Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

For this activity, you're going to have to find your TBR bookshelf, whether it's your physical shelves or your Want to Read list on Goodreads. Now the rules are simple. Identify the books found at the following locations and then tell us a little bit about each book:

- 5
- 27
- 56
- 88
- 95

If you're using your Want to Read list, you can sort it however you'd like! If you have fewer than 95 books on your shelf, then feel free to just choose random numbers :)

- Why did you add this book (to your list or shelf)?
- What's the book about?
- What's stopping you from reading it?

5 The Bite of the Mango Added because it had a fruit in the title. No idea what it is about. Other books on my 690 book TBR list have had more appeal.

27 The Boston Girl Liked The Red Tent and want to read something else by Diamant. It's about a Jewish Girl coming of age in Boston. Have plugged it in to use for one of my challenges this year.

56 Orphan Train A story of orphans being shipped west.
Whenever I was in the mood to read it, there was a long wait at the library so chose another book.

88 Saving CeeCee Honeycutt No recall of what it was supposed to be about. Sounded like a fun read when I added it to the TBR list three years ago. Thanks to this exercise, I will find a place for it in my 2020 reading challenges.

95 The Name of the Wind Added as possible fantasy read. it's fantasy.. wizards and all. It's stuck on my TBR list because it is LONG, part of series and fantasy isn't my go to genre (Harry Potter being an exception).

Whew! I really liked this game. One of my goals this year is to read more books from my TBR list and this exercise has fillled in several spots.

5: The Wolf Wants In

I added this because Laura McHugh is an author who lives in the same city as I do. I've read and enjoyed her previous two novels but didn't pay attention to what this one is about.

27: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

It appears that I added this in the middle of November and yet I have no memory of it. Must have seen it recommended somewhere!

56: Stepsister

I added this while looking for fairy tale retellings for the 2019 PopSugar challenge.

88: Red at the Bone

I added this while looking into books to fill the prompt for nontraditional family for ATY 2020.

95: Private Life

The author of this book, Jane Smiley, is on the ABE List of 100 Greatest Women authors. I am doing a personal challenge to read a book from each of these authors in 2020. I've already read 41 of them but not Jane Smiley. This is one that my library has on audiobook.

Why have I not read these yet? Too many books, too little time!

5-The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women who Changed Soccer This is one that I really want to get to early in 2020. I love the USA Womens Soccer Team and their fight for equality in sports. I've been busy finishing up my yearly challenges.

27-1Q84 I know nothing about this book. I am doing a personal challenge to read all of the goodreads choice award winners over the years. This won fiction in 2011. I just read the synopsis and I'm not sure it's for me which is probably why I've put it off. I will get to it eventually.

56- Nocturnal This one was recommended by a booktuber. I know it is about a detective trying to solve murders, and some crazy paranormal stuff happens to him. I forgot about this one and it sounds good. I'm glad this game brought it back to my attention.

88-Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
This one is also a must read for me, early in 2020. It sounds amazing and I've heard good things. It is a memoir about a biracial member of the LGBTQ+ community growing up in the american south.

95-The Sun and Her Flowers This one is also a part of my personal goodreads choice winners challenge. It won Poetry in 2017. I just don't pick up poetry books often.

Chelsey, I have to check out Long Live the Tribe! I have a goal to read one nonfiction, one book by a POC author, and one book featuring a LGBTQIA+ character each month... and this book checks all three categories!

Organized by date added:

5 - The Count of Monte Cristo. I added this one to my list when I first started Goodreads, and added a ton of classics that I had a vague interest in reading. I haven't read it yet because I just haven't been in the mood for classics for ages, and it's also a massive book! I don't know much about the plot, except that it is about revenge.

27 - A Great and Terrible Beauty. It's one of those books that I picked up for free or very cheap from a library book sale, and added it to my TBR mostly because I owned it. I've never had a very strong interest in reading it, except that I've heard Libba Bray is a great author. This one is about a girl named Gemma Doyle who is sent to a boarding school in England after her mother is murdered, and begins to learn more about her family's past. I haven't removed it because it sounds mildly interesting, but haven't picked it up yet either.

56 - I Was Here. I think I had this one mixed up a bit with If I Stay. This one is about a girl named Cody who travels to her best friend's college town after her friend dies by suicide, and discovers that there was a lot about Meg's world that she didn't know. I haven't picked this one up yet and I think I may have outgrown it by this point, but it still sounds kind of interesting.

