Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

This week is the first entry for the four elements: earth. You can find the remaining elements during weeks 14 (fire), 18 (water), and 46 (air).

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Suggestions:
Listopia: Earth, Wind, and Fire
Listopia: Best Environmental Books
Listopia: Dirt and Soil
Listopia: Books about Power over the Elements
Listopia: Books with Planets in the Title or on the Cover
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Optional questions:
- What are you reading for this category?

For these categories I was originally trying for a series that somehow included all of the elements, and my choice was Balefire. There are four books in this series, I have the compilation:
A Chalice of Wind(#1)
A Circle of Ashes(#2)
A Feather of Stone(#3)
and
A Necklace of Water(#4)
I'm still slightly curious, if I keep my pace up I might try it, would have to go out of order though because of the way the series is set up/named.

Ultimately there were other books I wanted to read more, so I decided to use the actual "words" in the title. This also allows me to read the prompts in order.

I found Little Earthquakes on my shelf, so I'm gonna go with that.

My other thought was The Good Earth but I'm trying to keep it light.

I'm thinking about reading this series but I'll still have to find air or

I haven’t decided for sure, but am leaning toward The Pillars of the Earth. I decided that for the set of 4, I would use a different way to qualify for each. Earth is in the title, water in the author’s name, air in the theme, and fire 🔥 on the cover.

I'm taking the same approach to the elements as you, Chrissy. I enjoyed the extra level of puzzle that it added, to get four that didn't just fit the prompts, but fit in different ways. Earth is my "content" book, I'm reading Holes.

I will be reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.

I loved The Fifth Season, so I am going to continue with the Broken Earth trilogy & read The Obelisk Gate.

Eujean2 wrote: "I loved The Fifth Season, so I am going to continue with the Broken Earth trilogy & read The Obelisk Gate."

This is a great trilogy!

I'm probably going to read Things That Happened Before the Earthquake.

This was the toughest element for me! But I appreciate all of your suggestions.. they helped!

I'll be choosing between:
Things That Happened Before the Earthquake (Title and Content)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Title)
Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (Cover)
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Content)
Unaccustomed Earth (Title)
Stray (Cover)
Little Earthquakes (Title)

Chrissy wrote: "I haven’t decided for sure, but am leaning toward The Pillars of the Earth. I decided that for the set of 4, I would use a different way to qualify for each. Earth is in the title, wate..."

How did you find books for the author's name? Content, cover, and title are easy to search for, but I'm having trouble finding authors' names and I love this idea!

Emily wrote: "How did you find books for the author's name? Content, cover, and title are easy to search for, but I'm having trouble finding authors' names and I love this idea!"

My author name is for the Water category - Clare Vanderpool. I checked my TBR for anything obvious, then googled meanings of first and last names, looking for anything that might work. I found out that Vanderpool means "from the pool" in Dutch - then felt stupid because pool is a water-related word in my own language and I'd missed it!

Marie wrote: "Emily wrote: "How did you find books for the author's name? Content, cover, and title are easy to search for, but I'm having trouble finding authors' names and I love this idea!"

My author name is..."

Ahh that's a great idea! I looked around for Earth related author names, but there's not a whole lot of people with Dirt, Flower, or even Rose or Daisy as their name, so I got frustrated and gave up a little bit haha. I guess I'll just have to keep searching!

Emily wrote: "Marie wrote: "Emily wrote: "How did you find books for the author's name? Content, cover, and title are easy to search for, but I'm having trouble finding authors' names and I love this idea!"

My ..."
This made me think of Lisa Gardener, but her last name is actually spelled Gardner. I did find an author named Vanessa Garden, who seems to write YA.

Tracy wrote: "Emily wrote: "Marie wrote: "Emily wrote: "How did you find books for the author's name? Content, cover, and title are easy to search for, but I'm having trouble finding authors' names and I love th..."

Ohhh I hadn't thought of Garden. I need to break open my thesaurus!

I’ve had this one on my TBR list forever a plus the cover looks very “Earthy” to me so I’m going with A Thousand Splendid Suns and having Suns in the title too..

Tracy wrote: "For these categories I was originally trying for a series that somehow included all of the elements, and my choice was Balefire. There are four books in this series, I have the compi..."

I love this idea of using a whole series! I thought of the Truthwith series too. Windwitch

I picked Beulah Land by Lonnie Coleman, which is this basically out-of-print 1970s novel about the U.S. Civil War. The 1970s loved their pioneer and Civil War stories, but I love them even more. :) I find that a lot of the time, the books I like are out of print or really unknown because I am a 200-year-old woman in a 25-year-old's body.

Anyway, I had to order a used copy online that is coming in like a month, LOL, so we'll see what condition it's in.

The Final Vow because the author's last name is Flower. :)

I am going to read Unaccustomed Earth for this one.

For this one, I ended up choosing Falling to Earth by Kate Southwood. I went pretty literal on these and just stuck to the word being in the title. The books I chose aren’t a series or anything, but I think they will all be good reads.

Thanks to those of you who mentioned garden as a word tied to earth because it hadn't occurred to me. I found The Butterfly Garden on my TBR list (a Kindle first book I already own, but haven't read), so think I'll give that one a try.

i love Murakami so i have After the Quake on my bookshelf so going with that. it's short too which is good as most of my other choices are 400-600 pages!

Ooh, that’s an excellent option Catherine! Adding that to my list. I love Murakami!

I’m struggling with this one! Now I’m wondering about a book that has earth on the cover.

I’m struggling with this one! I see that earth isn’t capitalized, so I’m assuming this means dirt or soil, something like that and not the planet. Sooooo, could I use a book that has a landscape scene on the cover? Maybe a mountain range or fields?

