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[2023] Poll 9 Voting
Loneliness/isolation is definitely my favourite of this batch. I really like the royalty prompt (although I personally find the wording a bit clunky), but I'm on the fence about voting for it because I saw a similar idea for a Chess Piece prompt in the Wild Discussion, and I think I like that version a little better. They aren't exactly the same concept, but the kinds of books I pick would likely be almost the same. Same for supernatural ability vs. the ghosts/undead -- not identical, but similar enough. On the other hand, there's no guarantee those other versions will end up getting suggested.I still love apartment/house and interracial relationship. I'm not 100% sure I'll vote for them again since anything I vote for that didn't get in gets added to my rejects challenge so I'm doing them anyway, but I most likely will so they stand a chance of being added to the main list.
I'm most likely downvoting Roaring 20s because it's a prompt that I've seen multiple times since 2020, Indian subcontinent for reasons I've already mentioned, and probably downvoting memoir.
NancyJ wrote: "I saw The Gift of Rain on one of the loneliness/solitude lists. I think you liked that one, didn't you?.."I read one of his other books, which I very much enjoyed:
The Garden of Evening Mists which would also qualify for solitude/loneliness
NancyJ wrote: "Are you sure Ace of Spades is "good" luck?..."LOL it's debatable. But I found several websites that say it's considered good luck by many. And I like Motorhead. Good enough for me!
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_....
The ace of spades has been employed, on numerous occasions, in the theatre of war. In the First World War, the 12th (Eastern) Division of the British Army used the Ace of spades symbol as their insignia.[10] In the Second World War, the 25th Infantry Division of the Indian Army used an Ace of Spades on a green background as their insignia.[11]
In World War II, the soldiers of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the American 101st Airborne Division were marked with the spades symbol painted on the sides of their helmets. In this capacity, it was used to represent good luck, due to its fortunate connotations in card playing.
Joy D wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "I saw The Gift of Rain on one of the loneliness/solitude lists. I think you liked that one, didn't you?.."I read one of his other books, which I very much enjoyed:
The Garden of Evening Mists which would also qualify for solitude/loneliness..."
The Garden of Evening Mists is one of the best books I've ever read!!! And yes, I do think it would fit for "solitude." I have not yet read "Gift of Rain" - but I definitely plan to, so now I know I have something good to read for that category if it gets in!! Thank you.
I really like these choices too. I like the loneliness prompt. There are some real feel-good books about people overcoming loneliness by connecting with others. e.g. How the Penguins Saved Veronica. Some show people seeking out solitude and beautiful locations to heal (and get away from people for awhile). e.g. Canyon Solitude: A Woman's Solo River Journey Through the Grand Canyon. I might opt for a book about beautiful isolated locations (such as Iceland).
RachelG. wrote: "I was looking at the isolation genre shelf and one of the associated lists was closed circle mysteries. Is this something that might fit for the prompt or is that too much of a stretch?"If it was an isolated area it might fit. The Guest List would work for the isolated location (no one could get off the island). I think it would be considered a closed circle murder mystery.
Nadine in NY wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "Are you sure Ace of Spades is "good" luck?..."LOL it's debatable. But I found several websites that say it's considered good luck by many. And I like Motorhead. Good enough for me..."
That's the nice thing about superstitions. Everyone can have their own. It beats dirty socks! (Which is what some sports fans wear to give their team luck.)
I have The Garden of Evening Mists in my audible account, and I'm looking forward to it.
I started a list of isolated (and extreme) locations for a potential prompt, but never did anything with it. It might help here.
Isolated Locations - (This list needs more contributors)
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Superstitions in baseball are very serious. I’m a big SF Giants fan, and when I was a season ticket holder I wouldn’t wash my jacket if we were in first place. It worked the years we won. It did not work the other years lol
I only have a few books with 4 or more colors on the cover and that’s counting black and white. Most are 2 or 3 and shades of one. I was a little surprised but I don’t think it would be hard to find something at the library. I’m planning to upvote 8 since there’s nothing I don’t like. Now, to decide which 8!
