Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

You can find the full list for the 2016 Reading Challenge here.

It's better if you create your own plan (using "create a new topic" and choosing "2016 Plans" for the folder) so you can keep track of your progress and share your choices with the other members. If you need help to choose books, you can have a look at the suggestions or ask in the Off Topic folder.

You can read in order or jump around, but keep this order in the plan, as we are using the numbers to find quickly a topic.

If you can't complete the challenge, it's not a problem. If one topic is really too much out of your comfort zone or too much difficult to fulfill, you can use the Wild Card and read something else for this week (reader's choice or past suggestions).

Don't forgot to add your books in the A-Z folders (using the 1st letter of the title) and to tell us what you read in the Progress Posts.

The 2016 List
1. A book you meant to read in 2015, but didn't
2. A book set in a different continent
3. A book from the Goodreads Choice Awards 2015 (winner or nominated)
4. A book by an author you discovered in 2015
5. A book with a title beginning with the 1st letter of your name
6. The highest rated on your TBR
7. A book about books
8. A classic book with less than 200 pages
9. A book that was mentioned in another book
10. A book by an author you feel you should have read by now
11. A book from the Rory Gilmore challenge
12. A childhood classic
13. Reader’s Choice
14. A book with one of the five W’s -or H in the title (Who/What/Where/When/Why/How)
15. A book set in the past (more than 100 years ago)
16. A book from the top 100 mystery novels
17. A book with a beautiful cover
18. A book on a summer/beach reading list
19. A non-fiction book
20. A book with a first name in the title
21. A book from the Goodreads Recommendations page
22. The first book in a new to you series
23. The next book in a series you are reading
24. A "between the numbers" book of a series (0.5, 1,5, 2.5, etc.)
25. A book whose main character is in a profession that interests you
26. A book everyone is talking about
27. A book with a beautiful title (in your own opinion)
28. A biography, autobiography, or memoir
29. A book by an author who writes under more than one name
30. A fairytale from a culture other than your own
31. A work of young adult fiction
32. A historical fiction book
33. The 16th book on your TBR
34. A book about mental illness
35. An award winning book
36. An identity book - a book about a different culture, religion or sexual orientation
37. A book that you've seen the movie of but haven't read
38. A book about an anti hero
39. A previous suggestion that did not make it into the list
40. A novella from your favorite genre
41. A book about a major world event (fiction or non-fiction)
42. A top 100 fantasy novel
43. A book about a thing that goes bump in the night
44. A book you're embarrassed to read in public
45. A book related to a hobby or passion you have
46. A crime story
47. A book with a type of food/drink in the title
48. A dystopia
49. A book with a great opening line
50. A book originally written in a language other than English
51. A short story from a well-known author
52. A book published in 2016

List created by the group members, after suggestions and votes.

Hi.

This is probably not the right place, so feel free to move it. Looks fun, although I'm not completely sure I will committ to so many books yet.

Some questions:

Can you add more than one book if you for ex. read more than one in a week?

The book a month, do everyone have to read those?

Welcome :)
No possibility to move posts on Goodreads!

Yes, you can double (or more) the books for a category if you're a big reader. The slow readers usually check several weeks with one book.

The book of the month is totally optional! We have a very friendly group so several of us wanted to add it this year, but some will be too busy or not interested by the book chosen, which is totally ok!

I missed the monthly book thing, and now I'm even more excited!!!

Yes, this is the order and, as said in the 1st post, you can read in order or not.

The first batch for the Goodreads Choice Awards (week 3) is available:
https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...
There's a "write-in" option, so more books can appear in the list in the next weeks.

No, Caitlin, that isn't a problem. Like Zaz said, you can read in order or jump around. If you post a plan in the 2016 Plans folder, we'd like it if you could post your plan in order because it's easier for members to quickly find the topic they're looking for. You're more than welcome to read in any order that you like.

Since the discussion is being done A-Z this year instead of by week, it will be much easier for members to discuss books no matter what order they read them! We hope to see your thoughts in the discussion folders (when they're open) and in the progress posts.

The challenge is really about challenging yourself, by the way, so be as flexible as you need to be and, most importantly, have fun!

Oops! Er, for some reason I didn't see Zaz's response until I posted mine. Hmm.

While I got a bit behind on the 2015 challenge, the different topics inspired me to try some books and authors I might otherwise have missed. I'm excited for a new year of reading, reading, reading! Just wanted to say thanks for continuing the challenge! :)

Ellen, the challenge is fun so it would have been a little sad to have no list to complete in 2016 and no one to discuss the books! I'm not sure we'll do a 52 list every year, but if the group keeps being active, we'll do something for sure :)

I'm very happy there is a 2016 list and appreciate you guys putting it together!

So ecstatic there's a 2016 list - wonderful. Thanks for pulling it together.

Just a naive question - I assume that TBR means 'to be read'? Is this right?

Yes, it's your reading list :)
Have fun choosing your books!

