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[2022] Wild Discussion
Alicia wrote: "Not sure, but would a book about adoption cover that? Would there be a lot of books about adoption where the main character isn’t one of those?"I guess you could have social workers or what have you. But yes I agree a book about adoption would cover it.
One warning though is this prompt could be triggering, or one that anyone with experience in that area might want to avoid. I was adopted and I don't mind reading about adoption, but I'm sure there are those who were adopted/gave up a child who don't want to read about it.
I like non-fiction but there are definitely those that avoid it no matter how you phrase it. Last year "A non-fiction book on a topic inspired by a fiction book you've read" was a close call. I could get behind "Non-fiction related to a school subject" but I feel like that covers pretty much any non-fiction that's not bio/memoir, which we did have this year.
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I was just telling someone to read Arthur & George. But is it too restrictive with just writers? Maybe expand to historical figures?
Pamela wrote: "°~Amy~° wrote: "Pamela wrote: "°~Amy~° wrote: "I found this list of every popsugar challenge from 2015-2020. I thought it would be good to get some ideas for suggestions here (they have been "borro..."Absolutely, it doesn't hurt to throw ideas out there. Every one of us is here for a different reason and have a different experience to draw from. A "rejection" of a prompt idea should never be taken personally because it is never meant that way! :-)
Nancy wrote: "Alicia wrote: "Not sure, but would a book about adoption cover that? Would there be a lot of books about adoption where the main character isn’t one of those?"I guess you could have social worker..."
Thank you. I didn't really think of it that way, and I should have. I could see how it might be triggering.
Pamela wrote: "That could be, people are getting conflated. I only do this one (so I know the old person prompt we just picked is a repeat from last year). "We had elderly character in 2019, and I think this one, including aging, makes it different enough.
I think there are only so many prompts and there will be repeats, but as long as there's enough time in between (3 years I think is fine) I'm ok with it.
That's what wildcards are for, though - nobody is ever forced to read something that would harm or even annoy them!
Pamela wrote: "°~Amy~° wrote: "Jillian wrote: "Amy m, GR is changing what they allow from outside websites. You should be able to copy the website but can no longer create a hyperlink."I understand why they are..."
Can you spell out the link with a few gaps so that it doesn't try to create a hyperlink?
Edie wrote: "Pearl wrote: "Laurel wrote: "I recently learned that 2022 is the 50th anniversary of The Godfather (making me feel old).Do you think a prompt related to The Godfather would be too restrictive?"
..."
In case it matters, Godfather was a very popular book before it was a film.
For a book about adoption you could read about pet adoption if it's a difficult subject. eg. Rescue Me
I'm getting dizzy trying to catch up with all the comments. It's been a crazy day.Mana said she won't be here to suggest Woman in Stem - is someone planning to suggest it?
I will submit her other idea about a non-human protagonist - I'll look up the wording. I like it because it has something for animals, sci-fi, and fantasy fans.
Would a book about foster children or abandoned children fit under an adoption prompt? I read The Language of Flowers this year and it was wonderful.
Kelly wrote: "I will probably miss the suggestions tomorrow, but if anyone wants to put in "a book with a paranormal or supernatural character" please feel free - it was a close call a couple polls ago, and I in..."Kelly, I'm going to submit Mana's idea for a non-human protagonist. It would include paranormal, supernatural, AI, aliens and animals. Maybe that extra bit will help it to get through.
Can someone suggest a language tweak? A book with a non-human as one of the main characters.
It could be an animal, AI, cyborg, alien, vampire, mythical creature, etc.
The Golem and the Jinni
Klara and the Sun
Cinder
A Closed and Common Orbit
I really wish I could second the Community prompt, and historical fiction, and...;;;;;;
There are some exciting topics on this list, and the links are great. I especially like the articles/lists of 50 Best Sci-fi and Fantasy books from NPR, and the list of Science books written by women from Stemwomen.
NancyJ wrote: "Kelly wrote: "I will probably miss the suggestions tomorrow, but if anyone wants to put in "a book with a paranormal or supernatural character" please feel free - it was a close call a couple polls..."Works for me - as long as I can read about werewolves or vampires I'm good, thanks! :)
Kelly wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "Kelly wrote: "I will probably miss the suggestions tomorrow, but if anyone wants to put in "a book with a paranormal or supernatural character" please feel free - it was a close call..."Be sure to recommend your favorites on the voting thread. The only one I thought of right away was Dead Before Dark.
