Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

THE 52 TOPICS OF THE 2024 ATY READING CHALLENGE

1. A book with a title that ends in A, T or Y The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism by Glenn Beck
2. A book connected to something you read in 2023 Without Fail by Lee Child
3. A book that fits a suggestion that didn’t make the final list: Audie award winner Fairy Tale by Stephen King 2023 award for best male narrator
4. A book related to something mentioned in the lyrics of What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
5. A book set in one of the 25 most beautiful cities in the world SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

6. A book with wings on the cover: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
7. A book with a pronoun in the title He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon
8. A book by an author from Canada, Australia or New Zealand The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
9. A book with fewer than 2024 ratings on Goodreads Naked at Lunch: A Reluctant Nudist's Adventures in the Clothing-Optional World by Mark Haskell Smith

10. A history or historical fiction book The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World by Robert Lacey
11. A book with an X connection The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
12. A book that has been on your TBR for over a year Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
13. A book that is on a Five Books List; reader’s choice of which list Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Crime fiction and social justice by Karin Slaughter

14. A book with a main character who is Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
15. A book whose author’s name includes one of the 4 least used letters in the alphabet (JQZX) The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku
16. A book related to the phrase "It's Raining Cats and Dogs" Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger
17. A book involving intelligence Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

18. A book with a botanical cover The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
19. A book connected in some way to any of the flavors of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream It by Stephen King (ice cream flavor Chocolate Shake It)
20. A book with a single word title Horse by Geraldine Brooks
21. A book with a title containing 6+ words We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History by Bill Hanstock
22. A book by an author from an African country The Plague by Albert Camus

23. A book related to Boats, Beaches, Bars, Ballads, or Jimmy Buffett Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
24. A book with a secondary color on the cover (orange, green or purple) Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
25. A book involving a crime other than a murder Solito by Javier Zamora
26. A book by an author known by their initials Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

27. A book related to land One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith
28. A book related to sea The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
29. A book related to air Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
30. A book set in a country bordering the Mediterranean Sea The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
31. A book related to “Going for the Gold” Little Girls in Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan

32. A book with a number in the title 1984 by George Orwell
33. A book involving travel The World Walk: 7 Years. 28,000 Miles. 6 Continents. A Grand Meditation, One Step at a Time. by Tom Turcich
34. A book related to the name of one of Snow White's seven dwarfs Trauma Room Two by Philip Allen Green
35. A science or science fiction book Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

36. A book featuring a character in education The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
37. A book that is part of a series The Secret by Lee Child
38. Two books with similar covers: Book 1 The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
39. Two books with similar covers: Book 2 Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

40. A book involving a wild animal or endangered species, in the content, title, or on the cover Moby Dick by Herman Melville
41. A book with a chilling atmosphere Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
42. A book with a sound-related word in the title Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
43. A book by an Edgar Award-winning Author The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
44. A book with a touch of magic The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

45. A book that is not a novel The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll
46. A book related to night Survive the Night by Riley Sager
47. A book with a two-word title beginning with THE The Chase by Candice Fox
48. A second book that fits your favorite prompt Persuader by Lee Child second book for prompt #2

49. A book with a senior citizen character The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
50. A book posted in one of the ATY Best Book of the Month threads in 2023 or 2024 When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald
51. A book published in 2024 The Women by Kristin Hannah
52. A cozy mystery The Maid by Nita Prose

My other book group started with this , and it looks like it would fit the intelligence prompt as one of the main characters is AI. I did enjoy the book I gave it 5 stars. It was well-written and a fun apocalyptic novel. My biggest complaint was the obvious left-wing tendencies that didn't add anything to the story. For example at the very start of the book, there is a discussion about the comet and the person who discovered it and then the author goes into that person identifying as asexual and not wanting to add to the world population. That added nothing to the story it just laid out the author's views and increasing to an already lengthy story.

After such a long first book, I opted for a shorter one for my next. is the author's story of being a Holocaust survivor of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Most of the book is his incredible story that you can't even believe at times that this kind of thing happened. He does add some of his life philosophy and given what he went through it's amazing he has the resilience he did, (he passed away at 101, a couple of years after he wrote the book). While the book is sad at times it is uplifting in the end with the author's outlook.