Thanks Zaz. I've tweaked no 16 ( I now have read a book from the dymocks top 100 list - dymocks is an Australian bookstore), but I was wondering what is meant by no 23?

Sorry, no.24?

For many recent series, there are the main books and the authors release too some short stories or novellas about a character from the series, an event, a prequel, etc. These are usually named with a 0.5 number. You can have a look at the Divergent series page on Goodreads, it's a good example :)

In the Mod Corner folder, you can find a suggestions thread with explanations and suggestions for each category ;)

Ah OK - that's great, thanks heaps for the explanation.

Does anyone have a list of books mentioned in other books? I'm kind of stumped over this and can't find a good list anywhere.

This is the topic for 2016's Week #9.

Thanks!

Stacey wrote: "Does anyone have a list of books mentioned in other books? I'm kind of stumped over this and can't find a good list anywhere.

This is the topic for 2016's Week #9.

Thanks!"

You can find the list of suggestions here

I hope that helps!

Thanks, Laura. It does! You are always so helpful.

I didn't know if this will help anyone or not but there's a website called eReaderiQ: the link is :http://www.ereaderiq.com/
they do have free and price drops on kindle books, but their only that price for a short time, just thought to let you know in chase someone trying to find something to read for one of the topics.also let me know if its ok to post this here ,if not I'll just take it down.

This may be discussed somewhere else, but does anyone know what the numbers are beside the books in my to-read folder of Goodreads? Is this what we are intended to use to find the 16th book? I thought the numbers were based on date added, but they jump around a little bit, so I am stumped.

You can click on the different categories along the top in order to sort the list in different ways. So if you click 'title' then it will sort alphabetically, 'avg. rating' will go by the order of rating, etc. For the 16th book, it really is up to you how you want to sort it.

In my opinion, it makes sense to sort them according to the date added so that you're reading the 16th book added to your TBR. But since the suggestion doesn't specify, you really could choose whichever sort method you want.

Other possibility: when you go to your shelves, you can "edit" them and if you check "sortable", you'll have a number before each book. My books are numbered in the "added" order.

Zaz wrote: "Other possibility: when you go to your shelves, you can "edit" them and if you check "sortable", you'll have a number before each book. My books are numbered in the "added" order."

Yes, this is how I kept sorting my 52 books on a designated shelf, until each book number corresponded to each week.

It is easier to shuffle at least 'above' or 'below' another book from the beginning, though, by which I mean that if I added week 16 first and then week 4, I immediately sorted 4 above 16, before adding next book.

As for 16 on TBR, I picked date added like Laura suggested.

I use my numbers (at least for the top 100-ish) as a list of the books I want to read first. So at the moment, I have the remaining unread books for my Popsugar Fall challenge at the top, and then I've put my 2016 challenge books in week order after that. I had to grab my #16 before I rearranged my list. :)

Can the books we choose to read be any level ie. picture children or YA or adult, I work in a library but in the children's room so I tend to read more picture books and J books?

Yes, you can totally choose what you want, the goal of the challenge is to discover new books and authors (and to read and discuss more!), not to be painful :)
I've children books, YA and adults in my plan. Picture books will go on my side-reads because I'm pretty sure I'll complete the 52, but if you're a slow reader or have not enough time (etc), you can add some to your plan.

Zaz wrote: "Yes, you can totally choose what you want, the goal of the challenge is to discover new books and authors (and to read and discuss more!), not to be painful :)
I've children books, YA and adults i..."


Great, I am a part of so many groups so I am going to try to mix all the challenges together. and the books that they read with this if I can.

Can anyone suggest a book for number 41, 43 and 44? I am having a hard time deciding. :/

Rachita wrote: "Can anyone suggest a book for number 41, 43 and 44? I am having a hard time deciding. :/"

I plan on reading Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War for 41. I loved the movie, and didn't realize it was based on a true story (although I love all of Tom Hank's movies, so that could have influenced my love for it!).

For 44, usually the choices are things like a romance (with naked males on the cover), a cheesy or weird title, etc. I'll use a romance or something like Vampire Academy.

For 41 and 43, the best is to look at the suggestions:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
For week 43, we have a thread in Off Topic with some creepy books, maybe you'll find interesting ideas. You can wait some months too, to see what the other members read and enjoyed.

I don't think I can finish my Reading List for 2015, but I'm already excited for next year's challenge! The list looks really fun! :D It might be difficult to find a book for #49 though. How to find one? XD

Look at the suggestions thread in Mod Corner and there's also a topic in Off Topic :)

Zaz wrote: "Look at the suggestions thread in Mod Corner and there's also a topic in Off Topic :)"

Sorry, should have though about that!

Definitely looking to do this challenge, but I have a couple of questions about some of the categories. I'm a bit torn between doing this one, and doing PopSugar's. Right now, I'm leaning more toward this one because there's more here that actually interests me.

