Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

One of my favorite features of our Goodreads group is our Book of the Month threads! Each month, members list their favorite books from that month, giving recommendations on what to read and what prompts to use those reads for.

This week, you are combing through our BOTM threads to find a book recommended by another member of this group.

2024 ATY Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
2025 ATY Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

I’m slotting in Piranesi for this one with Villette as a 2nd choice.

Pam wrote: "I’m slotting in Piranesi for this one with Villette as a 2nd choice."

I loved Villette.

Knocking another one that keeps sliding down the TBR.

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I love this prompt. I keep a running list during the year. So far, I'm spoiled for choice:

When Women Were Dragons, Vilette, Circe, Doppleganger, A Touch of Darkness, Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries, Hidden Pictures, When Among Crows, James, Last Murder at the End of the World

And we still have October, November, December and all of 2025.

A few of my choices:
Sculptor's Daughter: A Childhood Memoir - Tove Jansson
How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon - Jorge Amado

I'm thinking of reading The Extinction of Irena Rey and The Road to Roswell.

Fitting in the next in a series I like - The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison.

These lists always seem to be books I’ve already read and books I’m not interested in. Plus the list always ends up so long that it takes forever to go through. I do have a couple options to choose from but it’s one of my least favorite prompts.

I'm reading Remarkably Bright Creatures and Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, if its not too depressing in the circumstances.

There were so many I could have chosen for this one but I decided on by Walter Isaacson.

I exported the listopias for 2023 and 2024 to a google doc about a month ago. I like being able to sort the list of books and read through without the listopia interface. I'll update it again every once in a while when the 2025 listopia is up. Link if anyone's interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Thanks Isabel!

I’m definitely reading Table for Two next year since it’s my February book club pick, and another book club is reading Wandering Stars in March. I’m reading these for another challenge so they could also go here: Migrations Piranesi and I’d like to read The Covenant of Water

Maybe the following:

-Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

For this prompt, I read a book found on the 2024 list:
Jack by Marilynne Robinson - 3* - My Review

So far I read:

From the 2025 list:
James
Wild Dark Shore
The History of Sound

From the 2024 list:
Playground - 4.5 stars - fits underground (under the sea)
Women Talking - 3.5 stars
James

I read James, which was excellent.

Yellow Crocus OMG I loved this book. It is a storyline I generally dislike but this just told everything so well.

I always feel like I cheat on this prompt because I just look through until I find a book that is already on my TBR, and then I read that one! ;) This year was a little different. I found Heartstopper: Volume One by Alice Oseman which is a book I bought for my 15 year old for Christmas, and they wanted me to read it with them, so I did! It is a cute and sweet graphic novel.

I read Wandering Stars Tommy Orange

I read After Oz by Gordon McAlpine.

I read Remarkably Bright Creatures, posted in 2024, and As Close to Us as Breathing posted in May 2025.

Thanks to GailW for the 2025 nomination. It gave me a book published in 2016, which was also beautifully written, one of my best books of the year. It was haunted though by grief for the death of a child, as is Creatures, but that was a happier book - I loved Marcellus the octopus.

I read Margo's Got Money Troubles.

I read James by Percival Everett for this topic (Read September 7th; 4*)

Isabel wrote: "I exported the listopias for 2023 and 2024 to a google doc about a month ago. I like being able to sort the list of books and read through without the listopia interface. I'll update it again every..."

Another "Thank you" to Isabel for the export! I don't like scrolling through the threads or listopias, but when I clicked on you spreadsheet the heavens opened! The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet was front and center.

I have been reading The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, but didn't have an option left to fit it into the 2025 challenge. I was able to move Anthropocene Reviewed from Prompt #8 - A collection of short stories or novellas, essays, poetry, or a mix of various brief writings to #50 - Best Book of the Month. A couple of spontaneous decisions turned into an additional prompt filled! Woo Hoo!

This is my absolute favorite prompt this year. I found 20 excellent books on the 2024/2025 lists. There was not one stinker in the group. I read an additional 10 that I nominated in the best of the month threads. I love that we have this opportunity to share recommendations in a thread that is sure to be used over and over again. In the last few weeks our members stepped up to nominate more of their favorite books this year. It’s not too late.

Right now we are voting for 2026 prompts, amd this prompt is on the ballot. If you haven’t been voting, please take a few minutes right now.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...