Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

The 2019 List - Completed 31/8/2019

1. A book that was nominated for or won an award in a genre you enjoy
2. A book with one of the 5 W's in the title (Who, What, Where, When, Why)
3. A book where the author’s name contains A, T, and Y
4. A book with a criminal character (i.e. assassin, pirate, thief, robber, scoundrel etc)

5. A book by Shakespeare or inspired by Shakespeare
6. A book with a dual timeline
7. 2 books related to the same topic, genre, or theme: Book #1
8. 2 books related to the same topic, genre, or theme: Book #2

9. A book from one of the top 5 money making genres (romance/erotica, crime/mystery, religious/inspirational, science fiction/fantasy or horror)
10. A book featuring an historical figure
11. A book related to one of the 12 Zodiac Chinese Animals (title, cover, subject)
12. A book about reading, books or an author/writer

13. A book that is included on a New York Public Library Staff Picks list
14. A book with a title, subtitle or cover relating to an astronomical term
15. A book by an author from a Mediterranean country or set in a Mediterranean country
16. A book told from multiple perspectives
17. A speculative fiction (i.e. fantasy, scifi, horror, dystopia)

18. A book related to one of the elements on the periodic table of elements
19. A book by an author who has more than one book on your TBR
20. A book featuring indigenous people of a country
21. A book from one of the polarizing or close call votes

22. A book with a number in the title or on the cover
23. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #1 Something Old
24. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #2 Something New
25. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #3 Something Borrowed

26. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #4 Something Blue
27. A book off of the 1001 books to read before you die list
28. A book related to something cold (i.e. theme, title, author, cover, etc.)
29. A book published before 1950
30. A book featuring an elderly character

31. A children’s classic you’ve never read
32. A book with more than 500 pages
33. A book you have owned for at least a year, but have not read yet
34. A book with a person's name in the title

35. A psychological thriller
36. A book featured on an NPR Best Books of the Year list
37. A book set in a school or university
38. A book not written in traditional novel format (poetry, essay, epistolary, graphic novel, etc)

39. A book with a strong sense of place or where the author brings the location/setting to life
40. A book you stumbled upon
41. A book from the 2018 GR Choice Awards
42. A book with a monster or "monstrous" character
43. A book related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) [fiction or nonfiction]

44. A book related in some way to a tv show/series or movie you enjoyed (same topic, same era, book appeared in the show/movie, etc.)
45. A multi-generational saga
46. A book with a (mostly) black cover
47. A book related to food (i.e. title, cover, plot, etc.)

48. A book that was a finalist or winner for the National Book Award for any year
49. A book written by a Far East Asian author or set in a Far East Asian country
50. A book that includes a journey (physical, health, or spiritual)
51. A book published in 2019
52. A book with a weird or intriguing title

Shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

NOTES
Key:
✅ Read, fits prompt, intend to use.
❓ Read, fits, will decide later
♻️ Read, fits, but will intend to use for another prompt
🔴 Still to do

📖 Own print copy
📱 Own digital copy
🗣 Own audio copy
® Borrowed a copy

Attempting to read books I already own or can borrow where possible.

✅1 A book that was nominated for or won an award in a genre you enjoy

Probably a crime mystery and thriller group book
Possibles:
Dodgers📖
A Thief of Time
A Kiss Before Dying

Books read that will fit:
♻️The Fiend
♻️The Killings at Badger's Drift
♻️A Thief of Time
✅The Wench is Dead
♻️A Dark-Adapted Eye
♻️The Crossing Places

✅2. A book with one of the 5 W's in the title (Who, What, Where, When, Why)

Possibles:
Where Am I Now?🗣

Books read that will fit:
✅The Spy Who Loved Me
♻️Where Am I Now?

