Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

It is now time to vote for our ANNIVERSARY LIST: Throwing it back to 2023!

For more information about this special Anniversary List, see this thread.

Voting will open in the morning of Sunday, September 8 and results will be posted in the morning of Friday, September 13 (CDT time).

How it works:
- When the voting opens, follow the link to the mini-poll that will be added at the end of this post
- You have a total of 8 votes this poll to spread across your favorite and least favorite prompts (you can also use less than 8 votes)
- You can find examples of acceptable voting practices on the Introduction thread.

We are asking people to include their Goodreads profile address when they vote. To find this, just go to your own profile and then copy the URL/web address. If for some reason you can't link to your Goodreads profile, please post your full Goodreads name with enough identifiable information that we'll be able to access your profile.

As this is an ANNIVERSARY LIST poll, only ONE prompt will make the final list. Use your votes wisely!

Poll Prompts:
4. A book with an interracial relationship
10. A book related to one of the Spice Girls' "personalities"
11. A book about a person/character with a disability
12. A book connected to birds, bees, or bunnies
14. A book with a con, deception, or fake
21. A book by an Asian diaspora author
24. A character that might be called a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, or Spy
26. A book related to pride
27. A book by an author from continental Europe
30. A book related to a chess piece
37. A book with the theme of returning home
42. A book related to a ghost, spirit, phantom, or specter
43. A book that involves a murder
45. A book whose author has published more than 7 books
46. A title that contains a word often found in a recipe

VOTE HERE: https://forms.gle/249pTmtjnA9CAcMb8

This was the first year that I joined ATY. All up votes for me.

10. A book related to one of the Spice Girls' "personalities"
11. A book about a person/character with a disability
21. A book by an Asian diaspora author
27. A book by an author from continental Europe
30. A book related to a chess piece
42. A book related to a ghost, spirit, phantom, or specter
45. A book whose author has published more than 7 books
46. A title that contains a word often found in a recipe

I think these are the ones I voted for. I vote by what appeals to me at the time of voting, but I would welcome any of them. Truly enjoyed the challenge last year.

There are some good prompts there - I agree it was an enjoyable year.

My first time for all downvotes. I really dislike choosing a book based on the race, sexual orientation, relationship status, or physical condition of the author or characters. I read very widely and could fill any of those prompts in any given year through my regular reading, but there's something about seeking them out that feels distasteful to me ... like tokenism, as someone put it earlier. A couple of prompts I remember being very hard to fill last time. The rest I'm fine with but didn't feel enthusiastic enough about any of them to upvote them.

One thing is a fact: we have improved the prompts drastically and they got SO MUCH better and more complex. I did the 2016 and 2017 during those years they could not keep it up, when I came back to ATWw52B I was shocked!

3 up 5 down. Ghost, Asian disphora, and chess piece were upvotes.

Such an excellent list of prompts!

(Except I’ll still argue that the recipe prompt needs to be reworded as “a book with a word in the title that is related to food or cooking” because otherwise you can use words like together or all, as in “thoroughly mix together all the ingredients.” I know what the prompt *implies* but it is not what it *says*.)

First glance and I'm thinking 7 up and 1 down. Maybe that is because it was such a short while ago that I remember seeking them out, so they have stayed in my head.

I feel the same as Dixie (2nd sentence) but do like prompts based on the author’s nationality, which is easy to look up, and I read a lot of European authors so that is my one definite upvote. I might pick a few others but mostly down for me this week. I really disliked the Spice Girl prompt in 2023 but I hope to read Eva Longoria’s new Mexican cookbook so I might stay neutral on that one.

I remember these all so well. It's such a fun list.

#14 is very similar to secret, lies, or deception, which we already have on the list, so that’s a no for me.

What a good year for prompts! Also all upvotes for me, and I kind of wished for more than 8 votes so I could upvote more!

