Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
Weekly Topics 2023
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07. A book with ONE of the five "W" question words in the title
date
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I am planning to use American Elsewhere.
My recommendations:
17776: What Football Will Look :like in the Future (Web fiction; so, so good.)
Where the Drowned Girls Go (this one is not a standalone, so catching up on the rest of the Wayward Children series is recommended)
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (this one IS a standalone)

The Cat Who.... books by Lillian Jackson Braun - cute cozy mysteries
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
He Sees You When You're Sleeping by Mary Higgins Clark
When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney - a very well researched book
Possibilities for me from my TBR:
Where Butterflies Fill the Sky by Zahra Marwan
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Kahn-Cullors
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
Founding Mothers (The whole title is: Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation) by Cokie Roberts
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Stowall and Per Wahloo
All the books in the Sebastian St Cyr Regency mystery series by C.S. Harris start with one of these words - What Angels Fear, When Gods Die, Why Mermaids Sing, Where Serpents Sleep, Who Speaks for the Damned, etc. The problem with that as a reader is that I can't remember one from another. There should be a new book out in 2023 that I can use.

I'd recommend What If It's Us, especially as an audiobook, and When God Was a Rabbit.

What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada
The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly by Luis Sepúlveda
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (providing I read book #2 in the series)




It is an easy read, and could cover several prompts: four colours on the cover, a route of travel (abstract) on the cover, a deception.

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Malala Yousafzai
Edit: I read Where the Lost Wander - Amy Harmon
I recommend:
The Boy Who Dared - Susan Campbell Bartoletti YA
What I Saw and How I Lied - Judy Blundell YA
Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here - Hope Jahren














Some of my possibilities:
What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Where She Went by Gayle Forman
The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh
And others.

Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day
Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It
Blur: The Hilarious True Story Of A Man Who Woke Up Dizzy
The Boy Who Didn't Come Home
Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us
Cults: Inside the World's Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them
The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water
The Girl Who Survived
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
I Am Not Who You Think I Am
I Know Who You Are
Look Who's Back
The Man Who Loved Children
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Those Who Knew
Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM
Who Is Maud Dixon?
Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Who You Might Be
Who’s There?: A Collection of Stories
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
What
2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America
Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It
Call Us What We Carry
What are You Like?
What Artists Wear
What Belongs to You
What Big Teeth
What Can't Be Seen
What Can’t Be Hidden
What Comes After
What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water
What Happens at Night
What the Hell Did I Just Read
What Hunts Inside the Shadows
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky
What It Seems
What Lies Beyond the Veil
What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
What Moves the Dead
What Once Was Mine
What Pretty Gets You
What She Saw...
What Should Be Wild
What Strange Paradise
What We Do Is Secret
What We Forgot to Bury
What's Coming to Me
What's Mine and Yours
When
Catch Her When She Falls
Take Me with You When You Go
When I'm Gone
When It Ends
When Rain Clouds Gather
When the Light Went Out
When the Night Bells Ring
When the Reckoning Comes
Where
American Elsewhere
Anywhere But Here
Anywhere You Run
The City Where We Once Lived
Elsewhere
Little Fires Everywhere
Somewhere Above It All
This is Where I Leave You
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
Where No Man Pursueth
Where the Truth Lies
Where the Wild Ladies Are
Why
The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
This Is How You Vagina: All About Your Vajayjay and Why You Probably Shouldn't Call It That
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Why Not Me?



What Moves the Dead: 5 stars! I loved this little mushroomy horror book so much. Do you like all the gothic elements of The Fall of the House of Usher but wish it was a little bit longer and a little bit more involved? Here you go! So creepy and yet the characters are so loveable...

Those Who Wish Me Dead

When We Were Vikings


It was a good story - not a great story, but for me this week a good story was good enough.


I read Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino, a collection of essays and reviews. Quite hard going, but some interesting parts, including the title essay. Some well known authors (dead white males only), including Dickens and Hemingway and some European ones that were completely new to me. An academic book, though it did introduce me to one author I might try Carlo Emilio Gadda.
Lighter reads: When We Were Young; Where We Belong






I'm really disappointed in the book. I watched the movie before the book, and the movie seemed to be more detailed than the book. The book felt incredibly rushed near the end.


I'd also recommend:
When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
What Alice Forgot
Those Who Save Us
What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds Are Doing, and Why
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

I recommend When You’re Not OK: A Toolkit for Tough Times, When Beauty Tamed the Beast, When a Scot Ties the Knot, and What I Did for a Duke.

… And What Do You Do?: What The Royal Family Don't Want You To Know - quite a timely look at the finances and benefits accruing to the British royals.
When Breath Becomes Air: I tend to avoid medical memoirs, but this book by a young neurosurgeon suffering from a terminal cancer, was completely unsentimental, and very well-written. He had great talent as a doctor, so it would be good if this book also helps people.
Where the Past Begins. I very much enjoyed this memoir by the writer Amy Tan, about her childhood as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, and also about her writing process.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea: Beautiful cover, slightly disappointing fantasy as it lacked progress for a lot of the book. Would make an excellent anime.

I read Who Killed Little Johnny Gill?: A Victorian True Crime Murder Mystery by Kathryn McMaster


Love, Loss, and What We Ate – Padma Lakshmi – 3.5***
I don’t read a lot of celebrity memoirs, but when a friend recommended this one I had to see what the fuss was about. From what she relates of her early adulthood (into her 40s), I got the impression that she identified herself by the man she was attached to, which irritated me. But I liked the portions of the book that took us back to her childhood in India, to the cultures, foods, sights, sounds and smells that helped form her. By the end I grew to appreciate the woman she has become.
LINK to my full review
Other possibilities
When Dimple Met Rishi
When Two Feathers Fell From The Sky

A young adult time travel book, with three teenagers from dysfunctional and impoverished backgrounds finding a portal to a Dickensian London, and solving murders there.
This seemed full of good ideas that didn't quite gel together. The MC who couldn't cope with school but was a great reader, the descriptions of the past which owed much to Dickens all worked well, and there was a good Gothic mystery. I felt some more explanation was needed in some parts, and there were perhaps too many dodgy characters milling about.


It's about the need to nurture human imagination in order to develop a happier world, focusing on solving/adapting to climate change.
I gave it 4 stars — 5 stars for the concepts, 3 stars for the writing style. Even though it was a short book (184 pages, not counting the extensive notes/bibliography), I found that much of it felt like lists (in paragraph form) of various communities or organizations that were adopting the concept being discussed. I thought an example or two for each would be plenty to get the idea across. Still — important ideas.
Books mentioned in this topic
From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want (other topics)The Door That Led to Where (other topics)
What the Fireflies Knew (other topics)
When Two Feathers Fell From The Sky (other topics)
When Dimple Met Rishi (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Sally Gardner (other topics)Kai Harris (other topics)
Kathryn McMaster (other topics)
Amy Tan (other topics)
Sarah Adams (other topics)
More...
Whether your book title is actually asking a question, or if it just contains one of these five words, the choice is yours!
Some Listopias on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
ATY Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
What are you reading for this prompt, and do you have any books you'd recommend?