Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Can you believe we are already here? Use this thread to discuss books you loved in July, books you read or are planning on reading in August, and anything else bookish you want to chat about!

I've got 5 books that I'm still reading from June/July and all of them fit a prompt. So, I'm really hoping to finish all of them!

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (audio)
Pessoa: A Biography
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (2024 Pulitzer Prize for fiction)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Trick by Domenico Starnone

I have to not get distracted by the 2025 planning, which is hard to do!

I've got a lot of book clubs and buddy reads going on this month (and a lot of library holds that have suddenly become available) so it's going to be a busy month:

The Bone Season
Sleeping Beauties
Gods of Jade and Shadow
The World According to Garp
The Giver of Stars
Swimming in the Dark
Argylle
Horse
The Tainted Cup

In July I loved Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski

I am doing my first read-a- thon for another group!

I plan to finish this month:

Erasure
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Anne of Green Gables
the Iliad
The Catcher In the Rye
Born To Run
The Beekeeper of Aleppo (buddy read)

I plan to begin to continue reading from July:

-Open Carry by Marc Cameron
-Servanthood: Leadership for the Third Millennium by Bennett J. Sims (NF)
-Holly by Stephen King (Audiobook)
-James by Percival Everett
-Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Planning to begin in August:

-The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
-The Judge's List by John Grisham
-The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritson (Audiobook)
-The Humans by Matt Haig

Six of these are associated to my ATY prompts. If I can read all of these, I will finish the 2024 ATY Challenge. One can have high hopes!

That’s awesome John! I forgot that I have “James” checked out from the library on audio but haven’t started it yet. So, hopefully I will listen to it this month. It’s gotten great reviews! I hope it lives up to its hype.

Continuing from July:
The Norman Conquest
The First Ladies

Planned for August
The Dollmaker
Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Spy Coast
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
A History of Burning

If time
Good Night, Irene
Anxious People

Well I didn't finish the challenge in July but I got pretty close! I've just got 2 prompts left: the two books with similar covers. I'm halfway through A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks and I've got The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean on audio.



After that it will just be trying to finish off the Popsugar prompts and then working on my TBR.

I am semi reading in order. I try to group everything by month and read the books that fit those prompts around the same time. I had to rearrange the books I am reading for the last 4 prompts, as I forgot one of the prompts.

I was reading Bewilderment by Richard Powers for the same cover. Now, it is in a character who is in education.

Dear Mrs. Bird has been slotted into the 7 dwarves, and I will probably finish it tonight or tomorrow. (I am counting it towards Sleepy. The main character is hiding something at her job, just as a sleeper agent would.)

The God of Lost Worlds by AJ Hackwith is for next in series.

I was lucky that the original similar cover book had a few others on my TBR that will match.
Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel
and
The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller.
Both have dark blue night sky covers with people.

I am almost done with my August section and moving on to the September prompts.

I really struggled with the 7 dwarves prompt. I have already read a few books with doctors and illnesses and wanted to do something different with the prompt. Did anyone else have problems filling it?

Anastasia wrote: "I am semi reading in order. I try to group everything by month and read the books that fit those prompts around the same time. I had to rearrange the books I am reading for the last 4 prompts, as I..."

Regarding the seven-dwarfs prompt, I had too many choices, especially regarding sleepy. I ended up reading What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson since dreams are associated with sleeping.

John wrote: "I plan to begin to continue reading from July:

-Open Carry by Marc Cameron
-Servanthood: Leadership for the Third Millennium by Bennett J. Sims (NF)
-Holly

John, your to-read list is interesting and the book The Judge's List caught my eye. It's been a while since I've read a Grisham novel. Are you interested in making it a buddy read in August?

I have a big pile, but am disappointed because two of them are by authors born in Africa to finish my 2024 challenge. I DNF one I've been looking forward to for a long time because the protagonist is not a nice man at all--his wives and children are afraid of him. I am trying to avoid books like that now. However, if I don't like the other one either I have four more months to find something.

I really enjoy looking at my reading stats, which is one of the reasons why I love my e-reader.

Of the 29 books I've read for the ATY 2024 challenge so far, I see that I've been reading more thrillers and sci-fi than than other genres.

Numbers this year:

Sci-fi/Fantasy 28%
Thriller 28%
Mystery 21%
Literary Fiction 10%
Contemporary Fiction 3%
Young Adult 3%
Biography 3%

I also like to hear about other people's reading stats. What genres are at the top of your list?

I have a spreadsheet that tracks mine!

Realistic Fiction 19%
Sci-Fi 15%
Fantasy 12%
Historical Fiction 18%
Mystery/Thriller 11%
Romance/Rom-Com 8%
Nonfiction (Non-Memoir) 1%
Memoir/Biography 10%
Other 5%

Not super surprising that contemporary fiction is in my top, and historical fiction is always pretty high too.

