Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

We love a good title scavenger hunt, and even better if it's connected to the year of our reading challenge. "W" happens to be the 23rd letter in the alphabet, and what better way to celebrate it than to find a book that contains one of the five "W" question words: Who, What, When, Where, or Why.

Whether your book title is actually asking a question, or if it just contains one of these five words, the choice is yours!

Some Listopias on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

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

What are you reading for this prompt, and do you have any books you'd recommend?

Wow, I am just now noticing She Who Became the Sun fills this prompt from the Listopia. This book fills so many prompts!

I am planning to use American Elsewhere.

My recommendations:
17776: What Football Will Look :like in the Future (Web fiction; so, so good.)
Where the Drowned Girls Go (this one is not a standalone, so catching up on the rest of the Wayward Children series is recommended)
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (this one IS a standalone)

Some that I have read and would recommend:
The Cat Who.... books by Lillian Jackson Braun - cute cozy mysteries
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
He Sees You When You're Sleeping by Mary Higgins Clark
When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney - a very well researched book

Possibilities for me from my TBR:
Where Butterflies Fill the Sky by Zahra Marwan
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Kahn-Cullors
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
Founding Mothers (The whole title is: Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation) by Cokie Roberts
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Stowall and Per Wahloo

All the books in the Sebastian St Cyr Regency mystery series by C.S. Harris start with one of these words - What Angels Fear, When Gods Die, Why Mermaids Sing, Where Serpents Sleep, Who Speaks for the Damned, etc. The problem with that as a reader is that I can't remember one from another. There should be a new book out in 2023 that I can use.

I'll be reading Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? by Paul Cornell.

I'd recommend What If It's Us, especially as an audiobook, and When God Was a Rabbit.

I'll second the recommendation of When God Was a Rabbit.

I'm thinking about the following books:

What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada
The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly by Luis Sepúlveda
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (providing I read book #2 in the series)

I'm thinking of Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman

I'd like to read From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins. I'm trying to only use library books or books I already own, so I've recommended it to my library. If they can't get it I may have to consider making an exception on book purchases.

I've just read . It is a bittersweet story about friendship.

It is an easy read, and could cover several prompts: four colours on the cover, a route of travel (abstract) on the cover, a deception.

I have a couple choices:
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Malala Yousafzai
Edit: I read Where the Lost Wander - Amy Harmon

I recommend:
The Boy Who Dared - Susan Campbell Bartoletti YA
What I Saw and How I Lied - Judy Blundell YA
Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here - Hope Jahren

Both of these are on my TBR:

When No One Is Watching
What Happened to the Bennetts

So many choices, it's hard to get it narrowed. I've managed to select my top-twelve, and we'll see what happens Week 7.

I love this prompt!

Some of my possibilities:
What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Where She Went by Gayle Forman
The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh
And others.

Who
Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day
Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It
Blur: The Hilarious True Story Of A Man Who Woke Up Dizzy
The Boy Who Didn't Come Home
Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us
Cults: Inside the World's Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them
The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water
The Girl Who Survived
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
I Am Not Who You Think I Am
I Know Who You Are
Look Who's Back
The Man Who Loved Children
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Those Who Knew
Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM
Who Is Maud Dixon?
Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Who You Might Be
Who’s There?: A Collection of Stories
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

What
2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America
Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It
Call Us What We Carry
What are You Like?
What Artists Wear
What Belongs to You
What Big Teeth
What Can't Be Seen
What Can’t Be Hidden
What Comes After
What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water
What Happens at Night
What the Hell Did I Just Read
What Hunts Inside the Shadows
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky
What It Seems
What Lies Beyond the Veil
What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
What Moves the Dead
What Once Was Mine
What Pretty Gets You
What She Saw...
What Should Be Wild
What Strange Paradise
What We Do Is Secret
What We Forgot to Bury
What's Coming to Me
What's Mine and Yours

When
Catch Her When She Falls
Take Me with You When You Go
When I'm Gone
When It Ends
When Rain Clouds Gather
When the Light Went Out
When the Night Bells Ring
When the Reckoning Comes

Where
American Elsewhere
Anywhere But Here
Anywhere You Run
The City Where We Once Lived
Elsewhere
Little Fires Everywhere
Somewhere Above It All
This is Where I Leave You
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
Where No Man Pursueth
Where the Truth Lies
Where the Wild Ladies Are

Why
The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
This Is How You Vagina: All About Your Vajayjay and Why You Probably Shouldn't Call It That
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Why Not Me?

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin or I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai or When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman or Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo or The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Alie Oh or Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews or Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M.Forster or When Stars Are Scattered by Omar Mohamed, Victoria Jamieson

I read When No One Is Watching. It was a pretty good book. It made you think about some social issues in real estate and what happens when a neighborhood is revitalized. I only rated it 3 stars because it took awhile to get going and there were some things that weren't tied up and a couple of others that didn't make sense. But given the underlying message, I think it will end up being a book that I remember. Some of the thrillers I read and I look back and I couldn't tell you what the story was unless I read the back cover.