Upvotes:

4. A book with an interracial relationship
10. A book related to one of the Spice Girls' "personalities"
11. A book about a person/character with a disability
12. A book connected to birds, bees, or bunnies
26. A book related to pride
27. A book by an author from continental Europe
30. A book related to a chess piece
43. A book that involves a murder

I too would have liked to upvote more. There are some creative and unique prompts that I would love to explore -

24. A character that might be called a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, or Spy
42. A book related to a ghost, spirit, phantom, or specter
46. A title that contains a word often found in a recipe

I'm also happy to see that the prompt for a character with a disability has been included here. Despite some other readers' feelings about it, I see this is a wonderful opportunity for people to gain a better understanding and awareness of the challenges and barriers people with disabilities face every day.

I feel similarly to Dixie, so there are a lot of easy downvotes here for me. I AM a person with disabilities, so I don't need a fictional world to get acquainted with those challenges & barriers, you know? There's also next to no chance that I will struggle to read but one disability story next year, or one book that includes an interracial relationship or whatever. I do live in the current day after all; I haven't fallen through a wormhole into 1953.

But there are still some solid options here. I'm going to have to think on it.

My favourites from this year were:

10. A book related to one of the Spice Girls' "personalities"
24. A character that might be called a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, or Spy
30. A book related to a chess piece

I also loved:
42. A book related to a ghost, spirit, phantom, or specter
43. A book that involves a murder
But that's just me. I know these were harder for other people.

Ciara wrote: "I feel similarly to Dixie, so there are a lot of easy downvotes here for me. I AM a person with disabilities, so I don't need a fictional world to get acquainted with those challenges & barriers, y..."

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ciara. I appreciate that you have strong feelings on the disability prompt. I have a disability as well, and I have a few family members that have one too. The fact that I have a specific disability doesn't make me an expert or grant me understanding of all the others that exist. Then again, I understand that some may not want to read a novel that includes this. But that's what the voting is intended to flesh out.

You say that there is next to no chance that you will struggle to read a book that has a character with a disability next year. In this case, this should be an easy prompt for you.

It's unfortunate because it's negative reactions like this that make people feel targeted for putting forward a suggestion.

Well, luckily for everyone, this is the anniversary list. All the prompts were chosen from the 2023 prompts list, so whoever put forth the disability prompt has already felt the warm, validating glow of having their prompt on an ATY list. & one of the mods liked it so much, they put it into contention for this poll as well. Plus it's routinely a prompt in other book challenges all the time. So I think we can all just relax a little bit about how me, one single individual out of the thousands of people who participate in reading challenges every year, not liking a few specific prompts that smack of tokenism is going to terrify this community of hundreds of people, most of whom don't even read the comments, into never putting forth prompt suggestions again. I sincerely doubt I wield that kind of mighty power.

& FWIW, my criticism of these types of prompts is more or less political. I find it problematic that people would need to be instructed to read books that include characters with marginalized identities. It's odd that this viewpoint is being labeled "negative" because I think it actually shows that I have more faith in the community at large. Like, surely over the course of a year people are already reading books featuring characters with disabilities (to name one example among many)? Certainly we don't need to push the basics & can instead get more creative? If someone is feeling called out because they think that's going to be a really difficult prompt for them, that says more about them than it does about me.

Liz wrote: "Ciara wrote: "I feel similarly to Dixie, so there are a lot of easy downvotes here for me. I AM a person with disabilities, so I don't need a fictional world to get acquainted with those challenges..."

I very much agree with you, Liz, and think this is a very nice and measured response. In fact I agree with all your thoughts on disability.

I think I'm the one that first suggested the prompt, and thinking of it I am quite flattered it's been put forward again!, and as somebody who also has a disability I didn't mean it as tokenism. I'm not offended that some people evidently regard it as such, but I rather regard it - and other prompts along those lines - in the same way that I regard the semi-recent Own Voices push in publishing. Yes, everybody should be the perfectly diverse reader just as everybody should have an equal chance of getting published... But that is not the case, unfortunately, and tiny steps are better than no steps at all.