I have been encouraged to read because multiple of my friends have read it and liked it. It fits the wing prompt so I used it there. As a fantasy book, I truly enjoyed the world-building and the magic system. Unfortunately about two-thirds of the way through it became a porn novel and I lost the enjoyment. I'm not a prude and want to avoid any sex talk but the author could have toned down the graphic nature. The point would still have been understood and the book more enjoyable. Not sure I'll continue the series if this is her style of writing. It's unfortunate as I did like the fantasy world aspect.

Living btween the two major places talked about in I have wanted to read it for a while. It just so happened to fit the author known by their initials prompt. Quick read. As I mentioned close to my life so I can relate or at least am familiar with many of the topics and locations the author talked about. It is a different perspective on a culture I am only peripherally familiar with. His explanation does fill in some understanding when driving through these cities and seeing the "hillbilly culture" he talks about in the book.

While Glenn Beck can be controversial, I do find him to speak much truth about things. I found the second book first at the library then discovered it was the second in a series. So I went back and picked up for the ends in ATY prompt. Glenn is always an easy read he doesn't talk above the layperson's head when it comes to political discourse. I also like how he cites all his references in the book and encourages the reader to go read the primary source for themselves and make their own decision. He sets forth his argument and it is pretty convincing. I have known and felt there is a major change in the way the political world has been operating and since COVID has been accelerating. This offers up some answers and his understanding of what is happening. I would encourage others to read this for a view of current affairs that seems well-researched and makes sense of some things I have not been able to understand (why the national deficit doesn't seem to be talked about anymore).

Our work book club had as its February selection so I read it and feel it fits the chilling atmosphere prompt. I'm trying to remember if it was the author's other book, Gone Girl, I read and found the protagonist too similar maybe it was just another book I read but I'm not a fan of this type of character. The broken female, who is struggling with their own issues while trying to discover the answer to the mystery the book is about. It was a decent thriller but I felt was not a major surprise reveal as I had it figured out prety early in the novel. Not bad but not great.

Trying to knock out a few modern classics and selected for the author from Canada prompt. As I like dystopian fiction, I enjoyed this book. It never hurts to get other's perspectives of their fears for the future. Not having read it before now I didn't see why the author came out with the sequel to it recently after about 30 years. When I got to the end of the book I could see now why the author received letters and comments about what the readers thought might have happened next and asking her what her ideas were for Offred. I personally liked the cliffhanger ending leaving it up to the reader to figure it out themselves. But I did enjoy this enough that I am curious now about what the author thinks happened.

Searching through my TBR I didn't have many options for the botanical cover, but this fit the bill. I liked the style and way the author went through the four siblings and POV each within a different timeline but still told one uniform story. It was cool that she could really develop each character and you think you understand them but then when you get a sibling's perspective of the situation and character, it alters what you think you know about them. I was curious where she was going to take the what if about knowing the date of your death and I would say she succeeded in showing differing ways people could go with that knowledge. But also having that knowledge can mess with how you live your life.

As a regular Reacher reader, I knew I was going to read at least one of his books this year. When I saw came out I was excited but figured I wouldn't get to it for a while. In long-running series (books or movies)I like reading/watching them in chronological order. I had checked my website for what my next Reacher book would be and discovered this was a new book but placed early in his career while he was still in the Army. Being a new book the library had multiple copies so I went for it. Unfortunately, this one fell a little flat. It just is not as good as some of the others I have read. I don't know if that is because this is the 28th novel in the Reacher series and the author is running out of ideas or the fact that his son is collaborating with him and getting co-authorship that maybe it's not quite the same. I enjoyed the book as with all Reacher ones but it just didn't have the same keep me on the edge of my seat feel that others have had.

