Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

If you're like me, you plan 17 books to read for each prompt, then ditch the plan for a shiny new hold that came your way.

This week, you are looking back at your year and deciding to read a second book from your favorite prompt of the year. Maybe it's circling around back to that plan you made in 2025 that is gathering cobwebs, or maybe it's picking a book you've been wanting to read and sticking it with a prompt you enjoyed.

No listopia here, but check out all of our other Weekly Threads for inspiration!

What prompt are you using? Why was it your favorite?

I'm using the Agatha Christie prompt - I have so many books by/about her yet to read, it was a no-brainer.

For this one, I'm using Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by John Curran - it works for another challenge I'm doing, and he's written a lot on her.

(The other one is Poirot and Me by David Suchet).

It will probably be one of these:

Not a novel - a short stories collection, memoir or nonfiction
Historical fiction
Science topic

An Award winner
A book that fits a prompt suggestion for this year that did not make the list - I’m planning 2+ reject challenges that include award winners

One of my favorites is a book set during a resistance, rebellion or revolution. I have books set during different revolutions: American, French, Russian, and Latin American countries. Rebellions are common in sci-fi, which I have a few in the queue for 2026. One in particular is Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert.

I don't have a favourite prompt this time, but I have two interpretations of one prompt that I like too much to choose between, so I'm going with Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, interpreted as a title prompt and also as the year each book is set being my own yesterday, today and tomorrow.

The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon

I am using Santa's reindeer -I'm thinking of using Comet and Dancer.

Pam wrote: "One of my favorites is a book set during a resistance, rebellion or revolution. I have books set during different revolutions: American, French, Russian, and Latin American countries. Rebellions ar..."

Yes! I’ll add the Chinese Cultural revolution too. I might read another book about the late 1960’s-early 1970’s too.

I was torn between expanding my reading with 'new to you author' or my actual frivolous favourite, Santa' s reindeer. In the end I have gone with One Day I Shall Astonish the World, which I can see as a Rudolph link and Margo's Got Money Troubles - I suppose there's a slight Cupid link there.

I'm using the read a mystery or true crime prompt just because I'm trying to catch up on some mysteries.Fell Murder by E.C.R. Lorac.

My favorite prompt is always "A prompt that did not make the list." For this, I think I'm going to use "A book with a setting that provokes the question, "Why did you go there?" and my book will be Don’t Go There!: From Chernobyl to North Korea—One Man’s Quest to Lose Himself and Find Everyone Else in the World’s Strangest Places.

We had so many cool prompts this year that were rejected that I am going with: A book that fits a prompt suggestion for this year that did not make the list. The one I am choosing is - A book that would fit the 26th prompt from any ATY52 year. I am choosing this year: 2025 - A book by an author with a common noun in their name
The Grass Dancer by Mona Susan Power

I love this one every year. I'm going to use "A novella of 100-250 pages" because so many of my reads by international authors are shorter than American novels. I plan to read The Good Life Elsewhere by Vladimir Lorchenkov, an author from Moldova.

I'm going with prompt #11: A history or historical fiction

I love reading history, so I'll go the nonfiction route. Now my issue is deciding on which one because I have several history books planned for next year already.