Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

This week we are celebrating the 2019 ATY list by reading a book related to one of the elements on the periodic table of elements!

Wikipedia Periodic Table page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodi...

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

I am reading Neon Prey, which was published in 2019, and The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women for my 2016 choice.

This prompt will help me with my goal of reading the Ruth Galloway series. I've chosen The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths.

I'm using gold and copper.
California Golden - Melanie Benjamin
Miss Plum and Miss Penny - Dorothy Evelyn Smith
The Golden Bowl - Henry James

I'm thinking of reading a book with a demon (who supposedly smell like sulfer) or a book with a helium balloon on the cover (thanks to Pennywise a helium balloon is now used in thriller books.)

The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance by Dan Egan

This is the only prompt for which I have ONE absolutely clear choice. I read Egan’s book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes in 2020 and loved it. It was a major change from my normal reading, and I only tried it because I was in a reading challenge with a “Great Lakes” tag (and I live in the region). l found it surprisingly easy to read. I didn’t understand it all immediately (or care), but it soon clicked, and I learned things I have never forgotten - about ecosystems, invasive species, and how everything works together. It opened up a new reading world for me, and many topics make more sense because of it. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures is another eye opening book like that.

A friend’s scientist brother told her that The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance is the next big thing in popular science, and he insisted she read it. I think this book could be relevant to prompts related to Fire, climate change, food, fertilizer, poison and maybe death.

I’ll be reading Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra, one of my favorite writers.

This is the perfect spot for Chlorine by Jade Song.

I'm going to read The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal. MN is the abbreviation for both Minnesota and Manganese.

Marie wrote: "I'm going to read The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal. MN is the abbreviation for both Minnesota and Manganese."

Marie, I loved that book! So did my husband. It was really fun to go to a craft beer tasting event right after reading the book.

Marie - brilliant connection! Now I want to go see if there are any other state abbreviations that match elements.

I will be reading Silver Nitrate by Silva Moreno-Garcia.

I'm planning to go full-on elements table, with The Periodic Table by Primo Levi and possibly also Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements.

I plan to read The Tin Drum by Günter Grass.

Tracy wrote: "Marie - brilliant connection! Now I want to go see if there are any other state abbreviations that match elements."

I'd love to claim credit for the inventiveness, but someone else came up with the idea during voting, I just noticed I had a book it would work for :)

NancyJ wrote: "

The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance by Dan Egan

This is the only prompt for..."

Sounds fascinating - I've added it to my TBR list.

Dixie wrote: "Sounds fascinating - I've added it to my TBR list."

Same! So intriguing.

I read The Hydrogen Murder, book one in the Periodic Table mysteries by Camille Minichino for this prompt back in 2019. I'm currently planning to read book 2, The Helium Murder, for this prompt, though it has been long enough that a reread of book 1 might be in order!

I'm planning on Iron Lake

Marie wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Marie - brilliant connection! Now I want to go see if there are any other state abbreviations that match elements."

I'd love to claim credit for the inventiveness, but someone else c..."

Still intrigued by the possibilities of matching periodic element abbreviations to US state abbreviations. I found this list so I didn't need to figure it out myself:

AL: aluminum, Alabama
AR: argon, Arkansas
CA: calcium, California
CO: cobalt, Colorado
FL: flerovium, Florida
GA: gallium, Georgia
IN: indium, Indiana
LA: lanthanum, Louisiana
MD: mendelevium, Maryland
MN: manganese, Minnesota
MO: molybdenum, Missouri
MT: meitnerium, Montana
ND: neodymium, North Dakota
NE: neon, Nebraska
PA: protactinium, Pennsylvania
SC: scandium, South Dakota

Hope this helps someone who isn't finding a connection to an actual element in the title or content.

I read The Silver Sword. It would be a good book as an introduction to WW2 for younger readers.

There is a cozy mystery series call the Periodic Table Series by Camille Minichino. The first is The Hydrogen Murder, and each title is an element from the periodoctable. Amateur sleuth is a female retored physicist, and there are always interesting references to historical women in science. These are good, fun, featuring a woman of a certain age who isfinally letting some baggage froom heryoith go and embracing a 2nd chance at like while solving crimes with a link to world of science and labs.

I read Golden Son by Pierce Brown for this topic (Read Feb 1; 4*)

I read We Sold Our Souls

It didn't have anything to do with demons and sulfur. It did have to do with heavy metal. A recurring theme was an iron mountain, so I'm connecting it to iron.

For this prompt, I read:
The Iron Heel by Jack London - 4* - My Review

I'm planning on reading A Kiss of Iron by Clare Sager for this prompt. It's a book my daughter got on Audible - which means it's a romantasy! :) Just kidding - I mean, it IS a romantasy, but she does read other stuff as well.

I read Iron Flame. It was kind of like candy - enjoyable but no substance.

I read The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements back in 2019. That was very good.

I read:
Cast Iron: You can run but you can't hide... by Marilyn Todd

REJECT: A book with an "Alice" connection

Finished: 05/14/2025
Rating: 4 stars

From Goodreads:
CAST IRON is the second book in the Julia McAllister Victorian Mystery series: historical romance murder mysteries with a courageous woman sleuth embarking on a traditional British, private investigation in nineteenth-century London.

#2 in a very good series. Like the characters and the plot twists.

I read the 8th book in the Andy Carpenter series, Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt, and the mystery just happened to deal with rhodium. :)

I read Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang. It also works for a GR bookmark, if anyone cares about those too.

I read Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster - moving and terrifying. The main element is uranium, but many others are part of the story, caesium, boron, iodine to name a few. Could it happen again -quite possibly.

On a much lighter note, I moved Oxford Reading Tree Biff, Chip and Kipper Stories Decode and Develop: Level 1+: The Tin Can Man over here. I'm trying to read as many types of book as I can this year, so this was an early reader. A bit of nostalgia, as my daughters learnt to read with these books.

In 2019 (my first ATY year), I read The First Iron Lady: A Life of Caroline of Ansbach.

I read The Berry Pickers (title contains the letters BE which is beryllium)

I read Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women. I wouldn’t have read it if not for this prompt. It’s very good.

I read Tin Man by Sarah Winman.

For anyone who thinks they'd like to read this book next year, it could be used for the Van Gogh prompt - some of the covers include a Van Gogh painting of sunflowers. This painting and Van Gogh are topics of discussion in the book.

The Devil’s element was interesting, but not quite what I expected. There were some funny and gory stories about the alternative ways countries got their phosphorous.