the ones that win more prestigious awards."

Yes, I completely agree.

Thomas are you referring to the Past, Present, Future prompt?

[Thomas]

Nancy wrote: "Jillian wrote: "Even though the GR award is really a popularity contest, I prefer these popular books over the ones that win more prestigious awards."

Yes, I completely agree.

Thomas are you ref..."
I am. fine with past, fine with future but torn about how to define present

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

I'm just going to use a realistic fiction/contemporary fiction book. Something set in the present time that is realistic.

[Alicia]

I’m with Jillian and Nancy. Maybe I’m not fancy enough, but I feel like I regularly dislike books that win the literary prizes. They are always hard to get through and sometimes have these deep meanings, that I just don’t get.

I don’t mind that the GR awards is a popularity contest, in fact I think that’s why I like it. I use GR’s rating system to determine which books I’m going to read and usually won’t read a book if it’s rating is below 3.75 (and even that is lower than I like). So I enjoy seeing what books everyday people like and rate favorably. It always gives me great ideas for next year.

[Alicia]

Thomas, present is probably a majority of the books you read. Something that doesn’t have a date or could be happening right now (even if it was written a couple years ago). Basically, I think of it as anything that isn’t a set time in history or the future.

[Beth]

Thomas wrote: "How is everyone interpreting present? For some reason i am fading that one trickier to work out."

I'm probably just going to use a book with a present tense verb in the title.

[Nancy]

The planning thread for those prompts was just posted, I'm sure there will be lots of ideas. I'm going with time travel books.

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

Yeah, I like the GR choice awards too, I just wish they would make a few tweaks to how they do things. I always add a bunch of books to my tbr list and I do love that it brings attention to books that wouldn't otherwise get much attention. I just want a few little edits to the process to tidy things up a bit.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

Alicia wrote: "I’m with Jillian and Nancy. Maybe I’m not fancy enough, but I feel like I regularly dislike books that win the literary prizes. They are always hard to get through and sometimes have these deep mea..."

Actually I agree with that too. I don’t like popularity contests that allowed the 50 Shades books to be in The Great American Reads but I also find many literary prize winners to be pretentious and boring, and usually depressing.

[Thomas]

Just realised my pick for the future prompt is set in the 2020s um...

[Rachel]

It's never really made sense to me that the second round of the Choice Awards has more options available than the first round. Maybe I'd be able to wrap my head around it better if they considered the current round preliminary, and the next round the "real" start of the process. Otherwise, it seems weird to me to have more options instead of fewer per round.

[Thomas]

Rachel wrote: "It's never really made sense to me that the second round of the Choice Awards has more options available than the first round. Maybe I'd be able to wrap my head around it better if they considered ..."

It would be better to announce official nominees and then say have a round of only voting for write ins. Voting for the official nominees when they are guaranteed to get through does seem a bit pointless.

[Steven]

Robin P wrote: "Laura wrote: "Robin P wrote: "Alicia wrote: "This is one of the very few times I’m sad I don’t have Facebook.

And Nancy, I’m not even part of the group, but I HATE when people try to tell me the ..."

I had a discussion with my uncle just recently about audio vs print.

I don't listen to audio because my mind wanders. So with print that means I just refocus when it does, but with audio I'll have missed something.

My uncle does audio on his commute, but, he's started reading books he previously had listened to and is fascinated by the different response he has to it. He picks up on completely different things depending on the medium.

[Thomas]

Agreed, not dissing audio in any way but it’s just not for me

[Steven]

Alicia wrote: "I’m with Jillian and Nancy. Maybe I’m not fancy enough, but I feel like I regularly dislike books that win the literary prizes. They are always hard to get through and sometimes have these deep mea..."

I follow the prestigious literary awards because they challenge me. I don't always like the books, and definitely feel like some of them are pretentious, but I don't want to get stuck reading the same books or authors over and over again. And, some of those books or authors have turned out to be some of my favorite, so I'm willing to take that chance.

For goodreads choice awards it seems less like popularity or my like hype. I see lots of books that are on things like Oprah's list or similar sorts of things, which can be great or not. So I'll always look through them, vote for stuff I've read and liked, but not get to worked up about them either.

[[deleted user]]

ellie & emily, sorry if i seemed to discourage with writing in votes! i wrote that in frustration because the goodreads team never seem to do an accurate job of picking the original books and vote ins never win. i was feeling discouraged

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

No worries annie. I happened to have all of my favorite books of the year make it to the original picks this year, but last year I had a lot of write ins. Some made it, some didn't. Most didn't win, but just getting nominated was enough for me, especially some of the ones in humor and nonfiction and graphic novels because I nominated a lot of smaller instagram artists who published books and the recognition was great for them.

EDIT: I ended up writing in All the Ways We Said Goodbye for historical fiction, Followers for sci-fi, The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm for memoir/autobio, and A Nearly Normal Family for mystery/thriller.

[Aimee]

Thomas wrote: "Just realised my pick for the future prompt is set in the 2020s um..."