Everybody's take on what constitutes a creative prompt is different. And all I can say is thank heavens for that.

Liz - For me, it’s not that I don’t want to read a book about a person w a disability but rather that I don’t want to choose one based on that criteria. (For example, I would rather read a book about Beethoven based on a music prompt rather than a disability one.) Character prompts, in general, just are not my favorite. But, that doesn’t mean I never vote for them or suggest them.

Pam wrote: "Liz - For me, it’s not that I don’t want to read a book about a person w a disability but rather that I don’t want to choose one based on that criteria. (For example, I would rather read a book abo..."

Thank you, Siobhan.

Pam, I fully understand and respect that. It's all about choice and personal preference.

Are disabled characters more prominently featured in certain genres? I think the only time I read a book with a disabled character was because of a prompt. I can think of a few fantasy books that have disabled characters but it’s not such a dominant part of the plot that I’d count it for a prompt.

I'm not sure what I'll upvote yet (so many good ones!). This was my first year where I was involved in the suggesting and voting. I remember there was a bunch of excitement over "birds, bees, or bunnies" and that apparently some or all of these creatures had been discussed the previous year (?). I couldn't figure out what all the excitement was about. Of course now I have 31 books on my birds-bees-bunnies shelf, and only 5 of them have been read so far. Maybe it was 2023's "Mushroom" prompt?

If you asked me now I'd probably pick Birds Bees or Bunnies. But I also still have several books I want to read that would fall under Continental European Author, and Person/Character with a Disability (not as a token — most likely a non-fiction book to learn about issues in my family, or maybe fiction if the story deals realistically with an issue — like True Biz does with hearing loss/deafness).

dalex wrote: "Are disabled characters more prominently featured in certain genres? I think the only time I read a book with a disabled character was because of a prompt. I can think of a few fantasy books that h..."

There are definitely increasing numbers of disabled characters in romance novels. My husband reads a lot of specifically progression fantasy, and he's told me there are a fair few there too.

There are a few in recent crime novels I've read, too. Though, as you said for fantasy, rarely in that prominent roles in the plot.

dalex wrote: "Are disabled characters more prominently featured in certain genres? I think the only time I read a book with a disabled character was because of a prompt. I can think of a few fantasy books that h..."

Mary Robinette Kowal's interstellar murder mystery The Spare Man features a female lead with a disability.

I’m having fun looking back at the books I read for these prompts in 2023. It was a fabulous reading year for me. I loved the variety.

I read many extra books for European authors, Birds-bees-bunnies, Pride, Tinker-tailor-soldier-spy, 7+ authors, returning home, con-deception-fake, and Asian diaspora. I would be happy to read more books for all of them. (It’s shocking how many birds-bees-bunnies books I still want to read.) I probably have more books now for Chess and Disability than I did then, so I’d be happy with these too.

I had the hardest time with the recipe words prompt, and Interracial relationship is hard to identify in advance. I do have one book in mind for each one if needed.

I really liked the wording and alternative interpretations for the Pride prompt, and I loved the books I read. I am tired of regular lgbt prompts, but I read enough queer books that I’m happy to have a slot for them. I guess it’s like historical fiction in that way.

Birds, bees and bunnies is a definite downvote for me. I never really understood the obsession over getting a bunny-related prompt on the list year after year until this one finally made it, so I was already super burnt out on the idea before it even got in.

Other than that, I like con/deception/fake, ghosts, and murder as prompts since they fit quite nicely with how many thrillers I read. I just want to go back and double check what we already have both on the main list and the anniversary list so far to make sure these don't overlap before I vote.

I get the "token" criticism, but I also think that visibility is important. I don't believe that people with disabilities are visible enough in our society.

A few years back, that was (maybe still is?) true for LGBTQ+, and there has been an improvement. And even if it seems "token" sometimes, many random "gay best friends" and such - today it doesn't feel unusual anymore to encounter a gay character. So, it's important to start somewhere, I think.

