Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Award winning books can be intimidating, but they often exemplify the best of what authors have to offer. This week, we are choosing a book that won an award listed by Powell's Bookstore as a notable award. This awards list includes literary fiction, mysteries and thrillers, YA, and even cookbooks! Click through the link and try a few awards on for size. Maybe you'll go outside of your comfort zone and read from a genre you don't usually read, or maybe you'll find a comfort genre and pick a book that is notable within that genre. The choice is yours!

Powell's Award Winners: https://www.powells.com/awards
Note that the website may not list all of the winners for each award. Feel free to dig into the list of awards and look at past winners that may not be listed on the website.

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

What are you reading for this prompt, and do you have any recommendations?

I don't even know how to narrow this down. There are *so many* options! I think at least 50% of my Owned and Unread Pile qualifies for this prompt.

I used the Listopia for all the winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction, one of my favorites. You can see the list (and my ratings for the ones I've read) here - https://www.goodreads.com/list/user_v...

I will likely stick with an older book I own for this prompt. I found a few on the Listopia - The Lacuna, The Dispossessed, Bud Not Buddy, The Stone Diaries, Cloud Atlas, Let the Great World Spin, and Kavalier & Clay.

This was fairly easy for me because the next Murderbot I need to read, Network Effect, won the Nebula Award.

I think I'll use this as an excuse to read a Newbery winner. I have Shiloh written down right now.

I'm going with The Goldfinch since I have it on my list of Pulitzer winners.

I have a few books in my pool for 2022 that fit here - Deacon King Kong, The Night Watchman, The Goldfinch or Cloud Atlas might be my pick here.

I planning on reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. If I like it, the rest of the series will be a good fit for other prompts.

So many choices!

Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu (National Book Award)
The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai (Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence)
Tidal Flats - Cynthia Newberry Martin (Independent Book Publishers)

I am going to finally finish The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 Nobel laurates don't win for a particular book, but for their body of work, but I think it works.

dalex wrote: "I used the Listopia for all the winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction, one of my favorites. You can see the list (and my ratings for the ones I've read) here - https://www.goodreads.com/list/use..."

I like women's prize books too, I read 4 this year and I plan to continue to read nominees and past winners every year.

I wonder how many of the 52 prompts could be covered by the awards on Powell's list - winners and nominees. There are so many different awards that span a lot of genres and interests. Though it doesn't include many of the international prizes.

I have a separate "target list" challenge to read at least one book from each of my lists. I'll add a few of these for 2022.

I have a bunch of these sitting on my shelf staring at me reproachfully, so I guess it's time for one of them:
Ordinary Girls
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
The Widows of Malabar Hill
Washington Black
Bluebird, Bluebird
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

I'll be reading Scat by Carl Hiaasen. My googling of the Young Readers Choice Award took me to the Edmonton Library website where it says that it won in 2012. I'm slightly suspicious that there is more than one YRCA, and this isn't the one on the Powell's website, as it isn't listed in the links on there. I decided it fits well enough for me, but I've not added it to the listopia because I don't want to mislead anyone :)

There are a few that definitely qualify that I'd recommend:

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Half of a Yellow Sun
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
The Dry
American Gods
A Hat Full of Sky (but read The Wee Free Men first, it fits a few of the other prompts)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Far from the Tree by Robin Benway
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Happy New Year, fellow readers! For my first 2022 challenge, I read Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark. This was my first experience with author Clark who really delivers. Once in a while, I enjoy a gruesome horror-fest and this one really shook things up hunting evil Ku Kluxes. The novella offered up a combination of fantasy, horror and little-known African American history, plus traditions and lore that arose out of slavery (no surprise there). Although the story ain't pretty, it's really food for thought: on how festering hate ruins us all.

A few recommendations on other Powell's Award winners:
The Night Watchman
Deacon King Kong
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Wolf Hall
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I read and very much enjoyed:
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - 4.5* - My Review

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. ⭐⭐⭐ won a Hugo. It is an older book that explores what would happen after a nuclear war. Be warned it does have only men in the story.

I’m reading The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly. It is the 1929 Newberry Medal winner

I loved these
Piranesi
Redshirts
The Calculating Stars
To Your Scattered Bodies Go (Hugo Awards on the Powells list) I loved this whole series.


Some of my choices
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
A Hat Full of Sky
2312

I read The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

I read An American Marriage which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2019.

I read Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey. This won the Costa Book Award in 2014 and the Betty Trask Award in 2015, as well as being nominated for six other awards, including Goodreads and the Women's Prize for Fiction.

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

I read Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line for this prompt it won the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Novel. It was different then most of the mystery's I pick up and I overall enjoyed it.

I would recommend: Firekeeper's Daughter
Bluebird, Bluebird
Little Pretty Things
Life or Death
Inside Out & Back Again
An American Marriage
Severance

I read The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.

I read Beast in View by Margaret Millar. It was a classic psychological suspense novel.

Read Network Effect.

The Murderbot Diaries is so good. Well worth going through the four novellas to reach this one.

I read The Great Believers. 5 stars

I read The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard, a beautifully written novella that won a Nebula award. Highly recommend if you like science fiction mysteries.

It would also work for a book with 22 or more letters in the title, a book by an Asian or Pacific Islander author (author is Vietnamese-French), a book less than 222 pages, or a book with a nonhuman as a main character (a sentient spaceship).

I want to read for this prompt.

Nicola wrote: "I want to read for this prompt."

My book club read this earlier this year - definitely recommend it!

Wow! Of all the potential offerings, I recently completed
by Maggie O'Farrell for this prompt. It won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, an annual award spotlighted on Powell's site.
After enjoying this tale, I took part in the Bookbrowse.com book discussion and gained insights that enhanced my appreciation of it even more.

For this prompt I read Red Queen. I wasn't planning on reading it this year but my other group was doing it as a group read so I've had the book for awhile and I decided to go ahead and read it. I liked it. I'm glad I finally read it. I was going to read Girl in the Blue Coat.

For this prompt I read:
The Overstory by Richard Powers

I also read:
The Remains of the Day
The Three-Body Problem
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
The Lathe of Heaven

I was happy to see The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin on the list, because I read the two previous books in the series for two recent prompts and I needed to find somewhere to put this book to finish the series.

The Testaments won the Booker prize

I read:
Among Others by Welsh author Jo Walton (Wales) a YA fantasy involving a young sci-fi loving witch and subtle magic that rests on plausible deniability. Here is my review

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a beautiful, award-winning collection of short stories set in India or Bangladesh, or involving Bengali immigrants to the US. It is poignant, insightful, full of loss and longing. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ here is my review.

I will be reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, which won the Man Booker Prize 2014. I can recommend To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

I read Systems Red.

Read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke which won the Women's Prize in 2021.

I don't know why I got so stuck on this one. I think partially it is that there isn't much to choose from, especially when you take out the kids' books, cookbooks, and any genres you don't like. Plus I had already read several of them. So, I ended up with Severance by Ling Ma. I gave it 3 stars. The overall reading experience was fine, but I didn't get what the author was trying to accomplish with the book until I read a few reviews after I was done. So, partially my fault for not comprehending her intent? Maybe because I was reading another book at the same time that is really engaging me, while this one did not — so I was picking it up here and there. I don't know. Didn't hate it, but I also don't see myself recommending it. The concept is good, the newly discovered intent is good, the writing is good/fine - but somehow it doesn't all add up for me. I DID read an excerpt of the author's next book (Bliss Montage - 8 short stories), and the first one at least seems interesting. I'd consider trying her again based on this.