Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

This is my second year doing the challenge. I planned in advance for 2017 and read in order and really enjoyed it. I saw someone this year (can't remember which group or who it is!) excluded books by straight white men. I'm a little horrified at how my reading is skewed as I track it this year, so I'm interested to try this experiment in 2018.

1. A book with the letters A, T & Y in the title
In Beauty May She Walk: Hiking the Appalachian Trail at 60 by Leslie Mass

2. A book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list
Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek

3. A book from the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards
**pending**

4. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #1 Earth (in title, cover, content, setting, author...)
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

5. A book about or inspired by real events
The Bastard of Fort Stikine: The Hudson's Bay Company and the Murder of John McLoughlin, Jr. by Debra Komar

6. A book originally written in a language other than English [Russian]
The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya

7. A gothic novel
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

8. An "own voices" book [visual impairment]
No End in Sight: My Life as a Blind Iditarod Racer by Rachael Scdoris

9. A book with a body part in the title (heart, bones, teeth, skin, blood, etc)
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

10. An author's debut book (their first book to be published)
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

11. A literary fiction
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

12. A book set in Africa or South America [Mozambique]
Dumba Nengue, Run for Your Life: Peasant Tales of Tragedy in Mozambique by Lina Magaia

13. A book with a plot centered around a secret (forbidden love, spies, secret societies, etc)
Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend

14. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #2 Fire
American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

15. A book with an unique format/writing structure
Night Film by Marisha Pessl

16. A narrative nonfiction
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

17. A book you expect to make you laugh
In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language by Arika Okrent

18. A book with a location in the title
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada

19. A book nominated for the Edgar Award or by a Grand master author (books & authors) [2006 winner for Best Biographical]
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak

20. A book rated 5 stars by at least one of your friends [chboskyy]
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

21. A book written in first person perspective
March by Geraldine Brooks

22. A book you have high expectations or hope for
The Unseen World by Liz Moore

23. A medical or legal thriller
The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen

24. A book with a map
Race of the Century: The Heroic True Story of the 1908 New York to Paris Auto Race by Julie M. Fenster

25. A book with an antagonist/villain point of view
Out by Natsuo Kirino

26. A book with a text only cover
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid


27. A book about surviving a hardship (war, famine, major disasters, serious illness, etc)
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

28. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #3 Water
In the Water They Can't See You Cry: A Memoir by Amanda Beard

29. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or title (lead pipe, revolver, rope, candlestick, dagger, wrench) [The dagger is called a knife in the American edition.]
The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore

30. A short book
The Dark Child by Camara Laye

31. A book set in a country you'd like to visit but have never been to [Japan]
Silence by Shūsaku Endō

32. An alternate history book
Napoleon in America by Shannon Selin

33. A book connected (title, cover, content) to a word "born" in the same year as you [1992 - Frankenfood]
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

34. A suggestion from the AtY 2018 polls, that didn't win but was polarizing or a close-call [About art or an artist]
A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

35. A book featuring a murder
The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by Deborah Cadbury

36. A book published in the last 3 years (2016, 2017, 2018) by an author you haven't read before
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

37. A Women's Prize for Fiction winner or nominee [2017 winner]
The Power by Naomi Alderman

38. A science book or a science fiction book
The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby

39. A book with a form of punctuation in the title
Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste

40. A book from Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime list
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

41. A book by an author with the same first and last initials
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

42. A book that takes place on, in, or underwater
In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon by Joan Druett

43. A book with a title that is a whole sentence
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

44. A ghost story
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

45. A book that intimidates/ scares you
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

46. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #4 Air
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

47. A book where the main character (or author) is of a different ethnic origin, religion, or sexual identity than your own
Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening by Manal Al-Sharif

48. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth) [pride]
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

49. A book from one of the Goodreads Best Books of the Month lists
Girl at War by Sara Nović

50. A book with a warm atmosphere (centered on family, friendship, love or summer)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

51. An award-winning short story or short story collection [1966 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1966 National Book Award for Fiction]
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter

52. A book published in 2018
**pending**

The Slynx looks really interesting! I am adding it to my TBR list.

Love love love your list. So many good choices, especially nonfiction choices. I also just decided that I'm going to pick Iceland for the bok set in a place you'd like to visit. Stiff is such an interesting book too.

I would LOVE to go to Iceland. I keep seeing pictures on my Instagram feed and it's giving me serious wanderlust. It looks amazing.

I loved The Help, Gone With the Wind, and Pride and Prejudice! Hope you enjoy them!

The Luminaries was on my list in 2016 but I ended up reading something else instead. I need to get back around to reading it. I've also wanted to read the Devil's Knot since I saw the documentary years ago but I forgot about it until I saw it in your list.