Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
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[2022] Wild Discussion
Alicia wrote: "If the current list prompts don't get in, what do people think about the ATY "hidden gems" list. The wording can definitely be changed, but the intent would be a group curated list of books we lo..."
I love the idea of "hidden gems." Is that the list you mentioned yesterday on the voting thread? The list I saw wasn't very long, and many of the titles were unfamiliar to me, so I would need time to read the reviews - or take a leap of faith. I don't often read the end of month reviews, so that might help. We have such varied tastes here, we can't assume we'll all like the same things.
If you get people to add another book to the list now, they're more likely to understand it or accept it. (Based on the participation effect) that could make a big difference. Plus it will be longer, giving us more choices.
It might be impossible for us to assess whether or not a book was heavily promoted. Many books are popular because they're good and people talk about them. One of my favorite authors is an indie author. She isn't promoted by one of the major publishers, so there is no one pushing her titles to book stores, distributors, and bloggers. (My library can't get some of her ebooks or audios.) But her books are often on Kindle unlimited which is a different type of promotion.
We had this list for a prompt suggestion a couple of years ago which is along the same lines (lesser known books): https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...I'm not sure if people would prefer to create a new one though.
NancyJ, someone else suggested it, but I just really like it and wanted to see if others did too. I’m terrible at coming up with prompts unless it’s about my cat. If rabbit makes it in this year, I’m going to start a cat prompt campaign!
I like the hidden gems idea.Alicia, I would definitely vote for a cat prompt!
NancyJ wrote: "It might be impossible for us to assess whether or not a book was heavily promoted..."Everyone will have their own definition of hidden gem, do I don't think it matters of you don't know a book's publicity history. To me it's just a chance to read a book that I'm not always hearing about. Some people like to use number of Goodreads ratings if they want a less subjective measure.
I think it depends what country you're in too. There are books that are popular in the UK that US readers have never heard of. And some popular authors have less well known books that are just as good.
A hidden gem could also be an "unknown" book/author that you come across somewhere that turns out to be a 5 star read.
Our list of lesser known books is three years old already! Here was me thinking we made that last year. We could definitely ask people to add to it again if we wanted to resubmit as a list prompt. Give newer members a chance to contribute and us oldies to add anything new we've stumbled across and loved.
I love the cat idea. But that’s largely cos I love cats
Alicia wrote: "If the current list prompts don't get in, what do people think about the ATY "hidden gems" list. The wording can definitely be changed, but the intent would be a group curated list of books we lo..."
I absolutely love the idea. And Kim Jiyoung is a book I have been pushing on people too. It is a hidden gem.
I love the hidden gems list idea! Normally not a list person, but I read a lot of indie books, and even my favorite classics are usually not the popular/required reading ones by an author. (I love Eight Cousins way more than Little Women for instance.)
Alicia wrote: "NancyJ, someone else suggested it, but I just really like it and wanted to see if others did too. I’m terrible at coming up with prompts unless it’s about my cat. If rabbit makes it in this year,..."
I used "hidden gems" because I used to have a similar list on a movie site I used to visit. The list itself was called "lesser known."
Kim Jiyoung and a couple of the books on the list were also Warwick Women in Translation nominees or winners, or pulitizer, booker or other award winners or nominees. I think having different lists as prompts each year exposes us to new titles that we then recommend to others. (Cross pollination?)
Mod
I love the "hidden gems" prompt idea, and I just added a book to the list too.
I would use a hidden gems list to find new reads but I wouldn't vote for it as a prompt. The reason being that those hidden gems can be very hard to find for library users or readers in other countries. Also not knowing what will be on the list or how many people will participate before hand would make me very nervous that I wouldn't find anything I wanted to read when the time came.
I know this doesn't help everyone, but a lot of the 'hidden gem' books I love are available on kindle either free or very cheap, or free with a subscription to Kindle Unlimited (which frequently runs free trial deals). That does expand the availability a little bit.
It would appeal to me more than a prize list.
The last time I filled a "hidden gems" challenge, I vacillated between a book I loved that had very few GoodRead ratings and a book by a popular author that wasn't part of their more famous series. I went with The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, as I only knew about her Anne of Green Gable books before.
Mod
That would be better. On principle I vote down list prompts
I like this idea so much more than Award-related prompts! It's a list prompt I could get behind for sure.
I like the idea of an ATY member list but probably not with 'hidden gems' as a focus. I use the challenge to work my way through my TBR, not add to it and at the moment there are no books on that list that I want to read. I would prefer a lesser known book as a prompt by itself without a list but it might be too soon for a repeat of that one.I'm not sure what else could make a good member-created list.