NancyJ wrote: "Be sure to recommend your favorites on the voting thread. The only one I thought of right away was Dead Before Dark."If you have not read the Parasol Protectorate series yet, I highly recommend it. The first book is Soulless
I'm someone who does multiple challenges a year and also have been doing challenges for multiple years, so I'm used to their being repeats, but there are still a few specific prompts that seem to come up repeatedly every year on multiple challenges that I'd love to have a break from. Specifically, I can think of a few:
- A book in translation
- A book set in a country that is not your own
- A book involving mental health (I think this is a great prompt, for the record, and love to read books on this topic, I just see it a lot!)
- A book published the year you were born
- A banned book
There are probably a lot more, but those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head. I'm actually wondering if part of the reason I've been gravitating a bit more toward the Pick Your Poison challenge list is because I wasn't involved in the process, so the prompts feel a bit more exciting. Some of the prompts there are incredibly specific and things that I likely would not vote for, but for some reason when they were presented as just being on the list, they seemed interesting and different. I found this challenge too late in the year to take it on, but I'm strongly considering doing it for next year. It will just be a matter of choosing which of their lists to do.
I'll attempt to share the link here, but I doubt Goodreads will allow it: https://gregoryroad.blogspot.com/2020... If the link doesn't work, the blog is called Take A Walk Down Gregory Road, so it could probably be found pretty easily with a search.
If you click on the years on the right side of that page, there are also links to previous years' challenges. Maybe it will help to spark some ideas.
The link worked for me and the Gregory Road site does have an interesting twist to it. I've found that blog book challenges have become appealing to me lately.I've been participating in multiple challenges for 7 years or so and I'm thinking challenge ideas are looking quite familiar year after year. I enjoy the planning process in this group, but I'm thinking that next year I'll plan reading according to what I want to read. It's been quite a while since I've been able to say that a certain year was the best reading year I've ever had. I may take a break next year from social media and book challenges to avoid that "I'm going to miss out" feeling if I don't read new books and the pressure I put on myself to finish challenges I start.
Rachel, it sounds like you might want to consider a completely different type of challenge. Maybe something that involves more depth, more challenging books, review writing, or in-depth discussions. You might want to try a read-harder or tag group that requires you to write reviews. Writing reviews was a huge challenge for me (especially after a concussion), but it helped me to read more deeply. It made a huge difference in my appreciation of what I was reading, especially when sharing them with others who are reading similar books. Sometimes it's better to focus on quality rather than quantity. I think some of the common prompts are popular because they're good - and good for us. I'd like to read many books on each of the three topics you mentioned. (They promote empathy and understanding of the world.)
I like the clever way Gregoryroad groups their prompts. I was able to match up a lot of my 2021 books with their topics. I don't think it's more challenging, but I agree it might spark some ideas.
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Like this: https://www.npr.org/series/944476252/...
What they have stopped allowing is links to outside webpages that hidden within text (aka hyperlinks). Normal people use hyperlinks to make their comments easier to read. For example when the mods want you to make sure you get your Summer Challenge entries submitted by the end of the month, we'll say find the completion thread here.
Unfortunately, some bad eggs were using hyperlinks to trick people into going to outside sites that let's just say people would ordinarily avoid. So now you can only using hyperlinks for "inside" sites, ie other goodreads pages.
I started challenges in 2018 and had a side challenge to go back and complete the previous years I had missed so did end up doing repeats. I don't mind that much with ATY but I still have 2 or 3 Popsugar prompts to read a book set near where I live. There just aren't enough books that I haven't already read.
Someone recently said they started doing challenges to get pushed out of their comfort zone, and now books they wouldn't normally read before are now books they gravitate to (paraphrasing massively here!), and I agree with this wholeheartedly. I've found so many new authors and genres, and don't automatically turn away from a book because of content or genre. Elizabeth Acevedo, the Flavia de Luce books, Jasmine Guillory, the Cinder series, and Becky Chambers are just a few gems I'd never have read if it wasn't for challenges. That being said, I'm also at the point where I don't need to be pushed out of my comfort zone much more, and reading books from prompts that have been done so many times (banned book, classic, from the year you were born/graduated high school/etc.) gets a little boring. I'll vote for historical fiction and next in a series because I'm going to read those books anyway. The prompts that are new and different aren't getting in and it's a little frustrating.