✅3. A book where the author’s name contains A, T, and Y

Possible authors (from my 2019 TBR list):
Peter Ackroyd
Anthony Berkeley (The Poisoned Chocolates Case)
Ernest Hemingway
Liane Moriarty( Truly Madly Guilty)
Arundhati Roy
Paul Torday( Salmon Fishing in the Yemen)
Tayeb Salih( Season of Migration to the North)

Books read that fit
❓Truly Madly Guilty📖
❓Salmon Fishing in the Yemen📖
❓Season of Migration to the North
❓The Poisoned Chocolates Case
✅The Circular Staircase
❓A Thief of Time
♻️A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie
♻️The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

✅4. A book with a criminal character (i.e. assassin, pirate, thief, robber, scoundrel etc)
Will use a character who is habitually/professionally a criminal rather than someone who commits a one off crime ( even if they then go on to commit more)

Books read that fit
❓The Mystery of the Blue Train (professional thief)📖
❓The Spy Who Loved Me (criminal gang members) 📖
❓On Her Majesty's Secret Service ( Criminal mastermind and global criminal organisation )
❓You Only Live Twice ( ditto)
✅Partners in Crime(spy conspiracy)
❓The Man with the Golden Gun ( assassin )
❓The Killings at Badger's Drift (blackmail)
❓As the Pig Turns( corrupt police)

✅5. A book by Shakespeare or inspired by Shakespeare

Thoughts :
Re read Richard III
or
read a Shakespeare I haven't read eg: The Winter's Tale
or
Hamlet, Revenge!

Books read that fit
❓Season of Migration to the North (Othello)
✅Hamlet, Revenge! (Hamlet)

✅6. A book with a dual timeline

Possibles:
Truly Madly Guilty📖

Books read that fit
✅Truly Madly Guilty
❓Giovanni's Room
❓Season of Migration to the North
❓Broken Ground

✅7. Linked prompt : 2 books related to the same topic, genre, or theme: Book #1


✅The Aye-Aye and I 📖

(Link- conservation /endangered animals/zoology)

✅8. Linked prompt : 2 books related to the same topic, genre, or theme: Book #2

✅Gorillas in the Mist: A Remarkable Story of Thirteen Years Spent Living with the Greatest of the Great Apes

✅9. A book from one of the top 5 money making genres (romance/erotica, crime/mystery, religious/inspirational, science fiction/fantasy or horror)

Books read that fit:
Crime/mystery:
❓ The Mystery of the Blue Train📖
❓The Fiend📖
❓The Seven Dials Mystery
❓The Poisoned Chocolates Case
❓Partners in Crime
❓The Circular Staircase
❓The Killings at Badger's Drift
❓Broken Ground
❓The Mysterious Mr Quin
❓A Thief of Time
❓The Murder at the Vicarage
❓As the Pig Turns
❓The Lodger: Murder Mystery Novel
❓The Wench is Dead
♻️Hamlet, Revenge!
♻️A Dark-Adapted Eye
♻️The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
♻️The Crossing Places
♻️Trent's Last Case

Science fiction/fantasy
✅The Machine Stops
❓Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (also Mystery)

✅10. A book featuring an historical figure

Possibles:
The Last King of Scotland®
The Last Tudor📖

Books read that fit
❓Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency ( Samuel Taylor Coleridge )
❓Beneath the Lion's Gaze ( Haile Salassie) ®
✅The Last King of Scotland®(Idi Amin)

✅11. A book related to one of the 12 Zodiac Chinese Animals (title, cover, subject)

Note: Zodiac Animals are Rat,Ox, Tiger, Rabbit,Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig

Possibles:
Dog Days: An Animal Chronicle
The Hound of Death
As the Pig Turns
Beggars Banquet (horse on cover)


Books read that fit
❓Partners in Crime (dog on the cover but not in the book!)
✅As the Pig Turns ( pig in title but not in the book!)
❓The Tiger's Wife

✅12. A book about reading, books or an author/writer

Possibles :
✅Agatha Christie's Murder in the making: stories and secrets from her archive📖

✅ 13. A book that is included on a New York Public Library Staff Picks List

Books already on my TBR Lista and owned
The God of Small Things📖
The Eyre Affair📖
Also:
Macbeth

Read that fit
✅If Beale Street Could Talk 📱

✅14. A book with a title, subtitle or cover relating to an astronomical term

Possibles :
A Thousand Splendid Suns📖

Books read that fit
✅A Thousand Splendid Suns📖

✅15. A book by an author from a Mediterranean country or set in a Mediterranean country

Read that fit :
♻️Giovanni's Room (France)
✅The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (Albania)

✅16. A book told from multiple perspectives

Books read that fit :
♻️The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
❓Truly Madly Guilty
❓The Fiend
❓Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
❓The Seven Dials Mystery
❓Broken Ground
❓Beneath the Lion's Gaze
❓A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
❓As the Pig Turns
✅The Runaway Jury

