Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

The NPR list is back for another round on ATY. Whether you love or hate list prompts, the NPR "Books We Love" list has something for everyone. Feel free to scroll through the filters and through the years to find a book that fits your list perfectly.

You can find the 2022 list here: https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#view...

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

What are you reading for this prompt? How did you find it?

From this year's list I enjoyed How High We Go in the Dark, Sea of Tranquility, Book Lovers, The Old Woman with the Knife, I Kissed Shara Wheeler and The No-Show.

I will probably wait and pick something from next year's list, though I do have a few TBR books to fall back on.

I absolutely love the NPR list! I have 30ish books from the lists on my 2023 reading plan. Three books that I might use for this prompt that I don't have slotted elsewhere are:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

dalex wrote: "I absolutely love the NPR list! "

I'm ensuring balance in the Universe, because I hate this prompt :)

It's the one I put the least effort into choosing a book for, I just don't have the energy to look through all those lists. My method is to start with the oldest and work my way forwards until I find something that's on my priority TBR, and then that's my choice. It was a lot quicker for 2022, I had Scarlet on the oldest list, for 2023 I've had to go through a lot more to get to Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor.

Marie wrote: "dalex wrote: "I absolutely love the NPR list! "

I'm ensuring balance in the Universe, because I hate this prompt :)

It's the one I put the least effort into choosing a book for, I just don't hav..."

That's a good strategy for anyone who wants to stick with their existing TBR. You're more likely to find familiar titles on the older lists. Those who love discovering new books are more willing to take a chance on the newest list.

Marie wrote: "dalex wrote: "I absolutely love the NPR list! "

I'm ensuring balance in the Universe, because I hate this prompt :)

It's the one I put the least effort into choosing a book for, I just don't hav..."




Yeah I feel the same way about this one. Sure, I can find something I want to read. But it's quite the slog to have to wade through the list. My method is to start in the most recent list, look at it, and stop at the first book that looks interesting and call it done.

Here are some recommendations from the NPR lists. Maybe this will help those who don't enjoy scrolling through and seeing all the books.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Euphoria by Lily King
The Strays by Emily Bitto
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Normal People and Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam
The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers This is the 3rd book in the series and is the only one on the NPR list, I think. The whole series is wonderful, though!
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I want to read something from 2022, even though I have several books from the older lists. My top choices are: To Paradise by Hanya Yangihara, Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin, Chilean Poet by Alejandra Zamora, The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, Seeing Ghosts by Kay Chow, and Red Square: A Graphic Novel by Liam Frances Walsh.

For my grandson’s challenge, I’m looking at 2021 books: Wishes by Muon Thi Van, Magic Candies by Herna Baek, and Nicky and Vera by Peter Sis. This is one of the few prompts that needs planning. I plan to not have a plan for him and let him pick his books and just fit them in or look for a prompt-specific book.

Pam wrote: "I want to read something from 2022, even though I have several books from the older lists. My top choices are: To Paradise by Hanya Yangihara, Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin, Chilean Poet by Alejandra ..."

I love you are doing this challenge with your grandson. <3 Someday I hope to be blessed with grandchildren and do reading challenges with them too. :)

Fight Night by Miriam Toews or Anxious People by Fredrik Backman or The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney or Circling the Sun by Paula McLain or I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

If this prompt is a week in September, I'll be reading Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by by R.F. Kuang.

Otherwise, I'd consider these:
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
Making Videogames: The Art of Creating Digital Worlds by Duncan Harris
Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris
You're Invited by Amanda Jayatissa
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Far from the Tree by Robin Benway
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

I used The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family for this prompt. 5 stars.

I think I'll read Sea of Tranquility for this one.

My list of possibilities:

Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf by Helene Cooper
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Americanah by Chiminanda Ngozi Adichie
The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich
Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance by Carla Kaplan

I read a YA novel Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. I loved it.!

I read Take My Hand that appears on the Listopia

For this prompt, I read:
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton - 4* - My Review

I read The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay. I'd loved a couple of his previous books, but this one I cannot recommend.

