40 - Your favorite prompt from a past Popsugar Reading Challenge

[Nadine in NY]

Your favorite prompt from a past challenge!

I guess this category is becoming a perennial one, perhaps because it's been very popular. I'll do what I always do and read a graphic novel. It's not that "graphic novel" is truly my **favorite** past category, but I do love graphic novels and they often don't fit in any other category.

I didn't create a Listopia for this category.

Here is the list we've maintained of ALL past categories for your perusal, if you need inspiration.

[Michelle]

I love this prompt to use as a freebie for something I'm desperate to read, but can't fit elsewhere. Will probably do Persepolis Rising or Tiamat's Wrath so I'm all caught up for Leviathan Falls later this year.

Or possibly The Priory of the Orange Tree

[Brandon]

This prompt helps me get an easy spot for my continuing Star Trek and Star Wars reading. It will probably be Return of the Jedi - Beware the Power of the Dark Side! by Tom Angleberger that I use for it this year (book with a character that is a robot, AI, or cyborg).

[Tania]

Found quite a few that work for me.

Favorite Color in title - The Blue Nowhere

Book with a map -
A Night to Remember (map of the ship)
Tales of the Frontier: From Lewis and Clark to the Last Roundup (US maps)
The Red Wolf Conspiracy (map of the sea)
Merlin (various maps of the UK)
The Mutiny on the Bounty Trilogy (map of the coast of Australia)
Boone: A Biography (map of New England)
The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis (map of Europe)
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (map of the Middle East focused on Iran)

upside down image: Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

[Jessica]

Due to the ridiculous number of unread books on my shelves, I always go back to "a book you own but have never read" which is basically anything!!!

[Mandi]

I remember finding a couple books for the 2019 prompt, "a book with a question in the title" that I was really excited about and never got around to reading.

How Long 'til Black Future Month?
Am I Normal Yet?

Also, from last year's prompt, "a book with a bird on the cover", I realized a lot of books I want to read have birds on the covers.

[Chelsea]

I've done a couple different ones for the past few years' "past prompt" ones and this year I'm going to do "A book mentioned in another book," which was from 2017. One of the first books on my list is The Last Equation of Isaac Severy for another prompt; the main character is a bookseller and there's mention of clues for a riddle hidden in books, so I'm sure a title will pop up there!

[Heather]

Michelle wrote: "I love this prompt to use as a freebie for something I'm desperate to read, but can't fit elsewhere. Will probably do Persepolis Rising or Tiamat's Wrath so I'm all ..."

I love seeing The Expanse get more love! You're in for a treat with those two books.

[Sylvia]

For this print I always go with “ book from a famous person book club list” and include Reese Witherspoon books in here!

[K.L.]

I'm going to go with a prompt from 2015: "a book more than 100 years old." I had the chance to watch the BBC's North & South mini-series last week, and now I really want to read the novel.
North and South

[Layne]

K.L. wrote: "I'm going to go with a prompt from 2015: "a book more than 100 years old." I had the chance to watch the BBC's North & South mini-series last week, and now I really want to read the novel.
[book:No..."

I LOVE that mini-series! The book was pretty good, too, but was kinda lacking in the Richard Armitage visual... ;)

[SadieReadsAgain]

So ever since I've been doing this challenge, I've always read a book for each of the previous years...but obviously that's getting longer each year! And this year, I'm trying to double/triple up reads across challenges to leave more space for mood reading, so that seems a bit counterintuitive.

So I'm going to hold off and see if I need to add extra books for other challenges before I decide what to do with this one in 2021! Then again, I might just do it as I go with my mood reads, and retrofit them into challenges from previous years.

[JessicaMHR]

I just went ahead and used (the next book in a series you've started) since I was already well into a series and had the book available.

Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson

I'm still reading this series but, I have to wait for the next book which is on Hold with the library.

[Blaise]

I loved the prompt 'a book that always makes you laugh' particularly the word "always". Finding something funny once is rare; repeatedly; priceless. I didn't get to the book that all three of my local booksellers recommended - Monsters: A Love Story. I could really use a laugh right now, so going with this one.

[Tamara]

I used the prompt from 2015 which was 'book based entirely on its cover' and read Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

[Emily]

My first selection for this prompt (I picked one for each year of popsugar (C. 2017: #31 A Book Where the Main Character is a Different Ethnicity than You) - A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

[Lucie]

I read The Sisters Brothers for PS2020, A Western!

[Arunimaa]

I didn't want to use this prompt so early on in my challenge as it was supposed to be a fail-safe for me if I want to read something which fits under none of the other prompts.

But here we are.

I read Delivering Evil for Expertsfor the prompt "A book with a made-up language" from POPSUGAR 2020 challenge.

[Ashleigh]

So, I'll be reading Silver for last year's prompt by or about a journalist. I read the first book for this prompt last year lol, so glad I'm able to reuse it this year haha

[Stina]

SadieReadsAgain wrote: "So ever since I've been doing this challenge, I've always read a book for each of the previous years...but obviously that's getting longer each year! And this year, I'm trying to double/triple up r..."

I've also been doing this, adding a prompt for each of the previous years. I do keep the same "favorite" prompt for each year, and while I will allow myself to count one book for multiple prompts, I'm trying to avoid that. So far, my 2015 prompt is the only one I don't have completed, unless you count a triple-dip.