88 - Breaking Her Fall. I must have found this one by randomly browsing, since I have no memory of it whatsoever. It is about a father who receives a call that his teenage daughter was actually at a party, instead of the movies like she'd told him, and allegations are made about what happened to her there. Rushing over to help her, the father ends up in a confrontation with the boys still there, leading to an arrest that risks him losing everything. I haven't read this one because I didn't remember adding it to my list, and I'm not sure I'll be getting to it any time soon.

95 - Somebody Else's Daughter. Another one that I found by randomly browsing, about a young girl who was given up for adoption and living with a family who have fled from a mysterious past. When her birth father arrives to teach English in their town, the life that they created for their adopted daughter is threatened. I suspect I added this one because it reminded me vaguely of Jodi Picoult's kinds of storylines.

5 - Villa triste by Patrick Modiano
Modiano is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and I'm trying to read more of those winners.

27 - Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
I kept hearing good things about this novel set during World War I and it has a 4.09 rating.

56 - Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss
I added this book to fulfill a prompt for 2017 or 2018 ATY but ended up not reading it. It still looks interesting to me and we have an art prompt for 2020 so maybe I'll finally read it!

88 - The Tea Lords by Hella S. Haasse
I've tried to add more books from different languages that have been translated into English. It takes place in Java.

95 - Witch World by Andre Norton
A classic fantasy novel by a woman. I'll be reading it in 2020 with a classics group on Goodreads.

- 5 Alector's Choice added Aug. 16, 2012. I have actually already read this book so it would be a reread since several books have been added to the series. I'm working on finishing a different series by this author first.

Military officer in a fantasy world.

- 27 Lolita March 16, 2015 I think someone recommended it to me but I have not really been interested in reading it.

I think it is about someone named Lolita.

- 56 Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet Oct. 30 2015 One of my GR friends marked it as want-to-read so I did too.

I'm think it is about how the media shaped history from the alphabet to the internet. (non-fiction books give away the whole plot in the subtitle)

- 95 Why Knot? How to Tie More Than Sixty Ingenious, Useful, Beautiful, Lifesaving, and Secure Knots! Jan. 16, 2016 I have no idea why I added which is probably why I have not read it.

It is a book about tying more than 60 knots!

Edie wrote:

The Name of the Wind is one of my favorite books but I'd recommend you wait until the third book gets published before starting the series since it is not your favorite genre. It has been around 9 years since the second book was released and there is still no pending date for book three.

I'm still waiting with out much hope for the third book in a different trilogy that ended on a huge cliffhanger that was published over 20 years ago. It is hard when good series never get completed.

Emily wrote: "Chelsey, I have to check out Long Live the Tribe! I have a goal to read one nonfiction, one book by a POC author, and one book featuring a LGBTQIA+ character each month... and this book checks all ..."

Oh how perfect is that.

I sort my tbr books onto goodreads shelves sorted by the year I acquired them so this list is from my HARDCOVER TBR 2019 shelf:

5 - The Interestings
27 - Ethan Frome
56 - Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror
88 - Adrift
95 - All the Birds in the Sky

From my 2020 Reading Plan, sorted by author

5. The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
I added this book because I think it sounds fascinating. It's a novelization of the life of Hedy Lamarr, an actress who, in the 1940s, pioneered the technology that is the basis for WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems.

27. Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck
I added this book because it's a location and time period I don't think I've read before - Swedish Lapland, 1717. It's a murder mystery.

56. Daughter of Hounds by Caitlín R. Kiernan
I added this book because I can use it for the non-binary author prompt for the Popsugar challenge and I've enjoyed other books by Kiernan. It's a dark urban fantasy about changelings (a child believed to have been secretly substituted by fairies for the parents' real child).

88. When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett
I added this book when I was researching Australian authors. It sounds like it's a friendship-bonding-meaning-of-life kind of book.

95. Child of a Mad God by R.A. Salvatore
I added this book when I was looking for books about witches for the ATY challenge. Salvatore used to be one of my favorite authors so I decided to try one of his newer books. It's a fantasy novel about an orphan witch whose magical abilities make her a target for nefarious forces.

Kathy wrote: "56 - Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss..."

You could use this for the neurodiverse prompt. The protagonist is a synaesthetic. (Google "synathesia" - it's a super cool thing!)

dalex wrote: "Kathy wrote: "56 - Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss..."

You could use this for the neurodiverse prompt. The protagonist is a synaesthetic. (Google "synathesia" - it's a super cool thing!)"

Great! Thanks for that info, dalex.

I sorted my "owned-TBR by "date added"

- 5 The Invention of Wings
I added this book to my TBR because it has a lot of good reviews and I ended up buying it in 2015. It's a historical fiction set in the southern US, looks like about the relationship over time between a slave girl and her girl who owns her. I've been putting this off due to the heavy subject matter but I will read it next year as part of my goal of catching up on my oldest backlogged books.

