Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
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[2022] Wild Discussion
I suppose it could be a book that has been on the BBC, which would cover not only adaptations but all the book club books, radio 4's book at bedtime, documentaries on books and those that have tie-in books.Book at Bedtime:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006...
Radio 2 Book Club:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/ra...
There's the radio side of things as well - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy started off as a BBC radio show, and they do adaptations of books (I loved the recent version of Anansi Boys with Lenny Henry, and Good Omens: The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation is also great).
Although BBC adaptations tend to be classics there are more modern ones such as The Cuckoo's Calling and Normal People. I'm sure there are more but that's what comes to mind. There are also children's books such as The Worst Witch and Tracy Beaker that were favourites from my childhood.
I would like to see the radio/audio adaptations included if the BBC prompt is suggested. I'm not big into classics so not many of the TV adaptations are that appealing to me. The 'books at bedtime' series has a lot more variety and contemporary options so I would be more likely to find something I'm interested in from there.
I also wouldn’t be a fan of adaptations, only because my love for BBC adaptations is so strong that I’ve read many of the accompanying books. There’s a few others, but I generally am not interested. Where filmed/produced by bbc can be a mix of a list prompt for classics, but also allows for some creativity for those that want it.
Lindsey wrote: "I like the creative prompts or prompts connected to 22 as well. I've been voting for those, and I'm hopeful the tarot cards will make it in this time. Before voting first started, I did some quic..."
I would love a medical theme. I think the last medical suggestion was a bit too narrow, and I think a broader prompt would have a better chance. Can someone think of a catchy term?
I like Blood is thicker than water too. It makes me think of the mob/mafia as well as families, murder, vampires, royals, etc. A family ties theme has a lot of potential.
I think Plane crash is too narrow, but maybe something about planes. I loved Dear Edward, but I'm not sure I've ever successfully persuaded anyone else to read it.)
How about a Travel theme? "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" There are a lot of great travel books, as well as other books that include segments with characters on planes, trains or automobiles. Plus it's a movie about people helping each other with their problems (I don't remember much).
Lindsey, re a Labor theme - I think there are a few of us that would like work or workplace related books. Labor laws cover unions, overtime, and child labor. Child labor is fairly common in historical fiction (think Dickens, farms, China) and in some countries today. My random word was related to labor unions (strikebreaker) and I wasn't able to find too much that I wanted to read about them.
I would like an environmental theme, related to nature, ecosystems, ecology, climate change, conservation, etc. I am not creative enough to think of a catchy phrase for it that isn't too far out there. "Make every day Earth Day" - I saw this once but I don't know if it's catchy enough. Maybe something else with Earth in it, or about saving the planet, allowing some to use related science or sci-fi books, if they don't like environmental.
I don't know if sex sells with this group, but I think I saw a phrase once that highlighted the romantic connotations of chemistry and biology. The idea would be to allow people to read about science or romance.
A Biology theme might relate to science, environment, nature, or people's bodies, and maybe health, or having children (the biological urge to procreate).
I really like the idea of a prompt that can have dual meanings.
Deborah wrote: "What are you thoughts on the following prompt: Book with a character in a career that is most often filled by the opposite sex
Male nurses, female engineers, stay at home dads, female scientists,..."
I love all these ideas. I had thought of suggesting Read a book that has a cover with a view from above or a birds eye view, but didn't want to step on any toes.
In every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is the story of the earth.Rachel CarsonMankind without Earth is Humanity without a HomeS.G. Rainbol
There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.Marshall McLuhan
Here are some quotes about the Earth. Maybe some one can use one to start a prompt.
Adding to Anastasia’s earth quotes - Our Planet, Our Future.
I love the blood is thicker than water prompt! It's not one I've done before so I like the originality.I would also vote for something medical related if it's not too narrow, almost like a genre prompt.
BBC I'm ambivalent on, mostly because I don't really like list prompts that I don't know much about (the only thing I've ever seen from BBC are nature documentaries).
I normally don't like list prompts, but I do like having a Goodreads choice prompt, although does it have to be just the 2021 awards? I looked through, and I've only read 9 books from the 2016 awards. So something that would allow me to go through past years as well as this years just appeals to me more.
°~Amy~° wrote: "Kat wrote: "I've never been able to concentrate on audio books (even though I love podcasts) but decided to give it another go. Libby has some books I want to read that they only have the audio for..."ABSOLUTELY! Adjusting the audio speed is so crucial! My co-workers make fun of me for listening at 1.25, but it's the only way I can keep my brain engaged. They tell me it just means the book is a boring book or a boring narrator and I should just move on to something else, but I keep on insisting that is not it! The only books I listen to on 1x are Harry Potter (done by Jim Dale on this side of the pond) and that's because they are beyond FANTASTIC!!
Anastasia wrote: "In every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is the story of the earth.Rachel CarsonMankind without Earth is Humanity without a HomeS.G. Rainbol
There are no passengers on Spaceship Ear..."
These are great quotes. Thanks!
