Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

DECEMBER

✅1. Winter

✅a. Read a book with a title beginning with a letter in WINTER (you can use or ignore a, an or the)
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery - 12/5/22 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a book with snow, snowflakes or a snowman on the cover OR a book with a person wearing winter clothing (scarf, hat, warm coat etc) on the cover.
The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson - 1/7/23 - 4* - My Review
✅c. Read a book that is between 89 and 128 pages long (you can ignore the 100 page requirement for this task).
Foster by Claire Keegan - 1/16/23 - 4* - My Review (96 pages)

✅2. December birthdays: Jane Austen

✅a. Read a book written by a female author.
Zorro by Isabel Allende - 12/3/22 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a novel set in the 19th century.
Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Faladé - 12/12/22 - 4* - My Review (set during the American Civil War in the 1860s)
✅c. Read a romance novel.
Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig - 12/12/22 - 3* - My Review

3. The Holidays

a. Read a book related to a holiday that happens in December. (Some examples: Rosa Parks Day, National Cookie Day, Dewey Decimal System Day, Nobel Prize Day, Kwanzaa, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, Hanukkah, etc.)
✅b. Read a book that has one of the gifts referred to in The Twelve Days of Christmas shown on its cover (ignore the numbers - eg a book with a gold ring works, you don’t need a book with five gold rings!)
will insert cover when search feature returns
Mink River by Brian Doyle - 2/11/23 - 4* - My Review (closes I could come to a calling bird)
✅c. Read a book that features a family gathering.
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi - 1/25/23 - 3* - My Review

✅4. Winter sports: yukigassen

✅a. Read a book by an author whose first and last initials appear in YUKIGASSEN.
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff - 12/8/22 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a book in a series that is at least 7 books long
The Human Stain by Philip Roth - 2/13/23 - 4* - My Review (Nathan Zuckerman series #8 - link to list of books: https://www.goodreads.com/series/6805...)
✅c. Read a book set in a country where yukigassen is played (Japan, Armenia, Canada, China, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, or Slovakia).
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien - 12/13/22 - 4* - My Review (set in Canada and China)

JANUARY

✅1. Happy New Year!

✅a. Read a book by an author who is new to you.
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka - 12/9/22 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a book from a genre that is new to you (you can use a sub-genre, eg urban fantasy, historical romance, etc if you already read books from most genres).
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel - 12/26/22 - 3* - My Review (subgenre of retellings - based on HIndu mythology, which I had never read before)
✅c. Read a book in which all the words in the title have the same number of letters (eg The Bat, Ninth House, The Old Man and the Sea).
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams - 1/12/23 - 4* - My Review

✅2. January birthdays: Haruki Murakami

✅a. Read a book set in Japan.
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa - 2/11/23 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a book that features a cat in some way.
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky - 1/11/23 - 5* - My Review (contains an entire chapter about a cat)
✅c. Read a magical realism novel.
What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri - 12/18/22 - 5* - My Review

✅3. New Year Resolutions

✅a. Read a book where the first letter of each word in the title can be found in NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS (the title must be at least three words long for this option)
The Night Ship by Jess Kidd - 12/18/22 - 3* - My Review
✅b. Read a book that looks into the past (historical fiction, history, etc) or a book that looks into the future (science fiction, fantasy, etc).
Abigail by Magda Szabó - 12/8/22 - 4* - My Review (historical fiction)
✅c. Read a book that will help you keep one of your New Year resolutions OR if you don’t make resolutions then read a book related to one of the top ten New Years resolutions. Tell us what your resolution is when recording this task as completed.
The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th-Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece by Laura Cumming - 1/20/23 - 3* - My Review (resolution is to resume oil painting, which had gotten off-track due to an arm injury)

✅4. Winter sports: bobsleigh

✅a. Read a book set mostly in a location that begins with a letter in SWITZERLAND.
Seven Steeples by Sara Baume - 12/7/22 - 5* - My Review (Ireland)
✅b. Read a book in which a conflict between characters is a major part of the plot. Tell us what the conflict was (using spoiler tags if necessary) when recording the task as completed.
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss - 12/11/22 - 4* - My Review The conflict is between Napoleon Bonaparte and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (who is the subject of the book).
✅c. Read a book that is fast-paced.
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler - 12/11/22 - 4* - My Review (thriller)

FEBRUARY

✅1. Valentine’s Day

✅a. Read a book with Romance listed as one of the top five genres on its Goodreads page.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss - 1/6/23 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a book by an author whose first and last initials appear in VALENTINE’S DAY.
Clea by Lawrence Durrell - 12/15/22 - 4* - My Review
✅c. Read a book written in or set in the Medieval period (usually defined as the 5th to 15th centuries).
Haven by Emma Donoghue - 1/9/23 - 4* - My Review (7th century)

✅2. February birthdays: Laura Ingalls Wilder

✅a. Read a book set in the American midwest.
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow - 12/9/22 - 3* - My Review (Chicago)
✅b. Read a novel that features the wilderness.
Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks by Mark Woods - 12/25/22 - My Review
✅c. Read a coming of age story.
Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert - 12/17/22 - 3* - My Review

✅3. Winter sports: Ski jumping

✅a. Read a book that is at least 253 pages long.
When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm by Walt Bogdanich - 12/16/22 - 4* - My Review (368 pages)
✅b. Read a book published in a year in which the Winter Olympics took place (1924, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018)
The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi - 12/14/22 - 4* - My Review (2014)
✅c. Read a book where the plot “jumps” about (a non-linear narrative as it’s normally called).
Activities of Daily Living by Lisa Hsiao Chen - 12/22/22 - 4* - My Review

✅4. The Shortest Month of the Year

✅a. Read a literary fiction novel.
The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar - 12/15/22 - 4* - My Review
✅b. Read a book that features a ghost.
The Bear by Andrew Krivak - 2/22/23 - 4* - My Review (ghost of a spirit animal from Native American culture)
✅c. Read a book that starts with a letter in the word SHORT
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian - 12/13/22 - 4* - My Review