2016: A murder mystery - A Dead Djinn in Cairo
2017: An audiobook - Bannerless
2018: A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift - The Door
2019: A book written by a musician - Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea
2020: A book with more than 20 letters in the title - Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook

[Britany]

2020: A Book Published in 2020

Finished Beach Read by Emily Henry

My Review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Sherri]

I used What's Mine And Yours by Namima Coster. The prompt was from 2020 A Book by a WOC.

[Stina]

Okay, got my 2015 read in.
A book you started but never finished: Slice of Cherry

[Julia]

2015 - more than 500 pages

[Elizabeth]

The next book in a series you've started - The Lake of Souls by Darren Shan.. so close to finishing this series so any excuse to use them.

[Ophélie]

Jessica wrote: "Due to the ridiculous number of unread books on my shelves, I always go back to "a book you own but have never read" which is basically anything!!!"

Love this 😁

[Pam]

I read The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives by Viet Thanh Nguyen (editor), using the 2020 prompt A book you picked because the title caught your attention. The book was on display at the library and the title and the author caught my interest. I highly recommend it!

[Lilith]

Prompt 21 of 2016
A book with your favorite color in the title
I love all shades and tints of blue.

Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story . This was such an honest, refreshing, passionate love story. I don't read many graphic novels, but friends have recommended some good memoirs. This was a gorgeous memoir.

[Juulna]

Michelle wrote: "I love this prompt to use as a freebie for something I'm desperate to read, but can't fit elsewhere. Will probably do Persepolis Rising or Tiamat's Wrath so I'm all ..."

Dooooo it! I can't wait for Leviathan Falls and those books were GREAT. But speaking of Priory, that's actually a great idea, because I was trying to figure out where to put it as well!

[Juulna]

Nadine wrote: "Your favorite prompt from a past challenge!

I guess this category is becoming a perennial one, perhaps because it's been very popular. I'll do what I always do and read a graphic novel. It's not ..."

One of these years I'd love to see a task for reading a fanfic or a non-fiction book about fandom/fanfiction writing. I've been perusing Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World this year and it is pretty awesome though of course doesn't cover the entirety of the fan experience. There are certainly places I can fit it in for a task, however, and in other reading challenges. But one 2021 Reading Challenge actually DOES list "read a fanfic" as a task, and that made me very excited to see!!

I know fic gets snubbed a lot, but there are truly some writers within the community who write far superior creations than so many other 'legitimate' authors... It's amazing!

Still, though, I love the variety of these prompts, and I wish I'd found the list you compiled before I put together (last December) my 2021 Fanfic Reading Challenge. Some of these would make amazing Hard Mode tasks, or just regular tasks, and some are 'evil' enough I could use them as inspiration for Extreme Mode tasks. Love it! When I make my new challenge this coming December for 2022's challenge, may I borrow with credit (as I did for some other challenges for 2021 -- I can link you to the example) some of these old prompts?

I especially love the rock task from this year's challenge, actually, because, legitimately... the only thing my brain could think of was Mars or the moon since I'm a gigantic space nerd who can't even think of earthly composites. :P Actually.... can I count 'Mars' as a rock, Mx. Nadine? xD

[Heather L]

Juulna wrote: “One of these years I'd love to see a task for reading a fanfic or a non-fiction book about fandom/fanfiction writing."

I don’t think my internal editor could handle that. *Shudders*

[Juulna]

Heather L wrote: "Juulna wrote: “One of these years I'd love to see a task for reading a fanfic or a non-fiction book about fandom/fanfiction writing."

I don’t think my internal editor could handle that. *Shudders*"

Believe me, I know the feeling! I've edited three novels myself, and I "beta" for some fic writers. It's the ones who don't ask for help or who are very young who make you flinch, but it's also an amazing avenue for people to explore a possible talent, and can be greatly supportive (a few mistakes are okay and easy enough to overlook, usually) and help grow some hidden talents who might never find out their potential/discover something they love otherwise. For myself I found my inner novelist (working on my first now!) so that was a positive, though I also found abuse from my now ex-husband because he was one of those sorts who don't understand fic, on the very far end of that spectrum. (That grammar was terrible, speaking of, but I'm exhausted and should sleep, hah! So off I go....)

[LeahS]

There is a lot of excellent fan fiction out there - it's not all awful.

I used last year's 'Women in STEM' prompt for this and read The Fossil Woman: A Life of Mary Anning by Tom Sharpe. I borrowed this after seeing Ammonite in the cinema - excellent performances but according to this book, Anning was much livelier than portrayed and well respected by the geological gentlemen of the period whose names actually got attached to finds.

[Anshita]

I'll be reading for this prompt "A book written by a WOC" from the 2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge. I bought Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me recently, can't wait to read it.

[Heather L]

Finished The Book That Made Me by Judith Ridge for this prompt yesterday — it fits last year’s “a book with a book on the cover.”

[Shauna]

Recommended by someone you just met - My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. I really enjoyed this prompt, both for its random nature and as an ice breaker to use in future interactions with said someone you just met.

[Dana]

2016 Fall: A book that you always wanted to read but never got around to reading

For this one I have read The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw.

[Cassie]

Puddin' by Julie Murphy
Completed: December 14, 2021

[Zach]

I loved last year's prompt "A book set in a city that has hosted the Olympics." And since the 2020 Olympics actually happened in 2021, I counted that as my "favorite prompt from a past challenge." Ironically I didn't read too many set in an Olympics city, but The Library Book mostly takes place in Los Angeles so I counted that.