Hi, sorry to be annoying but if anyone else wants to participate in my survey of ATY members' favorite books, here is the link one last time! https://forms.gle/2L63cNfHx9Nr2PdC6If it doesn't move past the suggestions round in the next poll, then
it'll just be a fun list of awesome books to have and I won't be bothering you all about it again :D
(And if it does, you can definitely still fill out the survey afterwards! Your recommendation just won't be on the list that people see when voting starts)
To an admin -On the community spreadsheet for 2022, I suggest that the prompt "2 books with the same word in the title" be given two rows - a row for book 1 and a row for book 2.
This is consistent with the other multi-book prompts and will help with counting.
Thanks!
Ellie wrote: "Oh. I thought people were suggesting an adaptation prompt, not related to any BBC show? If it's just related that is pretty much a freebie. They have shows on everything if you look hard enough."I meant, a book adapted by the BBC. I willl word it carefully
I am not always a fan of list prompts but I do enjoy the idea of the BBC Books at Bedtime that Ellie posted earlier and would vote for a prompt that included this perhaps as part of a BBC prompt or I would possibly find a book related to Dr. Who or Sherlock which are the BBC shows I am most familiar with. I suppose it will depend on what is intended with the prompt.
I did start a list of newer BBC adaptations but Goodreads decided to not save half the books I added, so it's quite short. But if anyone wants to add to it, it's here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Oh darn, I probably would downvote it now. I liked the option of being creative, while also giving people more structure. But this just becomes a list prompt and one that is mainly “classics” which I also feel is overdone. I really don’t want a 3rd list prompt.
I disagree that the BBC only adapts classics, I started my list to disprove that. Maybe America only gets to see the period dramas?
Oh that may be true. I did look at the list, but I’ve only heard of 3 of the books, and two I’ve read. Whether it’s classics or not, it still becomes a list prompt. I just don’t like only being able to choose set books and not being able to add things I actually want to read.
Alicia wrote: "Oh that may be true. I did look at the list, but I’ve only heard of 3 of the books, and two I’ve read. Whether it’s classics or not, it still becomes a list prompt. I just don’t like only being a..."
I guess that's the problem, the BBC tend to adapt British books and often not the well known ones because they can't afford to bid against the big studios.
It's not all classics at all! The BBC has done Noughts & Crosses, His Dark Materials, Rowling's The Cormoran Strike series and Cleeves' Shetland Island series (I'm not sure if they started with book one in each series nor do I know how closely they follow it).
Golden Compass was one of the ones I mentioned reading before, along with Normal People. The others I also haven’t heard of 😞If it gets in, I’ll always find something to read. But for those of us not in/from the UK it may just be a bit harder.
BBC Radio adapted a 7 or 8 go Terry Prachett’s Discworld books, although I would have to look up which ones, as well as Dirk Gently
There's also Call the Midwife, I read the first memoir a couple of years ago but would love to read the others.
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This might not come across perfectly, but NPR (which is US based) got in and I think BBC could at least have a chance . I don't have any kind of television service at my house, here in the US, so I do borrow quite a few BBC titles from the library. I didn't realize how many until I looked at a Wikipedia list of television programmes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
There are quite a few shows that have become pop culture in the US from BBC. Titles like Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Doctor Who, Luther, Killing Eve, Nos4A2, Orphan Black, The Office, Sherlock, Death in Paradise, Call the Midwife, Father Brown, Shakespeare and Hathaway,
LindaLH wrote: "To an admin -On the community spreadsheet for 2022, I suggest that the prompt "2 books with the same word in the title" be given two rows - a row for book 1 and a row for book 2.
This is consist..."
I actually like it the way it is, because I wouldn't want to have to go back and forth to each list. For now I am only voting for books with a pair, So each book is right next to its pair on my list.
RachelG. wrote: "This might not come across perfectly, but NPR (which is US based) got in and I think BBC could at least have a chance . I don't have any kind of television service at my house, here in the US, so I..."I don't watch TV very much anymore, but I have no idea how many, or what kind of books would be in the BBC adaptation list. I don't think I get BBC anymore, but I remember a lot of mysteries. I recognized Elizabeth is Missing and The Luminaries from the show list, along with familiar titles that I wouldn't want to read (e.g. Dracula).
NPR is purely about books, not adaptations of books, so it's hard to compare.
NancyJ wrote: "RachelG. wrote: "This might not come across perfectly, but NPR (which is US based) got in and I think BBC could at least have a chance . I don't have any kind of television service at my house, her..."We had the BBC big read list as one of our prompts back in 2016.
NancyJ wrote: "LindaLH wrote: "To an admin -On the community spreadsheet for 2022, I suggest that the prompt "2 books with the same word in the title" be given two rows - a row for book 1 and a row for book 2.
..."
Are you talking about voting on the listopia? I agree with Linda that on the spreadsheet it is weird that only this one prompt doesn’t have a line for each book.
Chrissy wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "LindaLH wrote: "To an admin -On the community spreadsheet for 2022, I suggest that the prompt "2 books with the same word in the title" be given two rows - a row for book 1 and a r..."