We could do a favorite list - Have everybody pick their top 5 (or 10 if they can't limit themselves that much) books of all time.
Kendra wrote: "We could do a favorite list - Have everybody pick their top 5 (or 10 if they can't limit themselves that much) books of all time."I would like to see that list. It would require someone calculating all the votes to make a ranked list, but that's not too hard. I could handle that. I would keep it separate from a listopia list though because those lists tend to be skewed by books we plan to read (or "also liked," but not favorites).
I like the idea of favourite books. The only issue might be people finding it too similar to the best books of the month prompt we have already.
There were a lot of great ideas posted in this thread early on that haven't been submitted yet. Is anyone still working on these? Chinese Zodiac or Year of the Tiger or zodiac. The Chinese Zodiac sounded a little cooler to me, but we also have prompts involving animals and dragons. The western zodiac has a lot of interesting aspects too. Robin had a good idea that involved the zodiac signs that could be used like the Nato challenge this year. I also like the planets in the solar system (Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, moon, and pluto-might still count in astrology), and the 4 elements (earth, fire, water, and air). They all have meanings related to astrology, mythology, astronomy, space programs, and other science. Plus gender (mars/venus) and emotions (moon and water). All those terms can be found in many book titles, including sci-fi, fantasy, crime (zodiac killer). and nonfiction (life on mars).
Sherri's twilight zone idea had a lot of interesting offshoots too. One of which was:
- A book related to a hospital /healthcare/ illness/ doctors/ nurses/etc - I think this could be timely and interesting.
The various songs -I've been everywhere. - I didn't look up any of these songs, so I don't know if they would spark interest in me personally, but the discussion was pretty interesting. Edit - I looked at the lyrics I could find, and while I've been to quite a few on the US list, I probably won't want to read about them - with the exception of Auckland New Zealand and Toronto Canada.
I also remember something about Asians and Pacific Islander immigrants. This is timely because Asian immigrants have been subjected to hate crimes recently. And there happen to be a lot of interesting books by Asian authors from many different countries. Does anyone have plans to submit something? If not, I would want to go a little broader with this:
"Read a book with an Asian or Pacific islander main character or author." This should cover Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines as well. [I was surprised to discover that tagalog (philippines) was the most common non-english language spoken by kids in the city schools in my area -upstate NY.]
I submitted Year of the Tiger for Poll #2 (I think), but it didn't make the top, bottom or close calls. It can definitely be resubmitted.
NancyJ wrote: "Kendra wrote: "We could do a favorite list - Have everybody pick their top 5 (or 10 if they can't limit themselves that much) books of all time."I would like to see that list. It would require so..."
Why does it need to be a ranked list? Also not everyone partakes in the voting process so it should be a list that people can add to whenever. Listopias are used because they are generally the easiest, and if someone comes in and gets click happy GR librarians can fix it (I am one and I'm sure there are others in the group).
Though saying that I don't know how you expect me to pick five favourites. 🤣
I guess it depends what you want to do with it. It's not like we are short on lists around here. I just added some books to the old list. I meant to add three, but I ended up with 6 or 7.On tonight's giveaway list is a book titled Rock Paper Scissors.
NancyJ wrote: ""Read a book with an Asian or Pacific islander main character or author." This should cover Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines as well...."Coming back to this prompt, I think it would stand a good chance as just an author prompt. The previous reservations was about it being limited to an American author (AAPI). I like it less with a clause for people not to read an API author at all. There are so many great books across all genres.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
I would also like the prompt to be to read an API author.
I am thinking about suggesting Rock, Paper, Scissors as a one week prompt. I am trying to think of the best way to word it. I know "related to" prompts rub some people the wrong way (me!) and we always end up with multiple prompts with that same wording in them, so I want to be a little different. How do these suggestions fit with people?A book inspired by Rock, Paper, Scissors?
A book linked to Rock, Paper, Scissors?
A book connected to Rock, Paper, Scissors?
A book with a Rock, Paper, Scissors connection?
Any other ideas?
I like consistency in the prompt wording throughout the list myself. Though we already have related and connected so I guess that ship has sailed already (and possibly my fault as "connected to" was already on there when I submitted flora/fauna). I thought people's issue with "related to" prompts that it was too vague, not the word itself? Connected and linked seem like the same prompt.I have trouble with "inspired by" used in that way. It seems to suggest to me that the author was inspired to write the book because of the thing. I think I had issues when we had a book inspired by a news story, and I had to actually look for a book where the author said they were inspired by an event.