@Pam I was going to say the opposite - that I have too many options for the colours prompt and that I wished it would be 5 or more instead! I guess I must have a very colourful looking TBR lol
Margaret Atwood has a book of (I think) short stories coming out later this year set in a a lower East Side (Manhattan) tenement!
I am having a hard time narrowing down my top votes. There isn't a single prompt that I want to downvote.
NancyJ wrote: "Does anyone have suggestions for books that have Luck as part of the plot, or a theme?..."I've only seen the film but Slumdog Millionaire comes to mind. Also set in India.
Chrissy wrote: "Margaret Atwood has a book of (I think) short stories coming out later this year set in a a lower East Side (Manhattan) tenement!"I think it's a project organised by Atwood rather than something she's written. If you look at the author list there are a lot of contributors: Fourteen Days: An Unauthorized Gathering. But yeah sounds like it would work.
With all the talk about The Gift of Rain, my copy has multiples of the same image on the cover
. For other prompts, I’m reminded of Just My Luck and another new book Stories from the Tenants Downstairs
Is there something about a three-colour design "rule" for creating palettes, because the vast majority of my colourful covers are three colours. It is so prevalent, I can only think this is a thing designers do on purpose. I do have a couple of more photographic covers that would work, and I like cover prompts, so I'm not sure if it would put me off but I thought there would be a lot more!
Wow, there are a lot of prompts that are resubmitted, are there? Fine with me, I voted for a lot of them the first time around, so I guess it's going to be mainly upvotes for me this time around :)On a side note, I just finished A Gentleman in Moscow, and half the prompts of this set would apply to that book:
2. A book that has an object that is repeated on the cover (if we count the hotel room window or even the picture of the Count as an "object" => love that prompt, by the way!)
4. A book related to something lucky
8. A book in which a main character or main subject is a member of a royal family or the nobility
9. A book related to loneliness or isolation
10. A book set in an apartment building/complex
12. A book set during the Roaring Twenties (1920's)
15. A book that involves a moral dilemma or question
Alicia wrote: "So, dalex, I'm going to stalk your owned/unread lists. I feel like I have a lot of monochromatic covers. When that was the prompt I had a ton of options."I use LibraryThing to catalog my books instead of Goodreads. I don't know if you can access my catalog without a LT account but here's the link:
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/...
After catching up on the wild discussion, I think I'm going to downvote the MC as member of nobility/royal family prompt because I strongly prefer Tracy's suggestion of reading a book related to a chess piece, which opens it up to reading about knights, pawn (soldiers), bishops (religious leaders), and castles/towers in addition the the royal family.@Rachel, if Tracy doesn't suggest it I would happily volunteer to do it for her if the timezones line up (if nobility/royal family doesn't get in this round. if it does, I'll still be happy to have a royalty prompt)
This is the first time I've ever had all upvotes. Looking at the lists, I still managed to find books that fit. My favorite discovery was thinking about the Interracial Relationship prompt; Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series features main and prominent support characters who are of different races. I love to be able to fit this series into my challenge. These books never fail to make me literally laugh out loud.
Mod
Ditto- but I'm guessing they won't allow 8 prompts through, even if we all upvote everything? (I did do one downvote but noone has listed it on their things they're voting for anyways)
Pamela wrote: "Ditto- but I'm guessing they won't allow 8 prompts through, even if we all upvote everything? (I did do one downvote but noone has listed it on their things they're voting for anyways)"I feel like I've looked for this before and don't know that I ever found a concrete answer -- is there a max number of prompts that can get through in one poll?
I know there's some complicated/fancy ~*math*~ that happens with the votes, but not if there's a cap on top spots.
Jillian wrote: "Not surprisingly, I’m the opposite of the group; I liked most prompts in the last poll but will be mainly be down voting prompts on this poll."I'm with you, Jillian. This is first time I've had 8 downvotes.
