[2024] Poll 10 Voting

[Siobhan]

Pamela wrote: "Jette wrote: "Its another term for an overbearing, frightening, elderly lady. It has passed from common usage, but I recall the term being used somewhere in the British fiction that I've read. In m..."

Not to try and deny that the offensive term is used, because it is and it's not great, but I'm in the UK and I've heard it used pretty regularly here to describe all kinds of women. Unhelpful doctor's receptionists, for example...

I mean, you could also argue that that is problematic in a few ways. But at least in the UK, it is a far more general term.

[Kristina]

Pearl wrote: "I like the leap year idea but I don’t want to search through all those years. Do we have a list of books with time leaps or calendrical shenanigans?

Maybe Quantum Leap was based on a book?"

Goodreads has some time travel lists - The Best Time Travel Books of All Time / The Best Time Travel Fiction

There's also some good time travel/time leap book lists floating around the internet:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/th...
https://bookriot.com/best-time-travel...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
https://shereads.com/11-books-with-un...

For time travel shenanigans, I personally liked Kindred, This is How You Lose the Time War, Outlander, and Sea of Tranquility. I would also argue that any book involving time leaps would be in line with the prompt theme, so The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle would count - as a bonus, it also involves "leaping" into different characters.

It would also be relatively easy to pick a leap year and find a book published that year - you can find a list of leap years here: https://www.calendar.best/leap-years....

Curious if we could stretch this prompt to include books that take place on a single day, as leap day is an one extra day in the year - in that case, books like Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk would also count. Or that may be stretching the prompt too far?

[Amanda]

@Emily Bourque

I saw you pasted the link and I really appreciate it! I just know I'm lazy af and wouldn't so I just wanted to give people a bit more info in this thread as well.

all the mods are doing amazing. I legit don't know how you keep up with everything.

[Robin H-R]

Pearl wrote: "I like the leap year idea but I don’t want to search through all those years. Do we have a list of books with time leaps or calendrical shenanigans?

Maybe Quantum Leap was based on a book?"

The "Chronicles of St. Mary's" by Jodi Taylor is a really fun time travel series.
Just One Damned Thing After Another

https://www.goodreads.com/series/1091...

[Mandy]

A Rip Through Time

This is a cool time travel murder mystery takes place in Edinburgh 1869 if I’m not mistaken.

[Pamela, Arciform Mod]

Kristina wrote: "Curious if we could stretch this prompt to include books that take place on a single day, as leap day is an one extra day in the year - in that case, books like Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk would also count. Or that may be stretching the prompt too far?."

I already voted and we can read whatever we want for a prompt, there's no prompt cops here.... but. when you start saying "we can add this to it" that makes me think a prompt isn't strong enough to stand on its own. Let this be the leap prompt. Earlier this year, there was a book that takes place in a day and I hope that comes back. but not as an addition to another prompt.

[Tracy]

Well, this is an early vote for me, and I hope I'm not sorry by making the wait for results even longer...

I tend to vote all UP, unless there's something I really can't stomach and there's no creative way around the obvious intent. This week there was really only 2 or 3 that I wasn't super excited about, but not enough do DOWN vote. In fact, one of them, A Book with Dragons, has become one of the ones I'm most excited about now since I got so many stellar suggestions for Dragon Books for the Not-A-Dragon-Book reader! Thanks to all of you who made those suggestions :)

Two of my UP votes are for prompts that will allow me to read books I've been meaning/wanting to for a long time: On Your TBR for Over A Year (obviously), and Connected to Color.

There's really nothing I'd be unhappy about getting through, even my least favorite prompt has a good option.

[Tracy]

Robin wrote: "Pearl wrote: "I like the leap year idea but I don’t want to search through all those years. Do we have a list of books with time leaps or calendrical shenanigans?

Maybe Quantum Leap was based on ..."

I love the Chronicles of St. Mary's books. The MC (female time traveling historian) is so fun - smart, brave, snarky, and flawed.

[Kristina]

Pamela wrote: "Kristina wrote: "Curious if we could stretch this prompt to include books that take place on a single day, as leap day is an one extra day in the year - in that case, books like Lillian Boxfish Tak..."

Well, the suggestion was not so much for me, but as a potential spin for anyone struggling to think of ideas to fill it or to anyone who may not be enamored with the time travel interpretation. (Personally if it gets through, I'll probably go the time travel route.) You could also take "leap" into a bunch of different directions if you wanted to get creative with what "counts" to the prompt.