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. I was thinking of the listopia not the spread sheet. I agree that we need two lines.
Jill wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "RachelG. wrote: "This might not come across perfectly, but NPR (which is US based) got in and I think BBC could at least have a chance . I don't have any kind of television service a..."That's good to know. I was excited about both the Big Read and the Great American Read, and I read a lot of those books in 2018-9,
Is anyone planning to submit a genre or subgenre for poll 12? If not, I'd like to suggest this one now or next week:
Read a book from a fun sub-genre, such as steampunk, up-lit, cyberpunk, glitz, cli-fi, micro-history, slip-stream, hopepunk, grimdark, fairytale retellings or nanopunk.
SUGGESTIONS?
This is probably already too long, but I could switch up the terms.
... biopunk, AI, space opera, hate-to-love, social sci-fi, Lovecraftian, first contact, space opera, utopian, nanopunk,
Subgenres include:
steampunk, cyberpunk, biopunk, nano-punk, AI
Up-lit, hopepunk, solar-punk
climate fiction, biothriller, dystopian, utopian,
first contact, space colony, space opera, space western,
historical fantasy, fairytale retellings, epic fantasy, grimdark
Regency, friend-to-lover, hate to love, glitz, fantasy romance
Lovecraftian
Slipstream
Micro-history
supernatural detective, cozy mystery
superheroes postapocalyptic
social sci-fi, quantum fiction, time-travel, interdimensional travel
Nancy wrote: "There's also Call the Midwife, I read the first memoir a couple of years ago but would love to read the others."Call the Midwife is the one I would read if this got in, or maybe Luminaries. I'm not really into mysteries right now, and I already read Normal People. Books made into movies (world wide) would be a more fun, but perhaps too broad.
NancyJ wrote: "Is anyone planning to submit a genre or subgenre for poll 12? If not, I'd like to suggest this one now or next week:
Read a book from a fun sub-genre, such as steampunk, up-lit, cyberpunk, glitz..."
I like the idea a lot. Not sure what to tell you about the wording.
Do you need the “such as…” part? If they are just examples, you could cut them and people can choose their own sub-genre. Especially since “fun” will mean different things to different people.
I don't know half those genres. The list makes me curious to find out more. Are there any subgenres about women?
Could someone please suggest my ATY survey prompt for me tomorrow morning if it's not too much trouble? This is my preferred wording:
Read a book from the ATY-curated List of Great Books
Unfortunately, having been hospitalized since yesterday, I don't have the Listopia ready yet :( But I will have it done some time tomorrow for sure, before the start of voting!! I got about 50 lovely submissions and can't wait to put the list together. So far, there's a definite focus on classics, literary fiction, and lesser-known/hidden gems (although this could change if more people end up filling out the survey later on) and the quality of the recommendations is amazing! :D
This is my 3rd year doing the AtY, and one of the reasons I joined, was because most of the prompts gave me a good list of my own TBR-books to choose from while still fitting the tasks.I can customize the prompts to make them harder or easier for myself and that can prove rather useful, as I live in a tiny country, where not all books in the world are readily available - not to mention translated to my language… As if, lol.
Occasionally people comment on the results of the voting, that the prompts are too broad and call them freebies and so on. But I have also seen people suggesting ways to set own boundaries, like “read women” or “read around the world”. That’s very cool!
So, I’m personally very grateful, when the wordings are broad enough for me to keep participating without having to stretch and bend every interpretation to find appropriate (and available) books - and for that, thank you! 🤩
It’s only September and I am already excited about my reading list for 2022, hehe 😉
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Emily, I don't have admin access to fix this, so if you could make this edit to the 2022 planning page when you get a chance and/or grant me admin privileges on the spreadsheet. Thanks!
Mod
We do have the official count for the prompts on the Introduction thread, and the spreadsheet will be one shy of 52 because we double that one prompt.
One of my more rewarding prompts this year was the one about an author with a long career (more than 21 years). I would love to see something like this again - but with 22 years. I'm not sure I would have voted for it last year (there weren't as many examples as we have now), but I would love to see it now. I discovered several new authors that I really like.If anyone wants to suggest it....
A book by an author whose career exceeded 22 years.
Emily wrote: "I kept them together on purpose... I think it makes more since to have them in the same box rather than having the same word in title split across two separate boxes..."It's your prerogative of course :) I understand that it makes sense to you for planning purposes. My concern is that the spreadsheet is programmed to count each row as a prompt, and you've got two prompts in one of the rows, which makes the count one short as you noted, and that doesn't make sense to me.
I thought "well, you could program the spreadsheet to double count that one row", but that doesn't make sense either because although there will be two books in that row, we read one at a time.
Perhaps the community spreadsheet that we fill in once we begin the challenge will give each book its own row?
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For example, BBC hosts RuPaul's UK Drag Race. So, t..."
So that raises the question, which appeals more:
* a list of BBC book adaptations
* a list of books related to BBC productions