Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

This prompt was voted in as a multiweek prompt with next week's prompt (a book that is light). There are a lot of different ways you can go with this one, whether you treat it as a cover prompt, or you dive into the darker genres like horror and dark academia.

8 Dark Books for the Most Daring Readers: https://offtheshelf.com/2022/03/dark-...
13 of the Most Dark and Twisty Books: https://bookriot.com/dark-and-twisty-...
15 Books for the Most Literarily Disturbed: https://earlybirdbooks.com/10-dark-bo...
18 Delectable Dark Academia Books: https://booksandbao.com/must-read-dar...
30 Greatest War Books of All Time: https://www.shortlist.com/news/the-gr...
26 True Crime Books Everyone Needs to Read: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment...
The Best Dystopian Novels of All Time: https://ew.com/books/best-dystopian-n...
Intriguing Books from the Villain's POV: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/th...

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

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

I decided to go with dark genres/subgenres for this prompt. My possible choices:

Grimdark - The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
Dark humor - How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann
Gothic - House of Glass by Susan Fletcher

I currently have The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue slotted here, but I'm not nearly as thrilled with this as my light prompt, so I'm still noodling a bit, I guess.

I'll be reading Blackout by Ragnar Jónasson. It's about a murder, it's the third in the Dark Iceland series, and although it takes place in Icelandic summer when it should be light all the time there's a volcanic eruption taking place which makes it dark, so it's triple dark!

I'd recommend any Gillian Flynn and I notice A Monster Calls on the listopia, that's an amazing book and it does get very dark.

Other Amy, I loved Addie LaRue so I'd recommend reading it, I did wonder what made it particularly dark when I saw it on the list, but having thought about it the whole premise the book is built on is "never pray to the gods that answer after dark", I quite like that as a link.

Hm, what to read for this? Dark academia maybe, since I definitely will be reading Hell Bent at some point next year.

If I go the title prompt route, then A Curse So Dark and Lonely fits the bill.

Here's my select list. Come week 28, I'll have a better idea which one or ones of these I want to tackle for the week.

Marie wrote: "Other Amy, I loved Addie LaRue so I'd recommend reading it, I did wonder what made it particularly dark when I saw it on the list, but having thought about it the whole premise the book is built on is "never pray to the gods that answer after dark", I quite like that as a link."

Oh, that is excellent to know. I was going for nothing being quite so dark as what cannot be seen (along with the black cover with no light but stars), but I love this premise immensely.

I'm most likely going to make this a dark academia prompt since we're low on genre prompts in general.

My first impulse is to read a post-apocalyptic or dystopian book, linked to climate or science.

The Dispossessed - author list
Parable of the Sower - author list

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li (it sounds dark). She is new on my "authors to read" list.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Secret History
Ninth House
Grendel
Smaller and Smaller Circles

NF
The Dark Side of the Mind: True Stories from My Life as a Forensic Psychologist
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - I apparently need to push myself to read this book

Recommendations:
Oryx & Crake, The Year of the Flood, Maddaddam (trilogy)
A Boy and his Dog at the end of the world
Station Eleven
Dark Mother Earth - (darker than I usually can stand)
Handmaids Tale, The Testaments
Drive your Plow over the bones of the dead

Dark history:
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Three Wild Swans
Book Thief
White Chrysanthemum
Pachinko

I really don't know what I'm going to do with these prompts! I guess my problem is that I often like to try to make multi-week prompts follow a theme of some sort, and I'm not sure how to choose a theme that I could do both a dark and light version of. I suppose I could do something broader, like a genre - grimdark fantasy and light, whimsical fantasy? Or something like reading a depressing book about climate change and then a more optimistic, climate fiction book? I feel like the issue I'm running into is wanting to choose books that have a dark and light mood and just not being able to really determine the mood of a book before reading it.

Hannah wrote: "I really don't know what I'm going to do with these prompts! I suppose I could do something broader, like a genre - grimdark fantasy and light, whimsical fantasy?"

I'm planning to go with genres for these prompts - grimdark and hopepunk. Hopepunk was created by the author Alexandra Rowland as the opposite of grimdark so in my mind using both genres is the perfect approach to this prompt.

“The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk,” declared Alexandra Rowland, a Massachusetts writer, in a two-sentence Tumblr post in July 2017.

https://www.vox.com/2018/12/27/181375...

I'm planning on reading Faithful Place by Tana French for this one. Others on my list: When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain, House of Glass by Susan Fletcher, or Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Edit: Actually read A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell.

I'd recommend:
The Broken Girls - Simone St. James
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Disappearing Earth - Julia Phillips
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Hmm. This is a hard one for me. Even though I occasionally read horror or distopia genres, I do not prefer them. I could go with "dark" in the title. However, like Hannah, I have a desire to balance dark with light in these two prompts.

