Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Short books are a great way to try out an author for the first time without the commitment of a big book.

Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Optional Questions:
1. What are you reading for this prompt?
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
3. What short books do you recommend?

Heart Berries, A Raisin in the Sun, and Kitchen are my top three.

My recommendations are To Be Taught, If Fortunate (space travel sci-fi), Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (contemporary fiction), and Peter Darling (Peter Pan retelling).

I'm going to read The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

I actually had a hard time with this one, the "new to you author" part really made it a lot harder. I have Almost a Bride on my Kindle, probably an Amazon First Read at some point. My other options are The House on Mango Street or Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Recommendations: The Old Man and the Sea, Night, The Uncommon Reader, Animal Farm, Convenience Store Woman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Martian Chronicles.

I'm going to read All Systems Red for this prompt.

I would recommend:
Cocaine Blues
Three Apples Fell from the Sky
Nobody's Girl

I discovered The Bobcat by Katherine Forbes Riley when the First Novel prize was suggested as a prompt and got it for a good price on kindle. That prompt didn’t make the list but with only 212 pages it’s perfect for this prompt.

I would recommend:
West by Carys Davies
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

There are a few books in the listopia that I haven't read yet but I think I'm going with Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. I've had a few of her books and novellas on my list for awhile, and I think this will be a great entry point for me to the author.

I'd recommend:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mãn by Kim Thúy
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
We the Animals by Justin Torres

I'm reading A Small Revolution, which is one of the few books I own that meet the page length requirement.

For this category, I recommend:
The Vegetarian
The Deep
A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
Go
I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Call of the Wild
Fruit Of Knowledge: The Vulva vs. The Patriarchy
Adulthood Is a Myth

I'm thinking through the following choices:

- Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles
- Something from TOR.com

From my list of Women’s Prize winners both Valerie Martins’s Property, and A Girl is a Half- Formed Thing would work.

I'm tossing up between Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death by Russ Ramsey and The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E.B. Hudspeth.

The Resurrectionist has been on my TBR list for years, whereas Struck is a more recent addition...

I would highly recommend The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa and So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore: An Unexpected Journey by Wayne Jacobsen - I loved both of these. And this one's a little older, but I enjoyed reading Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not THE Elizabeth Taylor!) earlier this year - I read it for the "book you can read in a day" category, so it is short!

This is almost certainly going to be filled by a Tor novella for me.

I have Binti in ebook.

Choices:

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont- Elizabeth Taylor
The Evening of the Holiday - Shirley Hazzard
Dubliners - James Joyce

I recommend News of the World, The Return of the Soldier and The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

I'm considering:
Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum by Michael McCreary
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones

I recommend: Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli or You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris.

Star Girl! Such a good book and would be a great comfort read too, even if you didn’t read it as a kid.

As part of my plan to read some picture books to even out the longer and more complex books I will be reading Time for a Nap

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
The Nickel Boys

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
I've been toying with The Underground Railroad.. I didn't realise how short this book was, so I think this will be a good test of whether I get on with his writing before I take on the bigger book.

3. What short books do you recommend?
All Men Want to Know, Breaking & Mending: A Doctor’s Story of Burnout and Recovery, Summerwater

1. What are you reading for this prompt? The Westing Game
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while? Neil Gaiman has some YA that I've been looking at, maybe Roald Dahl since I've only read Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Matilda.
3. What short books do you recommend? The Outsiders, Convenience Store Woman, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Old Man and the Sea, The Cay

I read The House on Mango Street. This book has been on my TBR for a long time.

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Against All Odds: How Margaret Thatcher Won the 1975 Tory Leadership Election by Stephen Robinson. This was a very short book (49 pages), but I did find it interesting, as my knowledge of politics in the UK 70's is pretty sparse.

What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
There are so many on my list, and I keep finding new ones all the time

What short books do you recommend?
I read a lot of Golden Age Crime books, such as Agatha Christie, and they tend to be quite short.

I read Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. It's a very impactful story for 163 pages!

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
Holy Cow

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
Holly Black, Sarah J Maas... mostly authors that write a million page epics haha but this book has been on my physical bookshelf for about 3 years now, so I'm glad I finally conquered it.

3. What short books do you recommend?
Skellig, Night

I read The Big Book of Teeny Tiny Stories for this prompt.

It's hard to answer what authors I've been meaning to read, as for TBR lists I pay more attention to individual books that sound interesting than to who wrote them. It's only when I love a book and want to read more like it that I start noticing who wrote it!