So maybe after this year I'll step back from the choosing process and try another challenge (I've had the tab open for the Pick Your Poison challenge for a few days now). This is only my third year doing ATY, and I found 2019 at the end of the year but managed to slot books I'd already read into almost every prompt.
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NancyJ wrote: "Sometimes it's better to focus on quality rather than quantity...."Reading a quantity of books every year doesn't automatically mean you aren't reading quality books. I read around 125-150 books a year. I don't read anything that I don't want to read or that doesn't look interesting. Once in a great while I will find a book that I really don't like but its very rare, I dnf and move on. :)
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Reading a quantity of books every year doesn't automatically mean you aren't reading quality books. I read around..."
That's incredible! You have way better luck picking your books than me. I seem to pick up so many duds.
I missed the quality over quantity comment and that kind of thing chafes me. Just because someone reads a lot of books doesn't mean they aren't good quality books. I'm at 90 so far for the year. Pre-Covid, 90 was my average in a year. But being home all day has increased my reading time, especially for audiobooks.
Jackie wrote: "°~Amy~° wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "Sometimes it's better to focus on quality rather than quantity...."Reading a quantity of books every year doesn't automatically mean you aren't reading quality book..."
I have gotten really good at telling if I am going to like a book or not when I first see it. Part of that is from doing challenges and exploring genres and formats I hadn't before. I found out I LOVE graphic novels, plays, nonfiction AND epistolary books, all from this group. I've also discovered that I would rather scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon then read another western. YA and I have parted ways recently but sci-fi hit me hard a couple years ago and it's now my go-to comfort genre. With a lot of exploring and a bit of mood reading, I'm pretty happy with most everything I pick up now. :)
Robin P wrote: "We had someone last year (Hannah?) who joined and mistakenly first looked at the 2019 list, then realized there was a 2020 list, so she took on doing both, that is finding a slot in each year for a..."Yes, this was me! It was surprisingly easy to match my books up to both year's prompts - there were only a few that I felt like I had to go out of my way to find something that would fit. It was fun though, I enjoyed it a lot.
Hi sorry fro my outbrust the other day. I really want to come back tot he challenge. Is that possible?
I think the quality vs. quantity comment was more about the quality of the reading experience vs. the quality of the books. I read around 150 books a year, and I enjoy most of them, but I remember very few afterwards in any detail. I like the suggestion to focus on being able to write a good review afterwards, and might try that as my "challenge" next year. Mostly I do challenges to help me decide what to read next and plan my library holds, because decision fatigue is a real thing.
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Thomas wrote: "Hi sorry fro my outbrust the other day. I really want to come back tot he challenge. Is that possible?"Of course! I have days where I don't know if I'll read 5 books next year, let alone 52 and other days where I'm overconfident and gung ho about starting the next challenge. Everyone is welcome at any time!
Chrissy wrote: "I think the quality vs. quantity comment was more about the quality of the reading experience vs. the quality of the books. I read around 150 books a year, and I enjoy most of them, but I remember ..."I've made a point this year that I need to write a review for every book I read. Because I also start to forget how many books I've read and why I gave them certain ratings, which makes it hard to use them as guides or discuss them later. Writing up the reviews and being able to refer back to them acts as a beacon in my mind and then things come flushing back in.
I find writing reviews quite intimidating and never really know what to say. I might try and be a bit braver next year. I've been getting through books so quickly this year. Working from home gives me so much more time to read and we haven't been able to do much else.
There aren't that many books I read during the year that I wouldn't have read anyway but this group helps me to find some that I may have otherwise missed. And it's always lovely to see what you all think about a book.
I write reviews now, but they are really for myself, to remember what the books are about and what I felt about them.
I've been writing reviews for everything I read since partway through last year and I really enjoy it! I love reading them over and seeing what I thought and I also think that it helps me solidify how I feel about a book when I write about it. It makes me feel better about ratings, too, because I can say "I gave this book three stars because I loved these elements but was really frustrated by these elements" vs and another book where I might say "I gave this book three stars because I liked reading it well enough, but nothing about it wowed me."I don't force myself to write a review immediately after each book, though. I'm usually about four or five books behind, but I like to have a few weeks of thinking about it before I write. So I sit down on weekend mornings and write a review or two.
