Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Each year since 1959 the United Nations General Assembly designates the year in recognition of "fields of international endeavor and the importance of their contributions to global society". 2022 is designated as the International Year of Glass because glass "supports many vital technologies, facilitates sustainability and a green world and enriches our lives, yet often goes unnoticed" according to the committee that spearheaded the project.

You can choose to take up this theme in any way that you can connect a book to glass, whether its on the cover or in the title, featured in a key location like a lighthouse or greenhouse, or in a more metaphorical sense like a book about breaking glass ceilings or about fragile relationships.

More ideas to spark the imagination:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

What are you reading for this prompt? Any suggestions?

I plan to read Richard II. The connection to glass it through a famous mirror scene in the play. I wanted to come up with a story connection rather than just do a title or cover interpretation.


As for recommendations:
Snow, Glass, Apples
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (mirrors again)

I’m planning to read either House of Glass (the title refers to a greenhouse) or The Glass Woman (a glass figurine is mentioned in the book synopsis).

I like the idea mentioned in the poll thread and am going to read a book that has a lighthouse. My short list right now is either The Lamplighters or The Light Between Oceans.

I might read Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust.

I'm going to read The Woman in the Window. Someone mentioned using windows and mirrors in the poll thread.

My current shortlist:

The Hollow Places has a glass dome on the cover. I have read this before, but I also want to reread it, so it's a possibility for this prompt.

Perfectly Preventable Deaths also has a glass dome on the cover. I think I really like glass domes on covers.

The Lost Apothecary which has the glass bottle on the cover and I would assume glass bottles will be in the story too.

The Shadow in the Glass clearly has it in the name!

As does Throne of Glass, and Maas has become a new fave of mine this year, so I do want to try this series.

I have two lighthouse themed books pencilled in for this, The Lamplighters or The Lighthouse Witches. Though when I was going through my TBR I found Jack Glass which also has a beautiful stained glass cover.

I'm planning to read Franny and Zooey for this one, which follows two characters in Salinger's Glass family.

I also enjoyed Nine Stories, which also follows some of the Glass family

I am going to read for this one.

I'm also interested in the mirror idea, and might use it metaphorically to read The Scapegoat which involves doppelgängers. But I also like the lighthouse idea, and The Lighthouse Witches seems really interesting! Lots of options here, I really like this prompt!

I am going to read a cozy mystery. Either Through a Glass, Deadly (glassblowing) or Pane and Suffering (glass shop).

For someone wanting to go a lighthouse route the Lighthouse Library series is good. By Book or By Crook is the first.

Years ago I read a stained glass series. Ill-Gotten Panes is the first in that series.

I am planning on reading The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse for either this prompt or the Game prompt. I also have 2 books featuring lighthouses as options - The Light Between Oceans and Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse.

I had thought about either The Lightkeeper's Daughters or The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter as I've heard good things about both, but then I realized these would be ideal for the multi-week prompt about a title with the same word!

I think I'll use or maybe instead.

I guess I'm doing this as a cover prompt, unless I run into something more interesting.
I like Sydney's suggestion above, Franny and Zooey, because they're members of the Glass family.

Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie (mirror on cover)
A Pint of Murder (Madoc Rhys #1) - Alisa Craig (wineglass on cover)
The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2) - Tana French (mirror on cover)

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino is a really interesting book of essays for those looking for a conceptual take on this prompt.

I'm outside the target demographic (and lifestyle) for this book, but I enjoyed it anyway. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Debating between the following:

All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
The Girls by Emma Cline
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
The Institute by Stephen King
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson
The Radiant Way Margaret Drabble
Small Town Monsters by Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Woom by Duncan Ralston

The Glass Palace
Shatterglass is also a good read.

I plan on reading one of these:
The Glass Hotel
Our Country Friends
The Lamplighters
Elsewhere

I can recommend a book I very much enjoyed that prominently features a glass factory:
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

I will probably read Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, but if I haven't finished The Minimalists by Robert K. Schwartz, I'm going to use that for this prompt. I've been slogging away at it for a long time. If I don't get it done by January, I'm going to put it in the challenge to kick me in the butt to finish it. LOL. How does it work with this prompt? One of the composers the book is about is Philip Glass. :)

I had a really difficult time finding something that struck my fancy for this, but I think I'll be reading The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, which is all about infrastructure, which often involves glass (and glass is invisible too). This is from a podcast, which I tried but had too many commercials, so I am hoping to be able to enjoy this format.