Recommendations:
Nonfiction:
The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself (18th century slave memoir)
Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent
If (devotional)

Fiction:
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A Christmas Carol
Twelve Days of Faery
(YA/Middle Grade)
Molly and Anna
Clara's Soldier: A Retelling of the Nutcracker
The City Beyond the Glass
Zita the Spacegirl (graphic novel)

Other:
Smoke from This Altar (poems)
Persuasions: A Dream of Reason Meeting Unbelief (allegory)

1. What are you reading for this prompt? Girl, Interrupted
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while? I go more by the books I want to read than the author but I have been wanting to read Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy for awhile.
3. What short books do you recommend? 84, Charing Cross Road comes to mind. I can't think of anything else off of the top of my head.

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while? There is a lot of authors, but some are: David McCullough, Isabel Wilkerson, Donna Tartt, V.E. Schwab, Naomi Novik, and Louise Erdrich.
3. What short books do you recommend?
The Grownup,We Should All Be Feminists, Animal Farm and Girl, Interrupted

I ended up using The Silence by Don DeLillo for this prompt, mostly because I picked it up to read and it fit the prompt.

Optional Questions:
1. What are you reading for this prompt? The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. 111 pages
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while? Chinua Achebe & Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. What short books do you recommend? I haven't read these books but they were on my list for this prompt. Things Fall Apart & We Should All Be Feminists.

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
Grady has been on my "need to read" list for a while. For other new-to-me authors, a friend has recommended Casey McQuiston.

3. What short books do you recommend?
I enjoyed Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny and The Animal Factory by Edward Bunker.

I read The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

There's a few authors I've followed on twitter for ages but have never read, and I'm planning to fix that this year - Chuck Wendig, Erin Morgenstern and Cherie Priest.

Recommendations - I love Murderbot, I think I've suggested All Systems Red for half the prompts this year! Quite a few of Terry Pratchett's books are under 210 pages, Into the Wild is just short enough, and if you get the right edition A Monster Calls squeaks in (though my copy is 224 pages).

I read The Tradition by Jericho Brown.

If you're into poetry, most books are under 210 pages, and there's tons of new stuff coming out that is great. I gave the Tradition 5 stars.

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
I moved my original choice and am replacing it with a children's short story Kashtanka by Anton Chekhov.

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
There are quite a few authors of classics on my list, besides Chekhov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters, Alexandre Dumas, Virginia Woolf, and Émile Zola.

3. What short books do you recommend?
Mandelbrot the Magnificent, Passing, Montana 1948, Of Mice and Men, and Chess Story.

1. What are you reading for this prompt? Passing by Nelle Larsen
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while? So many- I just read my first Edith Wharton book (I'm so embarrassed!) Not Nelle Larsen, I am ashamed to admit I had never heard of her before the NY Times chose this as their book club book. Amazing how much she packs into such a little book! Esp as I just finished The Vanishing Half, also about "passing." This one told way more in a shorter space and will stick with me for a long time.

1. I am reading 'nudinits - Bare-bottomed fun from the village of Woolly Bush' by Sarah Simi.

2. I am hoping to read a book by Philip pullman and one by Monty Don soon. these are not new to me though.

3. I can recommend this book for a good laugh if you are a knitter. Also 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck.

1. What are you reading for this prompt? Lady Killer, Vol. 1
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Lisa Jewell
3. What short books do you recommend?
Evidence of the Affair
The Test
Another Brooklyn

I read Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I listened to the audio narrated by Neil Gaiman himself, which was excellent. What a creepy story!!!

Good afternoon!

I'm reading *Dance Night* by Dawn Powell (1895-1965). The only Goodreads listing for it is as the 204-page first novel in a five-novel Library of America (www.loa.org) omnibus, Novels, 1930-1942: Dance Night / Come Back to Sorrento / Turn, Magic Wheel / Angels on Toast / A Time to Be Born.

1. What are you reading for this prompt? So Lucky by Nicola Griffith
2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while? S. Jae-Jones Renée Ahdieh Linsey Miller Nick WilgusAisha Saeed - Just a few, I have almost 200 books in my to-read list.
3. What short books do you recommend?
The Rumpelstiltskin Problem Really fun fairytale retelling.
Rolling in the Deep Mermaid horror!
Convenience Store Woman A neurodivergent convenience store worker in Japan, really fun to meet her world.
The Deep ...more mermaids? Of a sort. This book was a fascinating read.
Every Heart a Doorway Fantastical worlds through a door, and the people who come back. Queer rep!
George About George whose 10 years old and trying to figure out why the world insists she's a boy when she knows she is a girl. Powerful, and trans rep.