It actually annoyed me a bit that a "written by a woman" prompt had been chosen. I honestly thought we got at least past THAT... stupid me.

I agree that the visibility is important. I think there are more disabled characters now in fiction, but it’s the memoirs that tend to get tagged/shelved as disability. I think the fiction books are often more subtle, with the disability treated as just one part of their life, as opposed to main topic of the book. Sometimes that’s better, as long as it isn’t too superficial.

Rebecca Yarros has had huge hits in recent years. The main character in Fourth Wing and Iron Flame has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a painful condition that the author also lives with. I found it very powerful and inspiring (I have something similar). I read it at the end of the year, and didn’t add it to the disabilities listopia until now.

I would like to suggest three really good books where the main character has got a disability.

(I understand and agree with both Liz and Ciara. I've got a disability myself and one of my sons has got a different kind of disability. I won't vote for it because I prefer choosing a book by other standards and then rather rejoice when I stumble upon an interesting character that happens to also have a disability. And I prefer not talking about disabilities here because this is my relaxing spot. In the same time it needs to be treated as something that is ordinary and therefore I love how British TV - crimes have developed recent years where there is ALWAYS at least one character with a disability WITHOUT it getting focused on, just as something ordinary.)

Here are the books: Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren,
The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo and
Gertrude by Hermann Hesse

I think it's important too to remember that representation doesn't hit all genres at the same time. Hard hitting literary fiction and cozy mysteries don't have the same author and character diversity. A big part of the 'black joy' movement was promoting media that showed black characters having fun adventures, or finding love, or whatever, without some great tragedy befalling them, specifically because for a long time it felt like the only stories about black people that got told in the mainstream were about black people overcoming oppression and hardship. So sometimes it can be good to remind ourselves that there's still work to be done, even if we have come a long way.

Jackie wrote: "I think it's important too to remember that representation doesn't hit all genres at the same time. Hard hitting literary fiction and cozy mysteries don't have the same author and character diversi..."


I haven’t heard that term before. I like it!

I'm continuing to upvote only my favorite and downvote the ones that I would least enjoy.

This round, my upvote went to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I think this is my all-time favorite prompt and I would do it every year. I love the paired alliteration, the book reference, and the genres that it encompasses (although, if it makes it in, I'm going to try to find a character that is a Tailor)

NancyJ wrote: "I had the hardest time with the recipe words prompt, and Interracial relationship is hard to identify in advance. I do have one book in mind for each one if needed..."

I nominated the interracial and I really wanted to keep it to friendship since that was the spirit of the prompt... but I caved and did a romance novel.

Jette wrote: "I'm continuing to upvote only my favorite and downvote the ones that I would least enjoy.

This round, my upvote went to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I think this is my all-time favorite prompt a..."

I'm upvoting two each round and also did Tinker- it was an excuse to read a biography on John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. This time I might try a tinker. And I do have lots more fashion books on my shelf.

This one feels a bit close to me given it was just last year, so I'm really going to struggle with this years!
I've voted for ones that people probably think are bland...I know I found books for the ones I didn't like last year (e.g tinker, tailor, solider and spy), but most were by accident. Eg I was reading a romance novel and the female main character was a mechanic so I thought that ocunted as tinker, and I happened to be reading an ARC of a book where the main character has to return to her home town after 10 years away. Again, not planned. So I downvoted these prompts this time as I'm not really interested in searching for something that fits.

I upvoted
disiability, murder and author with more than 7 books .
Both my kids have hidden disability so I know what it's like living with them and for them, but not other disabilities.
I recommend Silent Song with a deaf MC

Pamela wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "I had the hardest time with the recipe words prompt, and Interracial relationship is hard to identify in advance. I do have one book in mind for each one if needed..."

I nominated t..."

If the prompt makes it in and you still want a book about a friendship I read this last time and would recommend it:

The Woman Next Door