Watching Glass Shatter by James J. Cudney is one I've been meaning to get back to. I haven't finished it but the story is intense and such well written.

Other possibilities:

Vision in White by Nora Roberts
They do it with Mirrors by Agatha Christie
Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie
Greenglass House by Kate Milford
The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
Halsey Street by Naima Coster
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie
Mirror Mirror by Cara Delevingne
The Invited by Jennifer McMahon
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

My first choice is:
The Bell Jar

Wasn't sure what I was going to read for this one, but then I won a Goodreads Giveaway for Now I See You by Shannon Work. The main character in this mystery/thriller is named Georgia Glass.

If I hadn't won that book, I would probably have gone for The Glass Castle or The Glass Hotel.

Of books I've read, I would recommend Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (classic children's book), The Poisoned Glass (true crime), Brass Carriages and Glass Hearts (steampunk), The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars (astronomy), or The Bilbao Looking Glass (mystery).

Has anyone read The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett? It’s on the Listopia for Related to Glass, but I haven’t found anything about HOW it’s related to glass. Does anyone know the connection?

One of the people who liked it on the listopia commented that the cover has a glass window.

I'm planning on Clara and Mr. Tiffany. It has been on my TBR for a long time, hopefully I'll get to it this year. The connection to glass is the stained glass business and design.

Thanks Laurel, my copy has a different cover so I never would have figured that out.

BTW - love your name! If my older son had been a girl that would have been his name :)

I read The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge for this one which is mostly set in a bottle factory. It's pretty dark humor with dysfunctional women in a dysfunctional workplace and may require a certain mood to get into, but I'm glad I got around to it.

I read All Her Little Secrets
Related to glass through the sunglasses on cover. I thought this was good and recommend if you like thrillers. Perhaps a little hard to believe the main characters behavior at times but quick paced with a lot of tension.

A couple of books I would recommend:

some of my choices
Elsewhere
City of Glass
Glamour in Glass
The Shadow in the Glass
Craven Manor
Through the Zombie Glass
Under Glass And Stone
Demonglass

I read 16 Lighthouse Road, but would love to find one that takes place in Corning, NY where the glass museum is.

I read The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, and now I'd like to see it on stage.

NF suggestion: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century - not only the title, but the poor mentally ill French king, Charles V, believes he is made of glass. A really readable and fascinating history book.

I just finished Girls Made of Snow and Glass for this prompt. I preferred the author's more recent book, Girl, Serpent, Thorn (I have more connection to the Shahnameh than to Snow White, to be fair), but I did think this one was a thoughtful and lovely, if occasionally draggy, take on Snow White and on fairy tales more broadly.

I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

I read The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

I read . The adventure starts when the protagonist finds an apothecary's glass vial in the river bed of the Thames. Also there is a drawing of a glass vial on the cover.

I read The Neighbor's Secret for this one.



It was my BOTM pick in September of last year, and I probably picked it mostly because of this prompt lol. I'm not a huge fan of prompts like this so I typically go the easy route of word in title or something on the cover. I thought the cover was a pretty good connection in this case, and a window does happen to get smashed near the climax of the story.

Reading . I'm not generally a fan of this type of prompt, but as it happens this was high on my "want to read" list, by a favorite author.

For my mystery, I just finished The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie, and for my second book I have Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland coming up next. I enjoyed another of Vreeland's books The Forest Lover a year or two ago, she writes historical fiction about women in art.

I decided to finally get through a doorstopper I had been avoiding for awhile. I read The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin which helped me finish off the series.

Norah Lange - People in the Room
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I read The Glass Castle - the title is a reference to a glass house that the author's father dreamed of building but which never became a reality, and serves as a kind of metaphor for all the ways in which he lets her down.
Would recommend to people who like memoirs and autobiographies.

I think I have narrowed down this prompt to one of the following:

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (glass in the title)
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal (glass on the cover)
House of Glass by Susan Fletcher (glass in the title)

Finished Reading Quirks: Weird Things that Bookish Nerds Do! by The Wild Detectives.

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read The Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill The Mirror being made of glass.

I read Throne of Glass with glass being both in the title and the setting involving a glass castle

Madelynn wrote: "I read Throne of Glass with glass being both in the title and the setting involving a glass castle"

Great choice! I LOVED this series so much! <3

I read The Unearthly by William Massa. It's about a haunted observatory.