Finished What Happened to the Bennetts today. Not bad. 3.5 stars.

I just finished She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan for this prompt.

I read When We Believed in Mermaids

I had several mediocre sounding books picked out for this but when it came down to it I wasn't exited to pick any of them up. I ended up typing who into the goodreads search and Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory came up. It is a assortment of odd short stories, I enjoyed some of them quite a bit, some fell a little flat but overall I was happy with what I choose in the end.

What Moves the Dead: 5 stars! I loved this little mushroomy horror book so much. Do you like all the gothic elements of The Fall of the House of Usher but wish it was a little bit longer and a little bit more involved? Here you go! So creepy and yet the characters are so loveable...

I read The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren

I couldn't decide between two books, so I picked both! hahaha

Those Who Wish Me Dead


When We Were Vikings

I just finished What Happened to the Bennetts. I've been trying to get to it for a year, so I was happy for this prompt!

It was a good story - not a great story, but for me this week a good story was good enough.

I"ll read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens or Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Moving another book!

I read Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino, a collection of essays and reviews. Quite hard going, but some interesting parts, including the title essay. Some well known authors (dead white males only), including Dickens and Hemingway and some European ones that were completely new to me. An academic book, though it did introduce me to one author I might try Carlo Emilio Gadda.

Lighter reads: When We Were Young; Where We Belong

I'm trying to read more classics this year, especially the ones I feel like I "should" have read already, so I used I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. It was a bit of a slow start for me, I must admit, but I switched over the audio and ended up loving it.

I read a children's classic and 1931 Newbery Medal winner The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth.

I read The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. 4*. Enjoyed this story of the life of the 100 year old man and the group he fell in with.

I read When We Were Vikings

I read When Darkness Comes by Alexandra Ivy, a paranormal romance.

For this prompt, I read:
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri - 4* - My Review

I'm reading What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety for this category.

I read What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris.

I read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and would recommend
and

I read Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease―and How to Fight It, for a New Year’s health resolution. I recommend it.

I read

I'm really disappointed in the book. I watched the movie before the book, and the movie seemed to be more detailed than the book. The book felt incredibly rushed near the end.

I read Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough ; it was a hard read but something I think everyone needs to read.

My book for this week was Let Me Tell You What I Mean, the last published collection of essays written by the late, great Joan Didion.

I'd also recommend:

When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
What Alice Forgot
Those Who Save Us
What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds Are Doing, and Why
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

I read When in Rome by Sarah Adams.

I recommend When You’re Not OK: A Toolkit for Tough Times, When Beauty Tamed the Beast, When a Scot Ties the Knot, and What I Did for a Duke.

I read Why Read the Classics? for this challenge - quite heavy going. For my multi-prompt go, I've read:

… And What Do You Do?: What The Royal Family Don't Want You To Know - quite a timely look at the finances and benefits accruing to the British royals.

When Breath Becomes Air: I tend to avoid medical memoirs, but this book by a young neurosurgeon suffering from a terminal cancer, was completely unsentimental, and very well-written. He had great talent as a doctor, so it would be good if this book also helps people.

Where the Past Begins. I very much enjoyed this memoir by the writer Amy Tan, about her childhood as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, and also about her writing process.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea: Beautiful cover, slightly disappointing fantasy as it lacked progress for a lot of the book. Would make an excellent anime.

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Who Killed Little Johnny Gill?: A Victorian True Crime Murder Mystery by Kathryn McMaster

I read ...

Love, Loss, and What We Ate – Padma Lakshmi – 3.5***
I don’t read a lot of celebrity memoirs, but when a friend recommended this one I had to see what the fuss was about. From what she relates of her early adulthood (into her 40s), I got the impression that she identified herself by the man she was attached to, which irritated me. But I liked the portions of the book that took us back to her childhood in India, to the cultures, foods, sights, sounds and smells that helped form her. By the end I grew to appreciate the woman she has become.
LINK to my full review


Other possibilities
When Dimple Met Rishi
When Two Feathers Fell From The Sky

The Door That Led to Where by Sally Gardner.

A young adult time travel book, with three teenagers from dysfunctional and impoverished backgrounds finding a portal to a Dickensian London, and solving murders there.

This seemed full of good ideas that didn't quite gel together. The MC who couldn't cope with school but was a great reader, the descriptions of the past which owed much to Dickens all worked well, and there was a good Gothic mystery. I felt some more explanation was needed in some parts, and there were perhaps too many dodgy characters milling about.

I will be reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. I can recommend The Girl who played with Fire by Stieg Larrson.

I read The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

I read From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins.

It's about the need to nurture human imagination in order to develop a happier world, focusing on solving/adapting to climate change.

I gave it 4 stars — 5 stars for the concepts, 3 stars for the writing style. Even though it was a short book (184 pages, not counting the extensive notes/bibliography), I found that much of it felt like lists (in paragraph form) of various communities or organizations that were adopting the concept being discussed. I thought an example or two for each would be plenty to get the idea across. Still — important ideas.