I feel like the fancy math won't allow for that many to get through, in fact when there are a lot of upvotes on multiple prompts we get less through because there aren't enough votes on any prompts overall.
Ellie wrote: "Is there something about a three-colour design "rule" for creating palettes, because the vast majority of my colourful covers are three colours. It is so prevalent, I can only think this is a thing..."Ellie — good question. I know that if you are designing branding (logos, etc.) that use Pantone colors we try to keep the number of colors down because more colors = more money (and also more chaos). But book covers are not printed with Pantone colors. So besides preference, I think if you are looking at color theory, picking a palette with more colors just becomes more complex to get something that is still pleasing and also makes sense with the "story" you are trying to tell with the cover art. A source I found on color theory (https://mymodernmet.com/basic-color-t...) says this about 4 color color schemes (both 'rectangular' and 'square' - relating to how they are placed relative to one another around the color wheel):
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TETRADIC
Color Harmony - Rectangular Color Scheme
This rectangular color scheme uses four colors broken into two complementary pairs. This rich color scheme can be tricky to manage but allows for a lot of variety. It works best if one color is dominant or if the colors are subdued. By using all colors equally, the overall design may appear unbalanced. Another characteristic to consider is the balance between warm and cool colors.
SQUARE
Color Harmony - Square Color Scheme
The square color scheme also uses four colors, but this time they are all spaced evenly around the wheel. Similarly to tetradic colors, this palette works best if one color dominates and the others are accents. Otherwise, it can look sloppy. Attention to warm and cool colors is also a must here.
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Maybe this is more than you wanted to know...
From what mods have said in the past, in the unlikely event that we all upvoted the same 8 prompts they'd all get in. So there's not a cap but we're never that in sync.
Pam wrote: "I only have a few books with 4 or more colors on the cover and that’s counting black and white. Most are 2 or 3 and shades of one. I was a little surprised but I don’t think it would be hard to fin..."Assuming, as I do, that black and white count as colors, I have lots of books on my TBR list with 4 or more colors.
I voted! This was a tough one. My favorite was loneliness/isolation (maybe because I suggested it!). I also really liked interracial relationship. I ended up with 5 up/3 down to give my 5 favorites a better shot, but there are none in this list that I truly hate.
Is there a rule that we can't have 10 winners? I used all my votes for upvotes and could have used several more votes this round. All of these could get in and I would be fine with it.
@Tracy thanks, back when I did my art education we just learned about complimentary and analogous (but we called it something else) so the rectangular and square uses are interesting to know!
Irene wrote: "After catching up on the wild discussion, I think I'm going to downvote the MC as member of nobility/royal family prompt because I strongly prefer Tracy's suggestion of reading a book related to a ..."Thanks Irene, for offering to suggest the "related to a chess piece" prompt if it helps because of time zones. I think I should be fine as I'm in the Pacific Time Zone, 2 hours behind Emily, who opens up the suggestions. If you are in the Central Time Zone like her, then that would be even better of course. Do you have that time advantage? I suppose it depends on the time of day that Emily will be opening up the suggestion thread for Poll 10.
Mod
That being said, just from looking at the preliminary votes, many people are upvoting 8 but it's not all the same 8 prompts each time, so it's unlikely that we will encounter a situation where we would have 8 prompts make it to the top. There has only been one poll that I can remember where the winning prompt had less than 10 downvotes, which shows that people will still have differing opinions, even when a prompt is really loved.
It's much more likely that we will look at the voting and decide that no prompts should be in the bottom, based on the number of up and down votes it gets. That would mean that all prompts are able to be resubmitted in later polls, where they may not face such stiff competition!
6 up, 2 down. I really liked this set of suggestions!Up
A book that fits a suggestion that didn’t make the list this year - I had a lot of fun with this prompt this year, and I’d love to see it again! It’s a fun chance to look through all the old prompt ideas.
A book set in the Indian subcontinent - I read a fair few books set in or around India, and I’m always eager to read more!