That said, it seems like a shame to claim that additional interpretations of a prompt weaken it, to be honest. Part of the fun of prompts is figuring out what kind of books fit, and being creative with that can make a prompt more interesting (at least, for me!). If I left "leap year" at its most basic interpretation, I'd be hesitant about it - there aren't many books that take place on a leap day or specifically in a leap year. But having the potential spins on the original - time travel, repeats, a "leap" of some kind - allows a lot more flexibility.

[Tracy]

I just thought of an interesting take and book for Leap Year: Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, where she “takes a leap” for a year, by saying Yes to things she typically said No to.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

[Lindsay]

I knew I had 4 upvotes, but after a few days of reading the comments I now have 8 upvotes! Here's hoping for a good number of them to make it onto the final list!!!

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Verity wrote: "Argh! When I clicked submit, my finger caught the downvote for dragons - I didn’t want to do that!

Mods, what should I do?"

Sorry, I'm just seeing this.

Your downvote for dragons put you at 9 votes total, so I would have deleted the vote and messaged you letting you know your vote was deleted and you can revote. I go through each vote every poll and, invariably, one or two people accidentally overvote each round. Not a big deal! Feel free to cast a new vote!

[Katie]

I have 5 upvotes and 1 downvote so far. I'm focusing on my TBR so I'm upvoting TBR, famous character, literary fiction, and the seasons cover. I upvoted dungeons and dragons, and downvoted dragons.

I like time travel, but it feels forced to fit it into leap year. I'd prefer a straightforward time travel or time related prompt.

[Katie]

Charlsa wrote: "Charlsa wrote: "This is the correct link for suggestion 1. A book with a prepositional phrase in the title.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

..."

This is another upvote for me. The list has several books from my TBR, and one of my bookclub's selections. I have animal books on my tbr also, so that gives me 7 upvotes.

[Mary]

I don't comment on here a lot but i did spend a good chunk of yesterday reading on the wild discussion. I didn't realize that voting had opened. Up voted a lot but down voted the two dragon related ones.

[Emily, Conterminous Mod]

Welcome to the voting, Mary!

[Mary]

ty! Sorry I meant to say i didn't realize poll 10 was being voted on (or whatever proper terminology is). I think I have voted like 2/3rds of them this year. I really enjoy this. I am still finishing up this year's challenge-hoping to be done end of October

[Dixie]

Tracy wrote: "I just thought of an interesting take and book for Leap Year: Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, where she “takes a leap” for a year, by saying Yes to things she typically said No to.

https://www.goodr..."

Makes me think of The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

[dalex]

Mary wrote: "Up voted a lot but down voted the two dragon related ones."

There’s technically only one dragon prompt. The Dungeons & Dragons prompt has the word dragon in it but has zero to do with dragons.

Irrelevant since everyone has voted and results are about to be revealed but I needed to say it because it frustrates me when prompts are so vastly misunderstood.

[NancyJ]

dalex wrote: "Mary wrote: "Up voted a lot but down voted the two dragon related ones."

There’s technically only one dragon prompt. The Dungeons & Dragons prompt has the word dragon in it but has zero to do with..."

I don’t think that’s evidence of misunderstanding. They both contain the word dragon, so they have that in common. I understood what she meant.

[Jill]

I split my votes. 4/4. The downvotes were the ones that I considered were read a book and it will fit in here.

[Thomas]

Jill wrote: "I split my votes. 4/4. The downvotes were the ones that I considered were read a book and it will fit in here."

Well I guess that’s your choice but I will never understand why that’s an issue to so many people. To me reading 52 books in one year is a challenge to say it’s not a challenge just because you get to read books you want never made sense to me. Particularly as I was once told very sharply by the mods that this challenge is NOT about going outside your comfort zone ( or at least doesn’t have to be)

[Jill]

Thomas wrote: "Jill wrote: "I split my votes. 4/4. The downvotes were the ones that I considered were read a book and it will fit in here."

Well I guess that’s your choice but I will never understand why that’s ..."

Thomas wrote: "Jill wrote: "I split my votes. 4/4. The downvotes were the ones that I considered were read a book and it will fit in here."

Well I guess that’s your choice but I will never understand why that’s ..."

I don’t think I can be the only one, as the more straight forward prompts seem to get in the top. Still the idea of the challenge is to read as many books as you want and it wouldn’t do if we all liked the same thing. It would be boring then, and feel like homework