I decided to give the #2024historathon a shot as well this year to see if I could mesh it with ATY. In it you read one history book each quarter of the year broken down into different eras of history. The first ear is pre-history up to the year 500. I heard good things about so I gave it a shot. It was interesting but being a true history book still a bit dry. I'm not a total history nerd but I do enjoy learning so I figured 4 books would be worth learning a bit more about history. Even if I needed to force my way through some of the dryer books out there. Rome happens to be one of the 25 most beautiful cities so it fits that category.

I had not yet read the classic . With the number prompt it seemed a perfect time to do so. It might need a second reading to unpack it all. Given how long ago it was written it was amazing the number of things that he accurately predicted. The scary part is what if the rest of it comes true too? It is dated and some technology he didn't/couldn't foresee so it can be hard to figure out how to translate it to modern life/advances. But the concepts of Big Brother are well understood and accepted with our constant tracking through our phones and listening devices in many rooms of our houses.

I found on my TBR and it fit the sound-related word in the title prompt. This is written for.a younger audience than I am. While it didn't strike a chord with me, being a middle-aged man. I can see the power of this book for a younger female who may have been put in situations described in the book. I would recommend it to many young readers going into high school. It was well-written and the characters were believable.

has also been on my TBR for a bit and since it popped up in the best read of the month list I slotted it for here. I was pretty disappointed in this book. It felt to me like it could have been much more. Yes, it gave a different perspective from the main character's POV (a female with fetal alcohol syndrome) but I didn't feel like it went anywhere. Yes, she developed and proved herself but I guess I expected more with a tagline of Be Legendary.

was the March selection for the UC EM book club. It used it for the published in 2024 prompt. I enjoyed the first half of this book. While I wasn't there to experience what these women and other vets did when they came home, I feel like Frankie grew so much over there and gained such strength that she left it all when she came home. Obviously, PTSD affects everyone differently. It just felt like she would have been more assertive about many of the experiences she had once she came home. She came across as very wishy-washy. Maybe the women I work with and know have tainted my views but they are significantly stronger than how Frankie dealt with her situation.

I'm recognizing I'm reading a fair amount of dystopian/apocalyptic books this year. I enjoy the genre and I'm not intentionally trying to select these just picking up what interests me and sounds fun at the time. While it is a smaller scale I opted for for the African author prompt. I have wanted to read one of his books for a bit and I guess pandemics are still on my mind. The author is Algerian and the story is based in a small town Oran in Algeria. I have heard this author is philosophical in his writing. I can see where I might need a second reading to make all those connections. But I will say this is beautiful writing. It seemed elevated compared to many of the modern-day authors I have read. I would recommend this despite not being entirely enthralled with the story. It seemed pretty basic. A plague hits a town, they have to quarantine, people die, and some get better, the plague ends and the town opens back up. Not a complex storyline. The good parts are more about the connections between people and how they deal with isolation, relationships, and duty, among other things.

I chose for my science fiction book. I came across the recommendation for it on BookTube and for some reason, it jumped out at me. I took it on vacation with me because it seemed like a beach read. It was a little slow at times but an interesting concept/story. It was a little disheartening during the story as many chapters jumped many years in the future and you almost felt like you weren't finished with those characters (or where they were in life) at the time the chapter ended. It did get a little bit far out there in terms of scientific concepts so I wouldn't recommend this for the average lay person but only for someone with some knowledge of science. That may just be a heavy science fiction reader but this is not for a first-time Sci-Fi reader.

I was struggling for the similar cover prompt then with a focused search came across both and the second one on my TBR. While not exactly the same the crazy multi-color covers justified it enough for me. The synopsis was very intriguing to me but I felt let down in the execution. I didn't have any indication prior to starting that this book is a series of short stories or vignettes all circling the first chapter and the concept of externalizing your memories. Each chapter was written in a different style focusing on different characters. Some written in the third person, some first person, and one was a series of communications back and forth. This felt disorienting at times. I like the concept of the varying perspectives and how each of the characters is connected and how they respond to the new technology. How High We Go in the Dark was written in a similar style but I feel pulled the concept off better.

was the second of two books with similar covers. I enjoyed this story. It was another delve into the world of drugs and some stories about the lifestyle. The author did a good job of making you feel some empathy for the main character in a bad situation. It wasn't a life-changing story but an enjoyable one.

was my choice for the senior citizen character prompt. This had vibes similar to A Man Called Ove which I read last year. But Ptolemy has dementia and this book did a good job providing that perspective of what it is like for someone with that disease process. Still Alice was another with a good perspective like this one. The difference here was the end with a science fiction twist that Ptolemy was able to accomplish a task he was insistent he needed to finish before he died. I mourned for Ptolemy after I finished as I enjoyed my time with him and wanted to spend more.