✅17. A speculative fiction (i.e. fantasy, scifi, horror, dystopia)

Possibles:

Books read that fit:
❓The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
✅Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
❓The Machine Stops
♻️The Graveyard Book, Volume 1

✅18. A book related to one of the elements on the periodic table of elements


✅The Man With the Golden Gun📖

✅19. A book by an author who has more than one book on your TBR

Books read that fit
❓The Spy Who Loved Me📖
❓The Mystery of the Blue Train📖
❓A Thousand Splendid Suns📖
❓ The Aye-Aye and I📖
❓The Seven Dials Mystery
♻️Giovanni's Room
❓On Her Majesty's Secret Service
❓The Machine Stops
❓You Only Live Twice
❓Partners in Crime
❓The Man with the Golden Gun
❓Broken Ground
✅The Mysterious Mr Quin
❓If Beale Street Could Talk
❓The Murder at the Vicarage
❓Black Coffee

✅20. A book featuring indigenous people of a country

Read that fit
❓A Thousand Splendid Suns📖
❓The Aye-Aye and I📖
❓Season of Migration to the North
❓You Only Live Twice
✅Beneath the Lion's Gaze
❓Bill Bryson's African Diary
❓A Thief of Time
❓The Last King of Scotland
♻️The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
❓The Tiger's Wife

✅21 A book from one of the polarizing or close call votes

This is a wild card really, but will use

✅Black Coffee: A Mystery Play in Three Acts
( ...drink in the title)

✅22A book with a number in the title or on the cover

Possibles :
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Thirteen Problems
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
One Day

Read:
❓A Thousand Splendid Suns
✅The Seven Dials Mystery
❓The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

✅23. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #1 Something Old

An 'old' book
Possible
The Moonstone

Read
✅Trent's Last Case📱( written in 1913)
or

❓A Thief of Time ( features archeology )

✅24. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #2 Something New

✅The Crossing Places (a first book in a 'new' series - ie one that I haven't read before)

✅25. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #3 Something Borrowed

Any library book

Books read borrowed from library this year:
❓Beneath the Lion's Gaze®
❓Season of Migration to the North®
❓The Last King of Scotland®
❓Educating Rita®
❓The Wench is Dead®
❓First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A new story about anxiety®
✅The Tiger's Wife®
♻️The Crossing Places®
♻️The Graveyard Book, Volume 1®

✅26. 4 books inspired by the wedding rhyme: Book #4 Something Blue

Read that fit:
❓Season of Migration to the North ( Broken Blue Pot on cover of some editions )
✅The Mystery of the Blue Train ( in the title, and Blue on cover of some edition)♥️
❓Miss Julie ( partly blue cover)

✅27. A book off of the 1001 books to read before you die list

Link to list https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9...
Link to my shelf:https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Books read that fit:
❓Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
❓Giovanni's Room
✅Season of Migration to the North

✅28 A book related to something cold (i.e. theme, title, author, cover, etc.)

Possibles:
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

Read that fit:
✅On Her Majesty's Secret Service ( snow on cover, ski chases, Avalanche , etc)
❓Season of Migration to the North ( Migration north from a hot country -Sudan-to a cold one -UK, plus some symbolism about being emotionally cold)

✅29 A book published before 1950

Books read that fit :
❓The Mystery of the Blue Train📖
✅A Study in Scarlet📖
❓The Jungle Book📖📱
❓The Seven Dials Mystery
❓The Machine Stops
❓The Poisoned Chocolates Case
❓Partners in Crime
❓Miss Julie
❓The Circular Staircase
❓The Mysterious Mr Quin
❓The Murder at the Vicarage
❓Black Coffee
❓The Lodger: Murder Mystery Novel
♻️Hamlet, Revenge!
♻️Trent's Last Case

✅30 A book featuring an elderly character

Possibles: A Miss Marple, or Miss Silver

Books read that fit:
❓Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency(some extremely old time travellers)
❓The Circular Staircase( narrator is 'elderly spinster ', also old servant/retainer)
❓The Killings at Badger's Drift (first death and her friend)
❓The Mysterious Mr Quin ( Mr Satherthwaite)
❓Beneath the Lion's Gaze ( several inc Haile Selassie)
❓A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
❓The Murder at the Vicarage
❓Black Coffee
✅The Lodger: Murder Mystery Novel
♻️The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
❓The Tiger's Wife