I would say that's okay if the 2020s were 'the future' at the time the book was written - for instance Parable of the Sower is a futuristic book even though it's only set 5 years from now from our perspective. But do whatever works for you; luckily ATY is not the kind of challenge where people will get on at you for "not doing it right".

[Jette]

Thomas wrote: "How is everyone interpreting present? For some reason i am fading that one trickier to work out."

I didn't like just 3 loosey-goosey prompts related to such broad time spans so I think that I'm going to go with a theme. I was reading something for this year's challenge that made me look for Empress Orchid. It sounded interesting and I could use it for past, then pick an element from it (maybe powerful women, or ruling families) and find a book for present and future.

However, my library doesn't have it electronically, so I'll probably pick another book set in the past and determine my present/future theme from it.

Good luck with your choice...

[Nancy]

Emily wrote: "EDIT: I ended up writing in All the Ways We Said Goodbye for historical fiction, Followers for sci-fi, The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm for memoir/autobio, and A Nearly Normal Family for mystery/thriller."

Oh dear, I wrote in Followers for fantasy. I did Oona Out of Order for sci-fi. And I'd Give Anything for Fiction, The Last Train to Key West for historical fiction, Wild at Heart for romance, The Big Finish for debut.

EDIT: I changed Followers to sci-fi. I don't know what I was thinking when I had it in fantasy.

[Ellie]

Most my top reads published this year were already selected, but I did write in The Constant Rabbit for fantasy and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor for science fiction.

[Thomas]

I can’t participate much. I actually read hardly anything new this year

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Nancy, I was debating if I should do Oona or Followers, but I think I liked Followers more. I do think they are both sci-fi... I had nothing to write in for fantasy.

[Nancy]

Yeah not sure if you saw my edit but I changed it to sci-fi. I definitely liked Followers better than Oona.

I have nothing for fantasy either, for write-in or the existing nominees. It's not a genre I read much.

[Thomas]

I’m curious does anyone else use kids books for the challenge? I need to counterweight the long book so I’m planning to add the spin off Harry Potter books

[Ellie]

There are always loads of people reading Harry Potter for the challenge, it's listed more than 60 times in the community spreadsheet for this year.

[Johanne]

Yes to children's books.

[Thomas]

Thanks

[Pam]

Yes to children’s books, mostly mid-grade for me. One year, a few of us did a picture book challenge, which was fun! I agree Thomas that, for some of us, there has to be balance when you are reading really long books, especially classics which take more effort to read. I don’t think I would finish the challenge if it wasn’t for novellas and mid-grade books. I’m so glad that there is not a page minimum or other limiting criteria in this group!

[Thomas]

I admit I did wonder about adding a picture book, for the novelty of it

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

I just wanted to say that I love how this thread is called "The Wild Discussion"! It always makes me think of the wild rumpus from Where the Wild Things Are, and implies that lots of topics and ideas are welcome.

[Ali]

I'm not sure if anyone else suffers from this. I love the planning part of reading challenges but honestly planning right now is just messing up my current reading. I keep seeing books that I could use for prompts that I have on loan from the library or want to read now. It's putting me off reading them. So I think I need to put next year's prompts away for a bit haha!

[Thomas]

Know the feeling I’m just running Popsugar down

[Jillian]

I used a children’s picture book one year for a prompt I did not care for. Later in the year, I did read an adult book that would have worked. That year I had a personal rule that once a book was in a spot I could not replace it so my children’s book stayed.

[Nancy]

I do struggle with that Ali! I have a couple of books on hold that I was hoping to read for prompts. But I've decided to just find something else for those and read them.

It will be easier in December when I plan to read as many holiday-themed books as I can.

[Thomas]

Jillian wrote: "I used a children’s picture book one year for a prompt I did not care for. Later in the year, I did read an adult book that would have worked. That year I had a personal rule that once a book was i..."
My rule is it can't be moved once I have read it. i'd get confused otherwise

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Robin P wrote: "I just wanted to say that I love how this thread is called "The Wild Discussion"! It always makes me think of the wild rumpus from Where the Wild Things Are, and implies that lots of t..."

I love this, Robin. :)

[Nicole]

Yes, 100% to any books! One year I read Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters for a prompt (can’t remember the year or the prompt right now, though), and I have also ready many middle grade and YA books for the prompt, also. I actually have the Harry Potter series slated for eight of the prompts this year (including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two) and may also add in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, as well. It has been way too long since I’ve done a re-read of the series, so I decided this was the year. And there are multiple prompts for most of them to fit!
Of course, I’m also hoping to read The Count of Monte Cristo for my long read (maybe, we’ll see how the year goes), as well as many other “grown-up” books, so I feel like I will have a pretty good mix of books in my challenge.

[Pam]

Ali - I have that problem too but it worked to my favor this time because I found a book that I was looking at for 2021 that fits a 2020 Popsugar prompt, published in the month you were born, which I had given up on! The book was published on my exact birthdate (different year) and was available on Overdrive. I also figured a way to fit it into one of my last few ATY prompts! I always say that the right book comes along when I need it and it sure did in this case!