We were reading for my other book club. initially, I had it on my TBR for over a year prompt but after reading it and discovering the main two characters were both black it felt to be a better fit here. I thought the story itself was a good dystopian book sort of a Hunger Games mash-up with Spartacus. The author had many footnotes attempting to make this a social justice book calling out some of the systemic issues with the current prison system. While I can see why he wanted to write this I think it detracted from the book. There were no references to the "facts" he kept putting out there and some I'm not confident were entirely true or were true in only certain settings. The story alone was great and if someone is interested in reading this unless they are reading it for the social justice topic I would recommend just reading the story and skipping the footnotes for a more enjoyable read.

Next up I wanted something just fun to read. I went back to my standby of Jack Reacher and . I want to read the next one in the series Persuader before Amazon Prime Video finishes season 3. Since I want to read everything in order I had to get this one in. This is a classic Lee Child Reacher story. Whatever it was that brought down The Secret that Lee wrote with his son Andrew was missing from this book. This is the classic Reacher I remember, I enjoyed it and had fun back in his world.

I hadn't picked up a Stephen King book in a bit so I went with one of his new ones that looked good. I thought it might be another dragon/fantasy book of his similar to Eye of the Dragon by the cover. I'm sure it was designed that way but it wasn't until I was into the book that I noticed it was a boy and dog going down the stairwell talked about in the book. I really enjoyed this story. While it's just like other Stephen King in that it is wordy and can drag at times because of the wordiness, I thought this one was excellent. I liked how it was almost a couple of different stories one normal with events that could happen to anybody then due to a discovery it changed altogether into that fantasy story I was looking for.

Another BookTube rec fit the What a Wonderful World prompt. I heard many great things about Toni Morrison when she passed so I figured it would be worth my time to read one. I agree with the comments about how beautifully she puts words to paper. She lyrically dances with you to tell the story. I am curious to read something else by her because I was not overwhelmed by the story itself. Again the setting and character are not ones I can quickly relate to but I did still empathize with Pecola. The book had I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings vibes and I couldn't tell if this was another autobiographical story or not. I'm definitely finding a difference in writing styles with some authors I have read this year compared to only focusing on the story itself.

Our work book club picked for May so I found it on the Five Book website and used that prompt here. I have not read David Copperfield to compare this to, as my understanding is this is a retelling of that story in an updated setting. I thought the book was well written as each chapter was easy to follow and fast to complete, not for shortness but just because it was easy to get through. But the downside was I just didn't care about any of these characters. The only one I had any strong feelings for was hoping for Dori's death after Vesper died. Even the ending which I think was supposed to be a shocking twist was mundane and easily foreshadowed. This was another drop into the drug world and what it might be like for someone in Demon's situation. That part was interesting and I saw why some turn to drugs in those situations. But this was too long for a story that I didn't feel any connection to anyone in it.

While comparing personal top ten book lists, a friend told me was her favorite book of all time. Since it's one of the classics I have not read, I figured it was time. While I thought it was a good book, I wouldn't list it as a personal favorite. I did learn a significant amount about the whaling industry and the methods they used to capture these huge beasts. I found all the sidebars about the industry distracting from my understanding of the point of the book being a human study in revenge. Once I decided just to enjoy this as an explanation of the whaling industry I enjoyed it significantly more.

For Q2 of #Historathon2024, I was supposed to read a non-fiction history set between 500 AD and 1500 AD. seemed to fit the bill and fell into my interest in general overview histories. This was a quick read broken down into 12 chapters each covering a month of the year. The author broke down things that occurred during each month with the seasonal changes that occurred at that time in England. Solid book fitting this category.