✅31. A children’s classic you’ve never read

Books read that fit:

✅The Jungle Book📖📱♥️

✅32 A book with more than 500 pages

Selected Books on TBR that fit:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Luminaries
The Blind Assassin
The Angolan Clan
Adventures in the Screen Trade
Harmattan
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
The Crow Trap
White Teeth
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Cloud Atlas
The Last Tudor

Books read that fit:
✅Broken Ground📖♥️

✅33. A book you have owned for at least a year, but have not read yet

Books read that fit:
♻️Truly Madly Guilty
❓The Seven Dials Mystery
❓Partners in Crime
✅Where Am I Now?
❓The Mysterious Mr Quin

✅34 A book with a person's name in the title

Books read that fit:
❓The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
♻️Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks
♻️Giovanni's Room
❓Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
✅Miss Julie
❓The Mysterious Mr Quin
❓Bill Bryson's African Diary
❓Educating Rita
♻️Hamlet, Revenge!
♻️The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
♻️Trent's Last Case

✅35. A psychological thriller

Books read that fit
✅The Fiend
❓The Lodger: Murder Mystery Novel
♻️The Silent Patient

✅36. A book featured on an NPR Best Books of the Year list

Link to 2017 list with links to a other years: https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2017/

Possibles :
Uncommon Type: Some Stories📱♥️
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts

Read :
✅Uncommon Type: Some Stories

✅37. A book set in a school or university

Possibles:
Educating Rita♥️
Read that fit:
❓ Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency ( partly)
✅ Educating Rita

✅38. A book not written in traditional novel format (poetry, essay, epistolary, graphic novel, etc)

Books read that fit :
✅Salmon Fishing in the Yemen📖
( Epistolary- emails, diary entries,press reports, tv scripts)
❓Black Coffee (play)
♻️Educating Rita (play)
♻️Uncommon Type: Some Stories ( short stories/screenplay/ newspaper reports
♻️The Graveyard Book, Volume 1 (graphic novel)

✅39 A book with a strong sense of place or where the author brings the location/setting to life

Books that fit:
❓The Aye-Aye and I
❓The Killings at Badger's Drift
❓Broken Ground
❓If Beale Street Could Talk
❓Beneath the Lion's Gaze
❓Bill Bryson's African Diary 📖
✅A Thief of Time
❓A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
❓The Lodger: Murder Mystery Novel
♻️The Crossing Places

✅40 A book you stumbled upon

A book found at the library or bought without it already being on TBR list

Books read that fit:
❓Broken Ground
❓A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
❓As the Pig Turns
❓The Wench is Dead
✅First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A new story about anxiety
❓The Tiger's Wife

✅41 A book from the 2018 GR Choice Awards

Link to Awards List: https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...

Possibles:
✖️In PiecesSally Field🗣
( DNF - attempting to return 🗣- really didn't like it)

Read that fit:
✅The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

✅42 A book with a monster or "monstrous" character

❓You Only Live Twice
❓The Last King of Scotland
✅The Graveyard Book, Volume 1

✅43. A book related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) [fiction or nonfiction]


✅ A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie

✅44. A book related in some way to a tv show/series or movie you enjoyed (same topic, same era, book appeared in the show/movie, etc.)

Several Agatha books mentioned in a Dr Who episode /some books mentioned in Friends

Possibles :
❓Where Am I Now? ( author former child actress)
✅The Murder at the Vicarage ( mentioned in Agatha Christie episode of Dr Who )
♻️Uncommon Type: Some Stories ( Tom Hanks!)

✅45. A multi-generational saga

Ideas:
The Poisonwood Bible

Read that fit:
✅A Dark-Adapted Eye

✅46. A book with a (mostly) black cover

Books read that fit:
✅The Killings at Badger's Drift

✅47. A book related to food (i.e. title, cover, plot, etc.)

Ideas:
The Poisoned Chocolates Case📖

Books read that fit:
❓Salmon Fishing in the Yemen📖
✅The Poisoned Chocolates Case
❓Black Coffee