1) For #39 -- a previous suggestion that did not make it into the list. I'm confused about what exactly that means. I followed the link provided, and it gave me a massive list of different categories. Am I meant to be choosing one of those categories?

2) For #13 -- Reader's Choice. I would assume that means I'm free to choose any book that I want? I personally would have preferred another "category" to choose from, but I guess I could decide one for myself. Just because I think it's a bit strange to have a "free choice" category when we're free to choose all of the books really.

3) For #16 and #42, the list asks for a top 100 mystery and fantasy book. Is that top 100 on GoodReads?

This group actually originated as the 2015 Reading Challenge, following the Popsugar Challenge. Then, as a group, we decided to come up with our own challenge in the spirit of Popsugar, just so that we could continue the concept in 2016.

That whole process involved group members making suggestions and then we voted, resulting ultimately in the final list that you see here. So for week 39, you can choose from any of the previous suggestions. Some people were disappointed that favorites didn't make it to the final list so that week is a chance to use some of those.

As far the reader's choice in week 13, some members don't have the time to read any more than what is in the challenge so that week is really just the opportunity to read a book that doesn't have to fit a category. It just gives freedom to the reading a little.

For week 16 you can use this list: https://www.librarything.com/bookawar...
For week 42 it is this list: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...

If you want to use a different "Top 100" list then feel free.

We also decided to allow one wild card, where you can change out any week for a different category. So if there's another suggestion you like, or even if you want to pull one of the Popsugar ones then you can switch out a week of your choosing. Maybe that would be week 13, if you want an entirely challenging list :)

I hope that helps! I know it was a lengthy answer.

Laura wrote: "This group actually originated as the 2015 Reading Challenge, following the Popsugar Challenge. Then, as a group, we decided to come up with our own challenge in the spirit of Popsugar, just so tha..."

Thanks for your help, Laura! The list of previous suggestions is huge, it almost seems like another wild card to me.

I was actually considering making Week 13 something from the PopSugar challenge anyway. Maybe a graphic novel, or something else that I'd love to squeeze in. Or maybe I'll switch out the novella -- I'm having trouble finding a good one.

You could always do:

Week 13: Reader's Choice (Popsugar category)
Week 39: Previous Suggestion
Wildcard: Take out novella (week 40) and replace with graphic novel

The spirit of the challenge truly is to try some different topics/genres and to increase reading. We're all very (very) accepting of others' lists so no one is going to yell at you for making the list work for you a little ;)

Laura wrote: "You could always do:

Week 13: Reader's Choice (Popsugar category)
Week 39: Previous Suggestion
Wildcard: Take out novella (week 40) and replace with graphic novel

The spirit of the challenge tr..."

Lol, fair enough. I just always feel like if I'm going to commit to these challenges, I want to do them properly. Although to be fair, I'm probably not going to be reading the books in the list order.

Many people do not read in order. I'd even venture to say most people do not. Like Laura said, it's about challenging yourself. Some people choose lighter reads because, for them, the challenge is just reading 52 books in a year. Other people choose more difficult reads because they're very avid readers and they want the challenge. Some choose not to drop a category because they want the extra challenge. Others choose to tailor the list to their reading preferences. It is your challenge and no one will be policing your list or your progress. :) We're just glad you're here and reading. And, of course, we hope you'll discuss with us as you go. That's half the fun.

I'm excited - what a great challenge!

I can not wait for this challenge to start! Jan1 needs to come fast.

Still making my ways through the last 4 of this year's challenge. But can't wait to dig into next year's selections!

On the new list, what does TBR mean? Also, I tried to add my plans, but it said I have to verify my email, how do I do that?

Valerie, TBR stands for "to be read." It is basically your to-read shelf here on GoodReads or, if you use other methods of determining what you want to read in the future (wishlists, pen and paper, etc.) you could use that also.

Emm the Elf wrote: "Valerie, TBR stands for "to be read." It is basically your to-read shelf here on GoodReads or, if you use other methods of determining what you want to read in the future (wishlists, pen and paper,..."

I'm not sure why it would say you need to verify your e-mail to post in the plans folder. If you're posting in this folder then I assume you have access to post in GoodReads groups. I'm not very familiar with their policies on posting if your account is not verified.

My educated guess would be that GoodReads sent you an e-mail to make sure the e-mail you signed up under is actually yours. So you likely have to go to your e-mail, look for a message from GoodReads, and click a link to verify.

TBR = To Be Read = To Read shelf on Goodreads.
Have a look here for the email, you probably missed a step at some point when you created your account on Goodreads or there is a bug:
https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/3...

Zaz wrote: "TBR = To Be Read = To Read shelf on Goodreads.
Have a look here for the email, you probably missed a step at some point when you created your account on Goodreads or there is a bug:
https://www.goo..."


All is good. I am verified. Now I can begin my 2016 Plan.

Thank you, Zaz and Emm the Elf...your help was most useful.

Great :)