As the 1994 Edgar Award winner for Best First Novel, Laurie R. King fits the bill for that category. With a love of mysteries and Sherlock's ability to make deductions, this series felt like I might like it as well. I was right as I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between Mary and Sherlock and the two of them competing at times with understanding things around them. It almost became a challenge to the reader to make the deductions with the characters. This was a fun foray into Sherlock's world again. I'll be back.

Struggling with organization and planning I came across the idea of Bullet Journalling on Youtube with different people touting all its amazing capabilities. I fell down a video rabbit hole and saw many things people were claiming and how it could benefit someone. Rather than watching all these videos of people showing their journals and layouts, I figured I should start at the beginning with . This is the book that started it all by the man who created it. Hearing his story of disorganization and struggles with ADHD showed me that it may be worth looking into for possibly starting one. This is an in-depth instruction manual with an explanation of why things are done a certain way in the journal and how to tweak it for your own benefit. It's not a super engrossing story you can't put down but it is well-written with examples making it easy to follow and allowing you to get started.(FYI I'm three months into my bullet journal and it seems to be helping happy to talk or explain more if anyone is interested)

For the Going for the Gold prompt, I chose . I started this book last Olympic year but kind of dropped off. I started it over this year and finished it. Its a look into the gymnasts and figure skaters training for the Olympics back in the 80's and early 90's. The damaging tactics that were used to produce award-winning competitors at the sacrifice of their bodies, family relationships, and futures. Bela Karoli and his instructors abused these girls to create Gold medalists and the permanent damage that has been caused by them is coming to light in this book. I'm curious to read a newer book by Simone or one of the other current top gymnasts and hear their take on the training and see if it has been better. The days of your life as a competitive gymnast being over by age 16 in Bela's days seem to be over and they are proving a successful healthy way to successful training.

Our Emergency Medicine reading club chose as the July selection and it fits the single word title. I know very little about horses and their care, breeding, and racing. I read Seabiscuit in the last year or two and now after Horse, I have a much better understanding of the animal and sport of horse racing. Although I have to say neither drew my interest that much to increase my interest in it. This book was well written and I enjoyed how the three storylines intertwined to create one overarching story. (Spoiler alert) My biggest gripe is the death of Theo. This was added trying to be a controversial scene to bring about discussion or to show injustices still occurring. I don't feel that was needed. It took away from the story of Horse and didn't add enough feeling or substance to be of value to the race relation discussion. It felt forced and out of place. More demonstrations of the microaggressions I feel would have been a more eye-opening and more beneficial piece to the race discussion that the author seemed to be forcing on the readers.

I'm finding the two-word title with The ____ has so many options I struggle to fill it. I found another book club Tough Guys Book Club out of Australia but having chapters all over the world. I thought I might read one to maybe be able to attend their meetings. The July selection is and it fit this unfilled prompt at the time. It's a good action adventure talking about a jailbreak and the round-up of the criminals. I didn't find it standing out from the number of other similar books but it's a solid entrant in the category. I enjoyed it and found it a fun read and would recommend it.

Alaska is a family goal for us to visit and was an interesting story of someone moving there and living on his own, building his cabin and day-to-day life in the Alaskan wilderness. After reading this you realize how tough this life would be. This was written back in the 60s when life was already with fewer conveniences, I suspect it would take an even more extraordinary person to do something like this despite people having dreams to do it. This is a quick easy read and fun to dream about living the lifestyle (if that's already a dream).