Dalex, I have never heard of either grimdark or hopepunk. I might need to investigate those ideas.

Also I like the climate change/ecology idea, since I am trying to find ways to be more ecologically conscious.

Such a cool prompt!

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Young Elites by Marie Lu
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Gallant by V.E. Schwab
The Predator by RuNyx
Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco
Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

would if we were villains count as dark?

Gaby, I'd say yes for sure.

I read How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. 5 stars.

I read The Bloody Chamber gothic horror retellings of fairy tales which are often, in themselves, dark. I wouldn't recommend it

For this prompt, I read:
The World to Come by Dara Horn - 4* - My Review (darkness is a theme)

I read Ninth House for this prompt. I rated it 3 because it kept my interest throughout the book. It has a lot of triggers.

I read Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby. 5 stars. I wanted to listen to the book because I felt I could not get to the heart of it without listening to it in Hannah's signature voice. It is a vital read but with triggers, which she warns her readers and listeners about immediately.

I read Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark to twist the prompt a bit. I was interested to read this one but it didn't do it for me. Looong, didn't especially care for the characters.

I read The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, which is an insightful look at how race is portrayed in fantasy. Then I paired this prompt with The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett for a book that is light because the two match so well.

I will be reading Night Shift once i finish the book before it (Day Shift).

I just finished Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy for this prompt. it vividly portrays some of the darkest depths to which a soul can reach.

I read Bloodline by Jess Lourey

I read The Kind Worth Saving both the cover and the content are on the dark side. If you enjoy Peter Swanson's book I would recommend it! If you don't know Peter Swanson you might start with the first in this series The Kind Worth Killing which would also fit the challenge.


A few others that would fit:

I am reading a dark cover book with dark material, lots of secrets. It is Neighbours by Danielle Steel. Although I read it a long time ago I can recommend Dracula by Bram Stoker. I would consider this a dark book.

I read Quicksand by Iris Johansen for this one. The basic storyline involves children kidnapped, tortured and then killed by a serial killer. It was a little hard to read.

I read Blindness by José Saramago, the story of what happens when an epidemic of blindness strikes in an unnamed country.

The story of the government's reaction and how people survive (or not) is dark, with some leavening from some of the positive characters. It does contain some very dark scenes. It was written before the Covid pandemic and was interesting to read having experienced that.

The Darkness - 4 stars

For this I read The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Shadow and Bone 3 stars.

Dark title. Darker story. Published in 1948, Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell lived up to its name.

Dark Tides by Chris Ewan

The book is set on different 31st Octobers, the day of the quite spooky Isle of Man Hallowe'en commemoration, Hop- tu- Naa. After a teenage dare goes badly wrong, the book becomes 'I know what you did last autumn'. The suspense is good and it is well written, but it is a dark book to read.

As this prompt has approached (I am reading in order), I have found that I am not interested in either the grimdark or dystopia options that I had planned.

So, I am going with KIS option of dark in the title. Thanks to Dana and my local library, I will be reading In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware, an author I enjoy.

I read Verity by Colleen Hoover

I read ...

Eden Close – Anita Shreve – 3.5***
When his mother dies, Andrew, an advertising exec in New York City, returns to the family’s upstate New York farm for the funeral. Intending to stay only a few days, he gets caught up in memories of his childhood, of the girl next door, and of the tragic event that changed all their lives. There is some mystery to unravel here regarding that long-ago summer night. Andrew has always been a person who doesn’t really see things, even when they are right in front of him, and he will have to open his eyes to the truth before he can move forward.
LINK to my full review

I just finished reading Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman for this prompt. Not only is the title "dark", but the book itself is an early classic of the "nordic noir" genre. Atmospheric fall read.

I read Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. Excellent non-fiction book about the Osage murders and the FBI

I read three dark books for this prompt:
Round 1 Parable of the Sower
Round 2 Babel, A Tale of Two Cities

Other recs
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Hench

I had a few "dark in theme" books picked out for this prompt, but I've read, or attempted to read, a few "dark-in-theme" books this year, and I just can't do it again, yet.

So I thought I'd be creative and read a book on my shelves about a man who is blind (so only sees dark? - I don't know what that experience is really like). The book is A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler, which sounded interesting. It's non-fiction. It should have been interesting, and I'm sure his life WAS interesting, but the writing style was very dry and academic, so I just couldn't stay awake to get through it.

Ultimately I chose what I thought was *sort of* a cheat. I had a book with no book jacket that was black, aka, dark — The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst. Later I looked up the book jacket, and it is actually dark. And as it turns out, the book does have some dark elements, even though it starts out VERY charming and happy (if you look over the first page where you find out the wife dies).