1. What are you reading for this prompt?

I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang. A beautifully written and rather strange novel (really three interconnected stories) about obsession and mental illness.

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?

I don't really have a list of authors to read, it's more just particular books that I've noticed but this year I've really enjoyed books by Elif Shafak and Abi Daré, both of whom were new to me.

3. What short books do you recommend?

Convenience Store Woman; The House on Mango Street

This week, I read Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, a collection of mostly powerful short stories on race, retail and life post-apocalypse.

Some new-to-me authors: Willy Vlautin, Isabel Wilkerson, Roxane Gay, Valeria Luiselli, Caryl Lewis, David Duchovny, Négar Djavadi and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

For short books, some favorites are: O Pioneers!, The Year of Magical Thinking, Trick, West, The Lover and The House on Mango Street.

I read The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. It became available on Overdrive and since it had been on my list for a long time from another book club group I read it. I just got lucky that this fit this prompt.

I read The Changeling Sea for this prompt. Even though Patricia A. McKillip has written so many classics of fantasy, I've never read her work.

I recommend:
All Systems Red
To Be Taught, If Fortunate
The Half-God of Rainfall
84, Charing Cross Road
Ring Shout
This Is How You Lose the Time War

I read All Systems Red (first book from the Murderbot series) because it's been talked about a lot in this group, and I loved it. I went straight on to read the second book in the series and I've now bought the rest of them!

For fantasy lovers, I recommend the Penric and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold; I believe the first nine books are all under 210 pages. They're set in the same world as one of her other series but you don't have to have read it to understand the Pen & Des books.
The first one is Penric's Demon but each one works as a standalone story so you can jump in anywhere (you'd just miss a few references to previous adventures).

I read Finding Faeries: Discovering Sprites, Pixies, Redcaps, and Other Fantastical Creatures in an Urban Environment by Alexandra Rowland (208 pages including index). I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway; it was a cute pseudo-scholarly look at mystical creatures which reminded me of Gnomes, with wonderful illustrations by Miles Aijala.

I second the recommendation for 84, Charing Cross Road and other books by Helene Hanff. Also the classics Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy by Jean Webster, the mystery Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod, and the memoir A Hunger for High Country: One Woman's Journey to the Wild in Yellowstone Country by Susan Marsh

I just read the Murderbot Diaries series #1-4, Martha Wells, which I adored, and each book is under 200 pages

* All Systems Red
* Artificial Condition
* Rogue Protocol
* Exit Strategy

Not for this year, but short books that blew me away:

* This Is How You Lose the Time War
* The Hearing Trumpet (I don't think it's for everyone, but I am a total fan)
* Convenience Store Woman
* The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
* A Separate Peace
* A Wizard of Earthsea
* The Awakening
* Like Water for Chocolate
* Woman at Point Zero
* Giovanni's Room
* Passing
* The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
* The Empress of Salt and Fortune

A mix of genres and eras... A couple of them I'm not exactly sure of the page count.

1. What are you reading for this prompt?

i read Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while?
I don't really have any must read new authors and generally i dislike Short stories only one of these really caught my attention

3. What short books do you recommend?

not my favourite genre but David Wailing has a real grip on this genre - short stories, novellas, 100 word stories
one example is Auto
I can really recommend this

I read What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander. I added the book to my TBR back in 2013 so by the time I picked it up, I didn't remember what it was about, but based on the title, I thought it was an essay collection possibly about Judaism or the Holocaust. Partway through the first story, I realized it was actually a collection of short stories. Normally I dislike short stories, but I ended up enjoying this collection quite a bit.

I read The Deep by Rivers Solomon
and The Secret Life of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw.

Both books are very good, both authors are POC, and Solomon is non-binary.

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

2. What authors have you been meaning to read for a while
A few that have been on my TBR for a while are: Elif Shafak, James McBride, and Marc Levy.

3. What short books do you recommend?
The Housekeeper and the Professor
Because of Winn-Dixie
The Man in the Empty Boat
Convenience Store Woman
Fahrenheit 451

I read Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Chef's Kiss - I loved it!

The authors I've been meaning to read for this genre are: Claudia Rankine, Jon Krakauer, and Sandra Cisneros.

I recommend the following short books:
Things Fall Apart
Lord of the Flies
Binti
A Mercy