Once I found out will be the book covered in the third season of Reacher on Amazon Prime I wanted to make sure I got to read it before the series started. It was a long hold line at our library so when it came up I had to take the time and read it. Nice that it fell during vacation as well. Like all his other Reacher books this is a solid entry. His newer ones that his son co-writes aren't as good but these slightly older ones are all fun reads.with plenty of what I like about Reacher in the first place. Lots of actions, little deep conversations, good guy beats bad guy but not without causing some problems for Reacher throughout the book. Fun easy mindless book.

is about growing up and having first-time experiences in high school. So it fits the student prompt. I loved the book. Partly because the story occurred when I was in high school and brought me back to so many memories. I remember having similar feelings as the main character and with the same music, movies, and social settings discussed throughout the book. I also liked the style of how the story develops through a series of letters Charlie is writing but you never know who he is writing to or anything about that person. I had some feeling during the book it may turn out Charlie has some learning disability or mental deficiency but at the end, it just felt like he was a normal high schooler with the normal fears and anxieties and this was his way of dealing with them. This is one of the few books I can see myself rereading in the future as soon as I had finished it.

I have been split on the Lisa Unger books I have read so far. One I really enjoyed and one I thought was a bit better than average. I had sitting around and seeing it mentions a big storm would fit the raining cats and dogs prompt. The author writes a good thriller and this was another good one. It touches on a newer technology that I can't say I have seen anyone else talking about and the dark side to it. I was still guessing a bit by the end about who was the deceiver and how they fit in the group than some other thrillers I have read. This is on the author's better end of the spectrum.

Watching BookTube one day, was mentioned as one of the bloggers most recent enjoyable reads. He mentioned he was late to the party and he suspected many people had read it. I had never heard of it and that blew me away that I hadn't even heard of something others considered a good book. Typically even in passing, I would have thought I had heard of it by the way he was talking about it. So I searched it out and found it to be a humorous book with a ton of plays on words. The author points out many of the subtle peculiarities that the English language includes. I can see why many people like it and I wish I had found it when I was in the age range that it was written for. (I would think middle school) This is one I might start giving out as a gift to kids that age to maybe entice them to have fun reading.

Another semi frequently mentioned author on the channels of BookTube I was watching was P.G. Woodenhouse and his Jeeves series as being laugh out loud funny. Our local Half Price Books went out of business and during their close out sale I came across so I picked it up to see how funny this guy was. While the book has numerous editions and different covers I happened to get the one with multiple secondary colors and thus fits that prompt. I have to say I was sorely disappointed as a laugh-out-loud funny book. But as I see it is almost 100 years old I guess maybe humor has changed over the years. It has a lot of mix-ups and unusual situations that the main character gets himself into and his butler Jeeves gets him out of. I chuckled a few times and I can see my grandfather enjoying this book as comic relief but it fell a bit short for me.

was our August selection for the ER book club so I read this not sure where I would put it on my prompts. While the author did a good job showing and not telling the story of his crossing the borders from El Salvador to the US, I can't say I'm a fan of the book. I was hoping for his deportation in the book or that he didn't make it. I have no problem with people immigrating to this country legally but I am against the constant stream of people coming across unchecked. While people may find this eye-opening to the conditions I didn't think it was as terrible as I have envisioned. I grew up hearing stories from my grandfather of his legal immigration and reasons why people from all over want to come to America (escaping the Balkan War in my grandfather's case). I don't think the author did that great of a job setting up why he wanted to come to America other than his parents were already here and they wanted him to rejoin them but they didn't go the legal route. I just couldn't find the empathy to feel bad for someone who wasn't in a horrible situation living with extended family. After reading this I decided to put it in the crime that's not a murder prompt.

While reading Perks of Being a Wallflower, the English teacher assigned many side books for the character to read and Naked Lunch was the only one I had not heard of. I had to look it up here on GR. While that one didn't immediately draw my attention, the second one on the list did. This is an interesting jump into the world of nudism specifically non-sexual social nudism—naked hiking, vacationing, and in general hanging out doing things without the constraints of clothes. Many nudists think that the textile industry has set society up to be ashamed of our bodies and we need the latest fashions to cover them up. whereas the nudists feel we should be comfortable in our own skin and just enjoy ourselves. The author experiences nude vacation resorts, both in America and abroad, naked hiking and a nude cruise, describes his experiences, and interviews many of the nudists and their opinions about the lifestyle and why they do it. I found it interesting as it's a subculture while not super pervasive does have members in all aspects of society.

