[2023] Poll 6 Voting

[Rachel]

I ended up narrowing down my votes to 5 up an 3 down.

My upvotes were:
- Tinker, Tailor, Solider Spy
- An author's debut
- A book involving murder
- A book about crossing over into another world
- A book set in an apartment building or house

My downvotes:
- A Christmas book (literally nothing to do with religion, I just very rarely enjoy them, and like Marta said, I tend to find the season overly commercialized and it gets tiresome fast)
- A book from the first 5 books added to your TBR (They are literally all classics, and I'm not that motivated)
- A book related to the Harlem Renaissance (nothing on the lists so far has really appealed to me)

I was strongly considering upvoting the character who travels prompt, but decided to hold out in case the looser version (not tied to their job) gets suggested later. But I'd also be happy if it got in the way it is.

[Alicia]

Dear Mods! I either just voted or voted twice. If twice, can you delete the first vote? Sorry, my mind is all over the place today.

[Conny]

For some reason I found this round rather difficult to vote either way. Perhaps it's just because I was preoccupied and distracted, although immersing myself in this group usually tends to help rather than make things worse, haha. Most prompts just left me with a shrug and an "I might be able to make it work."
I did downvote the Christmas book (those tend to be too cheesy for my taste), the first five on the TBR (there's probably a reason why I still haven't read those), the farmer/farming, and the purple cover (none on my TBR for either of those).

I was surprised at the mini controversy that the Christmas prompt started, though. I can't remember any similar reaction to prompts relating to other religions (last year's Muslim and this year's Jewish prompts, for example), and as many others have pointed out already, the overwhelming majority of Christmas books has absolutely zero to do with religion/Christianity but with the Christmas spirit and general mood, which should hopefully appeal to more people than just Christians.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Alicia wrote: "Dear Mods! I either just voted or voted twice. If twice, can you delete the first vote? Sorry, my mind is all over the place today."

I'll check and delete your second vote!

[Pamela, Arciform Mod]

Conny wrote: "For some reason I found this round rather difficult to vote either way. Perhaps it's just because I was preoccupied and distracted, although immersing myself in this group usually tends to help rat..."

I'm not Christian and I didn't mind the Christmas prompt. There are lots of books that have Christmas in them but aren't about perky holiday fare. I just finished The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod for the Earth Day prompt and in his story of the year, there's Christmas. In my universe, that counts. I don't think the book has to be about Christmas, just have some scenes with Christmas in them. Like Little Women starts on Christmas Day.

[Joy D]

The prompt we were voting on is: Read "a Christmas book," which is a different wording from prompts we had in the past. If we were to parallel those it would be "Read a book with a Christian character or author."

This year, one of our prompts is: "A book with a Jewish character or author" - not "read a Hanukkah book," for example, (or Yom Kippur or some other Jewish holiday)

A past year, we had: "A book with a Muslim character or author" not Read a Ramadan book, for example (or some other Muslim holiday).

I think the wording is important.

[Michelle]

Over in the Wild Discussion thread, I had suggested an idea for a prompt about reading a book related to a holiday that you didn't celebrate, meaning people could pick any holiday, any culture, religion, etc. I thought it might be a good way to learn about different cultures. Someone reminded me that in other countries people use the phrase going "on holiday" or kids are on "summer holidays," so that could be confusing. But as far as a holiday prompt went, I thought it could be interesting to pick one that you might like to learn more about, and to each their own. It would also leave room for fiction and nonfiction.

Personally, I voted for a Christmas book because I tend to enjoy listening to them during my commute in December, but that is also my own little tradition.

[Joy D]

I like the "holiday you don't celebrate" idea, Michelle.

[°~Amy~°]

Joy D wrote: "I like the "holiday you don't celebrate" idea, Michelle."

I like "holiday you don't celebrate" as well. Even though I have a lot of books on my Around the World TBR, I don't think I have anything specifically holiday related. That's an easy fix with a trip to the Library :)

[LeahS]

Is holiday being used to mean any celebratory day/festival? As said above, to me in the UK, a holiday means a day most people would take off - so Christmas and Easter are holidays, and we have Bank Holidays, but celebrations like Guy Fawkes Day and Halloween are not holidays. Similarly, there are celebrations here for Hindu and Muslim festivals, but they're not official holidays. Could we say a holiday/festival rather than just holiday?

[NancyJ]

I like that. I'm in another group in which we read seasonal books in October, November and December. In November I once read about Thanksgiving, and another time about the Facebook voter manipulation scandal for election day. People read about holidays in their own country or designated history months/days.

I always thought we might try other months once in a while too, such as February, with president's birthdays, black history month, valentines day, and anything else. (For Valentine's Day someone might read about romance, the Valentines day Massacre, or about the original St Valentines Story.)

October has the new Indigenous people's day, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Halloween. I think October also has the UK remembrance day for veterans, and the Canadian Thanksgiving. Years ago my company had activities for Depression Awareness and Disability Awareness in October. I saw them on some calendars online, but not all.

I wonder if it would feasible to write a prompt to read about a holiday, commemoration, awareness categories, or history topics associated with a selected month (such as February or October). The biggest hassle is that the calendars and websites don't all show the same information. It might be better to limit it to just a few specific designations, plus something that fits the reader's own country. Or we could use some of the international designations to inspire focused prompts on those topics.

[LeahS]

I know that 'personal' prompts are sometimes disliked, but I wonder if a holiday/commemoration in the month of your birth would be general enough?

[Kahlia]

NancyJ wrote: "I wonder if it would feasible to write a prompt to read about a holiday, commemoration, awareness categories, or history topics associated with a selected month

What about a celebration or commemoration that is officially designated as a public holiday by a country? I don't know how accurate the calendar below is but there are lots of examples.

https://www.officeholidays.com/

[Nancy]

I think Leah's suggestion of holiday/festival is a good one, some of the others are too wordy, IMO.

I wouldn't want to to be a public holiday because that leaves out things like Halloween.

[Michelle]

I definitely was thinking holiday more along the holiday/festival/ celebration idea, including things like Halloween, etc.

I am a special education teacher with students from many cultures, so we have been reading about as many different cultural celebrations as possible this year - St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras, Ramadan, Cinco de Mayo. Diwali, etc. During summer school each class picks a country to learn about and then we have a cultural fair. So my class learned about Canada Day and Canadian Thanksgiving, etc.

I was just thinking of it as a way to learn about other cultures, etc It could be worded any which way.

[Steve]

Since the voting is over, moving this discussion about potential future holiday prompts to the Wild Discussions thread might be best to have more eyes on it.