Kat wrote: "I find writing reviews quite intimidating and never really know what to say. I might try and be a bit braver next year. I've been getting through books so quickly this year. Working from home giv..."
I review every book I read. When I first started, it was a bit intimidating, so I would make lists of a few things I liked and a few things I didn't like. Often in the course of writing this list, i wouuld end up writing a nice, cogent review! But sometimes my review was just the list.
I'm the same as Jill and Hannah. I don't always do it right after I finish and I think I'm currently about 6 behind. But I don't worry about other people reading them or how what they'll think of my opinions. Feel free to write, list, scribble anything that makes sense for you. I do it for myself to help me remember what the books are about and how I felt about them. And it's a bit fun to put all your thoughts down. Sometimes I have a lot to say, sometimes all I really want to say is "meh".
Robin P wrote: "I remember a lot more if it is a book I discuss with a group, either online or in person. But I am finding that forgetting a book is a blessing in that I can reread things from earlier in my life a..."I know! After my accident I reread quite a few books and it was fun because I got to re-experience that sense of discover. Now I have to face facts that my memory lapses are probably just age related (or lack of effort). I read China Room a few days ago and I've already forgotten half the story. Yet, there are still many books that I remember really well years later. Those are usually the ones that I puzzled over, wrote about and discussed. Later on I noticed that those books also had many literary tags, so now I'm looking for more literary fiction.
Realistically though even young people only remember a small percentage of what they read, so everyone could re-enjoy a favorite book they read many years ago. (Though you might discover your tastes have changed.)
Chrissy wrote: "I think the quality vs. quantity comment was more about the quality of the reading experience vs. the quality of the books. I read around 150 books a year, and I enjoy most of them, but I remember ..."Yes, if it was me that was definitely the case. It's about the quality of the experience. When I read too quickly or don't take time to really think about a book, I don't enjoy it as much. I sometimes do that when I'm under stress just to keep my mind off the stressors. It's like mindlessly eating potato chips. Of course, the quality of the books help too. I was in a group reading competition last year that got really competitive once covid hit. I read more than 240 books, and many of them were really not worth reading. This year I set a goal to cut that in half which is still a lot more than I used to read. And I need to cut it further to allow more time for other projects.
I have had people tell me that my reading itself isn't "quality" because I don't spend hours assessing and analyzing every aspect of the book. It is a popular elitist belief that if you don't "read like a lit professor" you aren't really reading. The same has been said in some groups about reviews, if you aren't taking time to critique a book, you aren't REALLY reading. I tend to believe if you pick up a book and read it, that is quality reading. Anything beyond that is for your own enjoyment. There's no need to feel your reading isnt "as good" as anyone else's. Do what you love and leave it at that. :)
@Rachel A. thank you for mention Gregory Road. There are some fun new ideas for prompts. A book based on your shopping list. A book about an apartment building.
A book with a fictional language.
A book that centers around a group of friends.
A book about neighbors.
A book with nomads.
I will be looking for more.
Man there's nothing I hate more than a book snob. I got into an argument on Reddit with a person who thought adults shouldn't read YA because "If you are an adult, read good literature, with interesting use of language where deep underlying philosophical issues are discussed. Don't waste your time reading YA garbage." SMH.
Nancy wrote: "Man there's nothing I hate more than a book snob. I got into an argument on Reddit with a person who thought adults shouldn't read YA because "If you are an adult, read good literature, with intere..."Ugh, I hate that!
Nancy wrote: "Man there's nothing I hate more than a book snob. I got into an argument on Reddit with a person who thought adults shouldn't read YA because "If you are an adult, read good literature, with intere..."I'm not opposed to deep stuff but readign nothing but that I would go mental.
Yes, there is definitely reading elitists everywhere. People know I like to read so they ask me what I’m reading a lot. And I’ll says something YA witch book or a cheesy romance. Then they like to tell me, condescendingly, “oh, I’m reading Caste”. Like good, I hope you enjoy it as much as I love witches. It’s not a competition. It’s just fun!
It is the same with lots of things though isn't it. Book snobs, food snobs , art snobs , wine snobs. Life is full of them.
Around the Year in 52 Books
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James Ellroy (other topics)
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My preference would be "a book about..."
Yes, I suppose it would. I am probably overthinking it!