Ellie wrote: "I like consistency in the prompt wording throughout the list myself. Though we already have related and connected so I guess that ship has sailed already (and possibly my fault as "connected to" wa... Case in point. The "inspired by a 2021 read" was unsucessfull but was voted in when I reworded it as "connected to"
Ellie wrote: "I like consistency in the prompt wording throughout the list myself. Though we already have related and connected so I guess that ship has sailed already (and possibly my fault as "connected to" wa..."I think that depending on the person certain words can have a more solid feeling than others do. If I had to list people I were "related to" , I could connect you all the way back to my 15th grandfather and every relation from that line. If you asked what family I was "connected to" I would only give you the list of immediate family. But again, that is just me and how I interpret the words. Others may see it the opposite.
Oh OK. I use the word relate much more widely that the family connection definition. Like at work I'd ask "is this bug related to that change we made?" and everyone would understand me. I think we even specifically use the word "related" in our project management tracking software to link work items.
You must use Jira ;)I agree that linked, related, and connected are the same, all meaning having a connection to something. Inspired by is different though, and not a word I enjoy because it means a more direct connection. I too struggled with Inspired by a news story, though I did end up using something that was a ripped from the headlines type thing rather than actually inspired.
I'd be down with an API author or character, though I'd be ok with just author too.
Can't wait for the poll 5 results today!
I prefer just API author over author & character too. That way it encourages a more 'own voices' stance. I would definitely vote for an API prompt though, regardless of the wording.
Nancy wrote: "You must use Jira ;)..."Hah close. We only had one member of our team who actually liked Jira, so we just use DevOps, and I am sure Microsoft copied plenty from Jira!
I also prefer API author only, not character and setting
I hate Jira with a passion. But my company’s engineers love it, so we’re stuck. Amy, I like related to for Rock Paper Scissors. I know people dislike related to because they feel it’s too broad, but I actually like it because it’s broader. It creates a lot of interesting ideas from the group.
That said, what are some examples of things that could work? It was easiest for me to think of different ways to use rock, paper or scissors individually. But combined, I feel limited to the game of RPS. Which is also why I like related to because then I could do a book related to any game. If it’s inspired by, connected to, with a, etc I feel limited to books only about RPS.
One take on rock, paper, scissors that I didn't think of before, is there's a whole personality/psychology aspect to who chooses what. So, especially for a single book prompt, you could choose a book with one straightforward, blunt type character (rock), one laid back, risk averse character (paper) and one sneaky, clever character scissors. Maybe hard to plan ahead of time, but if you like epic fantasy it's not probably not that hard because any standard questing party will at least include the rock and scissors types!
I like API author only. I’ve thought about suggesting a Jewish author or protagonist. It’s a prompt I’ve never seen suggested but I know there are lots of great options.
I've thought about Jewish as well, as I'm reading The Hidden Palace right now (sequel to The Golem and the Jinni) and Jewish culture is a big part of it.
I would vote for API author, but as I read a lot of Manga that would be an easy prompt for me.I also would vote for a Jewish author and would enjoy having both on the final list.
Jewish author/character would be fun to have after the Muslim prompt this year! And it would give me the opportunity to recommend The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish, which I read last year and thought was incredible.
I think Jewish author/character would be an interesting one. I do multiple challenges a year for the past 6 or so years now, and it's a prompt that I've never seen before. I feel like some people might assume that most books involving Jewish characters are heavily focused on the Holocaust, but that's not true.There are also some fantastic children's books with Jewish protagonists like Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins or Make a Wish, Molly.
Pam wrote: "I like API author only. I’ve thought about suggesting a Jewish author or protagonist. It’s a prompt I’ve never seen suggested but I know there are lots of great options."I would also vote for it, but maybe we see it less than some of the others because there are some really big names (like Saul Bellow, Franz KafkaNorman Mailer just off the top of my head) that it doesnt feel like a group people dont read in general?
Juliet Brown wrote: "Pam wrote: "I like API author only. I’ve thought about suggesting a Jewish author or protagonist. It’s a prompt I’ve never seen suggested but I know there are lots of great options."I would also ..."
Exactly.
Would vote for any iteration of an Asian author/character prompt, which seems especially relevant given the Stop Asian Hate movement this year.
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The wording can definitely be changed, but the intent would be a group curated list of books we love that aren't "popular" or heavily promoted.
For example, I would add Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 because I'm on a mission to get everyone to read this book translated from Korean. But I would not add Beach Read