- 27 The Final Formula
I believe this book was an feature in the BookBub daily ebook email. I added it because the synopsis seemed interesting. It's a paranormal urban fantasy about an alchemist. This book has moved to the back burner as I've read other books, but I'll also be reading this next year as part of my goal of catching up on my oldest backlogged books.

- 56 Four Friends
I got this book for free at BookCon in 2016. It seems to be about 4 women who are/become friends and help each other (hopefully?) get their lives together. I don't usually read romance/chick lit novels, and so this one has just been sitting on the shelf. I do a TBR "pick it for me" pairing with another group, and my partner chose this book for me to read for January, so I will finally read it then.

- 88 Blindness
I had heard about this book but decided to add it to my TBR after a friend gave a positive review of it. I then bought it for my Kindle about 2 years ago. It's about what happens after a blindness epidemic hits a city. I haven't had a chance to read it yet based on how I've prioritized by TBR reads so far, but I plan on reading it in January as part of a 2020-themed mini-challenge in another group I'm in.

- 95 S.
I found this book in 2017 when I was looking for books similar to Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves that have unconventional format, and I bought it earlier this year. It's about 2 readers who communicate with each other through the margins of a book by a mysterious author and end up getting involved in "a deadly struggle between forces they don't understand." From what I heard it's an intensive read due to the format, so while I'm really excited to read it, I want to make sure I can dedicate the time and the headspace to do so, which was not the case for this year. Based on my current 2020 reading plans I might not get to this one for at least another year.

5 The Knife Thrower and Other Stories - I wanted to read more magical realism, but for now I don't have much enthusiasm for short stories.
27 Julian - I like reading about Romans, Romans are like real-life fantasy race. But I think I had my fill for one year (I've reread both Graves' Claudius books, I've read Augustus, Coriolanus, and I tried to read Memoirs of Hadrian).
56 Robot - I added it during my quest to discover interesting polish books, but I added so many of them that this one didn't have its turn yet.
88 Alternative Alamat: Stories Inspired by Philippine Mythology - Sounds mighty interesting, but I can't find this book anywhere.
95 Dilvish, the Damned My friend recommended it to me, but it doesn't look like something I would enjoy and I recently read Night In Lonesome October by the same author, which was meh.

5. The Wreath first in a trilogy of Norwegian books written in 1920's. I have read a couple of her books already and loved them.

27. The Conversations at Curlow Creek An Australian offering that simply sounded fascinating to me, as it is the conversations between two men...one waiting to be hanged and the other the officer guarding him.

56. Northwest Angle. I read a book I loved by this author and added this one at that time (picked it up at the used book store). It is part of a detective series, so I'm not sure how soon I will try to get to it (detective books are not my thing).

88. The Bride of Lammermoor. Added this because it is a classic that I have not read yet. I imagine I will get to it eventually, but probably not 2020.

95. The Unseeing. I'm guessing this was on sale at Amazon and had gotten a good review from at least one of my friends. It is on my Kindle. Unfortunately, it is compared to works by an author I did not enjoy, so I'm not sure if I will tackle it.

The exercise has convinced me that I need to clean up my TBR.

I was tempted to sort by various headings and see which gave me the most pleasing combination of books, but I'm going with sorted by date added...

- 5
An Author Bites the Dust by Arthur W. Upfield - this is the next in a murder mystery series following a half-Aboriginal, half-Caucasian police detective written back in the mid-20th century. It is not the most politically correct at times, as a result of when it was written, but I do enjoy the stories.

- 27
Run Away by Harlan Coben - I can't quite remember why I added this! It might be the book I choose for the "can't remember why I added it" category!

- 56
The Prayer Box by Lisa Wingate - this is a Christian fiction, which I like, and I think I added it because of a recommendation here on GR.

- 88
Blame by Nicole Trope - I added this more than 3 years ago because it was a GR giveaway (when GR giveaways were still available for people living in Australia). I didn't win the giveaway, but liked the sound of it, so left it on my list. I've since read another Nicole Trope which was great!

- 95
A Bigger Life by Annette Smith - another Christian fiction, but recommended to me by a real-life friend. However I see that it is no longer available at my library :-( so I'm going to delete it, which will make my 95th book More Cloak Than Dagger: One Woman's Career in Secret Intelligence by Molly J. Sasson, and it IS still available at my library! I think I added it because I saw it displayed in the library several years ago and thought it sounded interesting.