The prompt for a book about air ended up being the easiest prompt for me to fill as I was given as a gift a few years ago and had not read it yet. This may be one of the most important books I read this year. The author talks about many aspects of breathing and way we do it incorrectly (spoiler: we need to breathe through our noses more frequently than most people do). He makes some claims that seem to be backed by science, he has many notes at the back of the book where he got his information from (I just didn't go delve into those articles/books to see the validity of his claims). Some of his claims about improving various medical conditions though breathing techniques might seem far fetched by he makes a point that breathing techniques are not patentable and therefore no one can make money on them so no company is going to sponsor research to attempt to prove if it works or not. He draws examples and interviews of various experts performing the different techniques from monks and their meditations to deep sea free divers who snorkel down underwater for extended periods. I have been practicing some of the things he teaches in the book and I can't say one way or the other if I notice a big improvement or not but it's free and I don't see a way that it can hurt.

In my quest to read the various classics I have not yet read, I planned to read Count of Monte Cristo for the Mediterranean Sea prompt. Then I found a reason to save it for ATY 2025, So I went with his other classic . I enjoyed this book as the swashbuckling adventure it was written. Digging into his books it looks like there are several books he wrote in continuing stories about the musketeers. I can't say I understand the gentlemanly way the duels played out (I'm sorry I must kill you now, ok if you feel you must). I have heard that is how it was at that time in France but it still seems unreal. Besides that, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I'm a big fan of Riley Sager and fit the night prompt perfectly. This is another enjoyable thriller with nothing too crazy but it keeps you on the edge of your seat. While some of his other books led you to believe in a possible supernatural reason for actions, this didn't have anything but straight-up human interaction. But there was plenty of misdirection which was where the thriller part comes from. I would recommend this as enjoyable entertainment.

I could have gone with a more beachy theme book for the Buffett prompt but this was one I wanted to read for #Historithon2024 a non-fiction history book between 1500 and 1850 for the third quarter of the year. This is a short book and probably considered more of a microhistory but it was incredibly significant for the world at the time to allow more sea voyages to successfully return home. This is also why the British Empire became such naval super power at the time.

Definitely one of the prettiest covers of a book I read this year, . I could have swapped this and the Buffett prompt and they both qualified as a Historathon read. I used this for the related to water prompt. I was almost sick of water by the time I got done with this book as the author put you right onboard with the crew of the Wager and all they went through. Excellent history, well-written and interesting story about something that may not make historical news normally.

As an on again off again wrestling fan was a perfect summary of the history of WWE company but also peripherally the other companies that have existed during this time frame. Being an unauthorized history the author could tell the stories he had researched without worry about the company party line and what they wanted out there. Topics about company deaths and alcoholics as well as screw jobs all were given fair explanations. It was a fast read and it filled in some of the gaps from my various times watching wrestling over the years.

We read for our Emergency Medicine book club for October. It happens to be written by the fiance of one of our physicians. It was a good book about someone doing something I can only dream of. I can imagine when I was younger thinking oh I could do that but after reading this I recognize no I couldn't this took more dedication to the goal than I would have had and more guts to even do the things he talked about in the book. Interesting stories from traveling all over the world.

I struggled with the Ben & Jerry prompt but seeing the Listopia and on it made the final decision easy. I have always wanted to read it being a Stephen King fan for years but never having read it, I thought it was time. Good in-depth Stephen King novel he is wordy but this one does not have an overabundance of characters so it was manageable to keep track of everyone.

I wasn't exactly sure what a cozy mystery was. After reading I knew. I felt so comfortable reading this I didn't want it to end. It wasn't a huge surprise reveal that was super shocking but one which I enjoyed. I found myself trying to point out the problems with certain characters to Molly to protect her.

I found out Ruth Ware is in Gen X so I picked one of hers for the x connection prompt. I went with . It was an enjoyable thriller but I didn't find it as engrossing and enjoyable as The Woman in Cabin 10. I felt about this one about the same as I felt about In a Dark, Dark Wood. Ok, and decent read but not an amazing read to recommend to everyone.