Liz wrote: "John wrote: "I plan to begin to continue reading from July:

-Open Carry by Marc Cameron
-Servanthood: Leadership for the Third Millennium by Bennett J. Sims (NF)
-[b..."

Probably not, since it will be mid to late August when I begin it. The bulk of it will probably in September. What exactly does a buddy read involve?

Ok, no problem, John.

In response to your question, a buddy read is two or more people agreeing to read a given book in a certain time-frame then sharing their thoughts about it. In this group, those thoughts can be shared in the specific topic thread(s) the book falls under.

Emily wrote: "I have a spreadsheet that tracks mine!

Realistic Fiction 19%
Sci-Fi 15%
Fantasy 12%
Historical Fiction 18%
Mystery/Thriller 11%
Romance/Rom-Com 8%
Nonfiction (Non-Memoir) 1%
Memoir/Biography 10%
O..."

Emily wrote: "I have a spreadsheet that tracks mine!

Realistic Fiction 19%
Sci-Fi 15%
Fantasy 12%
Historical Fiction 18%
Mystery/Thriller 11%
Romance/Rom-Com 8%
Nonfiction (Non-Memoir) 1%
Memoir/Biography 10
O..."

Hi Emily,
It's interesting to see that sci-fi and fantasy are also up there when combined together. I like those genres because they really expand our imagination and take us away from the pressures and challenges of real life.

Liz - In addition to GR, I also input my books read on the StoryGraph app which creates 9 different graphs/charts for you. According to the genre chart, my top genres are sci-fi, literary fiction, and classics. 85% of my books have been fiction.

Pam wrote: "Liz - In addition to GR, I also input my books read on the StoryGraph app which creates 9 different graphs/charts for you. According to the genre chart, my top genres are sci-fi, literary fiction, ..."

Hi Pam, it's interesting to see how sci-fi seems to be at the top of everyone's list. I recently heard about the Storygraph app but I've never tried it. How does it compare to Goodreads? Is it better?

This year, I've been trying to focus on one ATY prompt per month, read one series, one mystery, and this summer one prompt for the summer reading prompt.

August is:
The Odyssey (set in Mediterranean)
The Only One Left (mystery and I finished)
A House Like a Lotus (series)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (book from the 60s)

Plus I'm reading The Midnight Feast because my library finally got a copy.

Liz - I wouldn’t say that StoryGraph is better than GR. I like both of them for different reasons. They are similar in the tracking but SG includes tags for mood and pace but it doesn’t have the social aspect that GR has with its groups. I really like their graphs and charts. SG also tracks number of pages read, even when you don’t finish a book. I don’t track pages read but I know some readers do. Also, I feel like their book recommendations are much better! Members in this group might like their challenges. Anyone can create and/or join one. Someone has added the 2024 ATY52 and Dalex added her ATY mini-challenge. You can query challenges by category or key word. I thought I would do some of them but, for now, it’s all I can do to keep up with ATY52!

I tried StoryGraph for a while, but updating my personal spreadsheet, my Instagram, GR, and StoryGraph every time I finished a book was too much haha! I do like the graphs and stuff they put together, but my spreadsheet does similar things so I dropped it.

Emily - I agree that it can be too much! I quit posting on Instagram years ago and just recently added my last 4 months of reading to StoryGraph.

I added a non-fiction audiobook for August which I just started - A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell. So far, it’s really good especially if you are an animal lover! And have another audiobook, James by Percival Everett, checked out.

Here are my stats:

SFF: 34%
YA SFF: 20%
Nonfiction: 20%
Romance: 11%
General Fiction: 8%
YA General: 3%
Historical Fiction: 3%

Rereads: 15%
Graphic novels/manga: 30%
Translated: 23%

American Lit: 57%
Japanese Lit: 21%
UK Lit: 12%
Canadian Lit: 7%
Other Countries: 3%

Short (less than 300 pages): 57%
Long (more than 500 pages): 8%

New (Published 2023 or 2024): 28%
Old (Published before 2014): 31%

Instructions For Dancing – Nicola Yoon – 3***
Evie doesn’t believe in love anymore. Not after her dad left and her parents divorced. But then she finds her way to a dance studio and the next thing she knows, Evie is paired with a boy named X, learning to waltz, fox-trot and tango. This is a charming YA romance with a young couple who have multiple family issues they have to navigate.
LINK to my full review

Prompt # 23: Related to Boats, Beaches, Bars, Ballads or Jimmy Buffet - Murder happens on a boat; a major character lives on a boat.

CHALLENGE COMPLETED ✔ – 07Aug24


A Slow Fire Burning – Paula Hawkins – 3***
If you like unreliable narrators, this is the book for you. Hawkins gives us not one, not two, but a plethora of unreliable narrators to tell this twisty tale of dysfunctional families and murder. It’s not great literature, but it certainly held my attention.
LINK to my full review