I read Here Lies Daniel Tate for this one. The title sounds like what you'd see etched on a tombstone, which reminds me of a grave, which is in the Earth. A bit of mental gymnastics for this one, but it turned out to be a fantastic book, so no regrets, haha

Deborah wrote: "Thanks to those of you who mentioned garden as a word tied to earth because it hadn't occurred to me. I found The Butterfly Garden on my TBR list (a Kindle first book I already own,..."

The Butterfly Garden was really good! Enjoy!

Deborah wrote: "Thanks to those of you who mentioned garden as a word tied to earth because it hadn't occurred to me. I found The Butterfly Garden on my TBR list (a Kindle first book I already own,..."

That is an excellent book! Good choice!

I hadn't thought about using words like "Gardner" for the author's name, so I may try that. I had been looking for pictures on the cover that looked "earthy".

I think I am going to go with or because the covers both look very "earthy" to me.

Betty wrote: "I’m struggling with this one! I see that earth isn’t capitalized, so I’m assuming this means dirt or soil, something like that and not the planet. Sooooo, could I use a book that has a landscape sc..."

Someone mentioned gardens. Wild Beauty would work.

Betty wrote: "I’m struggling with this one! I see that earth isn’t capitalized, so I’m assuming this means dirt or soil, something like that and not the planet. Sooooo, could I use a book that has a landscape sc..."

The elements prompts are VERY wide, so you could definitely choose a book linked to Earth. I even considered Artemis, since it's set on the Moon and the Moon is partly made of Earth material, so.... ;)

I'm going to read Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. It is part of the Earthseed series.

I read A Wizard of Earthsea, which turned out to be much heavier on the sea part than the earth part. It ok, but the writing was a bit too old school fantasy for me.

I'll be reading The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel. In my mind this qualifies for this category as this is the 2nd in the series called "Earth's Children".
I read the first, The Clan of the Cave Bear, many years ago and have always meant to get back to this series.
So once again I give "reader's thanks" to the ATY Challenge!

I'm reading From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne I read Journey to the Center of the Earth years ago at school so thought I would try another by this author.

I will be reading the Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.

I've been having fun wrestling with what exactly qualifies for each element. Some words can work with more than one element, for example, ash. Ashes come from fire, but they are also mixed into soil so they are earth. (I still can't decide about ashes, so for now I'm leaving Ashes and Ashes, Ashes and Ashen Winter off my list, but I haven't forgotten them!)

My #1 choice is: Garden of Stones, because I love the author, and the title is pretty earthy.

I'm also considering: The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks (I started this book in 2017 and I'm still reading it, soooo .... I'm not sure if I'll count it)
From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden
The Crystal Cave
Salt: A World History

Jill wrote: "I'm reading From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne I read Journey to the Center of the Earth years ago at school so thought I would try another by this ..."

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea works for water as well.

Jill wrote: "I'm reading From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne I read Journey to the Center of the Earth years ago at school so thought I would try another by this ..."
OK, you inspired me to see if I could fit all four elements with Jules Verne.

From the Earth to the Moon = fire (the rocket is shot out of a cannon).
Journey to the Center of the Earth = earth
Around the World in Eighty Days = air
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea = water

I am be reading Earth, Air, Fire and Custard, by Tom Holt. A recommendation from my partner, and my first Tom Holt book. So far it is a pretty good read.
Also, may be a good idea for any of the 'element' weeks (minus water) for those of you that may be struggling with finding choices for these!x

Since I mean to read as much of Cassandra Clare as I can this year ,I will fit City of Ashes for this category :)

Shawn wrote: "I had several options, but I decided to be fairly literal and go with Matt Bell's In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods."
Thank you for reminding me of this book! I used to be an editor at a literary magazine and we published some of his short stories in 2008 or so. I am so excited to read this novel!

Eujean2 wrote: "I loved The Fifth Season, so I am going to continue with the Broken Earth trilogy & read The Obelisk Gate."

I'm trying to read The Fifth Season now to get a head start on this challenge. I'm not really enjoying it but I read a bunch of Goodreads reviews that said to stick with it because it gets better.

Tamula wrote: "Eujean2 wrote: "I loved The Fifth Season, so I am going to continue with the Broken Earth trilogy & read The Obelisk Gate."

I'm trying to read The Fifth Season now ..."

For me, the jumping around between storylines drove me nuts, but once I understood where everything fit within the time line, I really enjoyed it.

“The Good Earth@ by Pearl S. Buck

A book I read this year that would fit, but that I'm not doing for this particular challenge, is Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities. It's all about various poisonous, ecologically destructive, and otherwise devious plants that fill our world. It's written very charmingly and it was very enlightening to learn just how much people don't really know about plants. The advice the author gives at the beginning of the book- don't eat anything unfamiliar in nature- seems common sense, but then with virtually every plant there's an example of someone who saw it while hiking and decided to nibble.

Bridget wrote: "Around the World in Eighty Days = air

This one doesn't really fit air - I don't know if you are thinking the same thing I was before I read this, but this doesn't happen in a hot air balloon. I just read it and felt like I'd been lied to my whole childhood! ☹️

I've almost definitely decided on The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. It's been on my priority list for a while, and I feel like I need a good epic right now. I was thinking about Silent Spring, but I don't really feel in the mood for it right now.

Jody wrote: "Bridget wrote: "Around the World in Eighty Days = air

This one doesn't really fit air - I don't know if you are thinking the same thing I was before I read this, but this doesn't happen in a hot a..."

Maybe you are mixing Around the World in Eighty Days with Five Weeks in a Balloon also by Jules Verne, wich is also good :)

I think I must be, although I'd never heard of that one until recently. Probably just the ignorant Australian in me coming out! 😂