I love this prompt and I love this list. And I picked the worst book off last year's book to read- Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso (I'm not linking cause that's not nice when I'm slamming the book!) I decided to have some fun and be creative with this prompt. Normally for prompts if nothing pops out, I'll just go to the Listopia and see what books I have on my TBR list on it. But I decided to go to the 2022 list and really look at it. And so many good ideas. And this one looked so good, NPR really made it sound fascinating. And it was one of the most beautifully written books ever. But everything else about it was blah.
But it was short. I might use this prompt for the double up one and try again with the The Marriage Portrait or The Paris Apartment or the Grimke book.

One book I read last year from the NPR Books We Love that I can recommend (if you enjoyed Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents), is Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gomez (2020).

Books I considered include:
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (2014)
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak (2019)
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker (2017)
Mother Ocean Father Nation by Nishant Batsha (2022)
A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times by Meron Hadero (2022)
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews (2022)

What I ultimately read and really enjoyed was True Biz by Sara Nović (2022). It's about Deaf culture Deaf Rights (regarding the choice to use cochlear implants). The author and the graphic artist (there are ASL "lessons" scatter through the book that include drawings of hand signs) are both deaf. As you might guess, this can be used for A book involving disability, which is where I originally slotted this, but I had a few other disability related books that I really wanted to read, so was very happy to find this one on the NPR page!

I read Lea: A Novel by Pascal Mercier. It was included in the NPR 2017 Tales from around the world section.

It is the story of a fragile musical prodigy, and how she is ultimately failed by the adults around her. I was in two minds over this book. On one hand, it is an engrossing story, but I didn't care for the narrative framework (someone befriends Lea's father and hears her and his story); the narrator's obsession with Tom Courtney was particularly annoying..

Another book along the lines of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, I read Just Us: An American Conversation (2020) by author, poet, playwright, Claudia Rankine for this prompt. Using poetry, prose and photos, the author forces us to confront the brutal realities and ongoing legacy of systemic racism and white supremacy that is everywhere. This book was difficult to read in so many ways, and I kept asking myself, will this issue ever be resolved? The author makes you think and question everything you take for granted about your life, which makes it worthy of a second read.

For round 2 I read: Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri. I read it for an immigration theme, and I really enjoyed it. I recommend it on audio because the author's personality really comes through. I'm not sure the title does the book justice. It was a nice combination of serious topics and humor - sort of like Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

I read Love on the Brain. I don't really like lists but this one is good for me because of the variety. There were a few choices that could have gone with. This was a good light easy read during a stressful time so it was perfect.

I finally got to Washington Black by Esi Edugyan for this one and I loved it. Highly recommend.



Others from my TBR that fit:

I read Black Cake with a friend. She loved it more than I did.
I also read Carrie Soto is Back, the Candy House, Siren Queen

From the 2021 NPR list ...


Harlem Shuffle – Colson Whitehead – 4****
Whitehead is a talented writer and I love the characters he creates. I was invested in Ray and Elizabeth. I worried for his safety several times, especially in the last third of the book. I could feel his fear and anxiety when things went wrong. I may not have agreed with all of Ray’s decisions, but I certainly came to understand why he acted as he did. He had his own code and he stuck to it. The novel spans five years, from 1959 to 1964, and Harlem is practically a character. Whitehead’s descriptions completely transported me to that time and place.
LINK to my full review

dalex wrote: "Here are some recommendations from the NPR lists. Maybe this will help those who don't enjoy scrolling through and seeing all the books.

The Great Believers by [author:Rebecca Makk..."

Thank you, you are an angel!!

I read Firekeeper's Daughter for this prompt. I recommend it.

Patricia wrote: "I read Firekeeper's Daughter for this prompt. I recommend it."

I'm getting ready to start this one. I'm using it for #49.

I read Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez. I thought it was just ok

Denise wrote: "I read Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez. I thought it was just ok"

I agree ...

I read How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing without realizing it's written by a TikTok influencer. I thought the practical advice was pretty sparse -- a few good points, but also a lot of "your messy house is good enough, so just relax!" This message seems to be validating for a lot of people, but I was looking for more of a push. It's very short, and basically like reading a blog of haphazardly organized platitudes.