A book with an interracial relationship (love, friendship, family) - I really liked this prompt the last time it was submitted, and was sad when it didn’t get in. High hopes this time!
A book in which a main character or main subject is a member of a royal family or the nobility - I just like this one! My favourite genre is romance, which has a lot of royal heroes/heroines, so this would be a fun one to fill.
A book set during the Roaring Twenties (1920's) - I love the roaring twenties, and I think this is a nice broad prompt that I could find a lot of ideas for.
A book about a character with a supernatural ability - I have a fair few books with supernatural characters on my tbr, so this would be a good excuse to get to some of them.
Down
A family saga - I just don’t particularly like the family saga genre, I’m afraid!
A memoir - I’m also not especially a fan of memoirs.
Mod
A book that fits a suggestion that didn’t make the list this year - I had a lot of fun with this prompt this year, and I’d love to see it ..."
I love this prompt! While it is a freebie, which I am generally against- you can read anything, I love going through the rejected prompts and finding a great combo!
All upvotes this time around. I came very close to upvoting Royal family but held back because I like the chess prompt better as it gives me a wider scope. Can't wait to see what gets in but honestly I would be elated with any results really.
@Tracy I'm also PST so sadly no time advantage! I ended up downvoting memoir too, just to try to give the other prompts a better chance, but I would honestly be happy to see anything that doesn't get voted through re-suggested in future polls.
The isolated locations list got me to switch loneliness to an upvote. I also upvoted What If, moral dilemma, roaring twenties, and one of the covers.
Dalex, why do you use Library Thing? I of course joined, because books! I could definitely be abducted if someone just dangled books or book tracking/organization in front of me.
Oh, I've just noticed that the apartment prompt doesn't include the option of house anymore. I'm not sure I love this version quite as much since the options are a lot more limited. I may need to do a bit more research before deciding whether to vote for it.
I'm voting for What If since I like this type of speculative fictionI voted for India, Moral Dilemma, and Supernatural before and I'll stick with them.
For fun I like the Roaring Twenties and Luck.
I ended up down voting y’tbe apartment prompt for that reason, with ‘house’ it was a good place for me to slot in a ghost story, ´apartment’ only makes it a lot less useful to me
Emily, I didn't get the "thank you for voting" screen tonight, so I resubmitted the ballot. I apologize if you got two.
Alicia wrote: "Dalex, why do you use Library Thing? I of course joined, because books! I could definitely be abducted if someone just dangled books or book tracking/organization in front of me."I love that LibraryThing has the option of adding tags to books instead of just shelves like Goodreads does. I'm able to put a book on a historical fiction shelf and then add tags like specific time period, location, and specific plot details like friendship, mystery, espionage, environment, survival, etc. So, if I know I'm looking for a book set in the 18th century about mystery and survival I can easily find exact books that fit those parameters. Some aspects of LibraryThing are clunky and/or outdated (like the discussion forums!) but it's everything I want for cataloging books.
Mod
Mod
Not my prompt, but I like having it just be apartment building- a house is a different kind of housing situation and doesn't involve the interactions of people living in the same building which is a great narrative device.
Almost forgot to vote! All 8 upvotes. I agree, I like that it’s limited to an apartment complex.
A question for the mods - If "memoir" lands in the bottom, would someone still be able to suggest "a biography, autobiography, or memoir"? I became a memoir fan this year (thanks to Ann Patchett among others), but I don't know what to leave off this week.
I also like that it's only apartment and I probably wouldn't have voted for it if it included house.
Around the Year in 52 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Small Things Like These (other topics)Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted (other topics)
A Gentleman in Moscow (other topics)
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs (other topics)
Just My Luck (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Suleika Jaouad (other topics)Rohinton Mistry (other topics)
I just finished one that involved luck and is excellent:
Family Matters by [a..."
Thanks Joy, I think I have another one of his other books.
I saw [book:The Gift of Rain|1219949] on one of the loneliness/solitude lists. I think you liked that one, didn't you?