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Melissa McShane's Reviews > 2025 on ŷ
2025 on ŷ
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It occurred to me that, having set myself a challenge separate from my ŷ challenge, I could post about it here and link to this with each new review, so I don't clutter my reviews with excess text.
The summary: I needed a challenge to boost my desire to read, which has waned significantly in recent years, and borrowing an idea from my friend Fen, I created my Project 53 reading challenge: 53 books, one published in each year I've been alive.
The specifics:
1. 53 books to be read in 2025. (I'll read additional books)
2. One book published in each year from 1972-2024.
3. It can't be a book I've read before.
4. It has to be a book I own AND have access to in India. I'm not shipping a chunk of my library overseas, especially since many of the older books are valuable and hard to replace.
5. If for some reason rule 4 won't work for a given year, whatever I pick has to be something I would have bought regardless, not just to fit the challenge.
1972: The Gods Themselves
1973: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
1974: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
1975: The Wind's Twelve Quarters
1976: Sleeping Murder
1977: In Patagonia
1978: All Things Wise and Wonderful
1979: Janissaries
1980: Lore of the Witch World
1981: Mallworld (unfinished)
The summary: I needed a challenge to boost my desire to read, which has waned significantly in recent years, and borrowing an idea from my friend Fen, I created my Project 53 reading challenge: 53 books, one published in each year I've been alive.
The specifics:
1. 53 books to be read in 2025. (I'll read additional books)
2. One book published in each year from 1972-2024.
3. It can't be a book I've read before.
4. It has to be a book I own AND have access to in India. I'm not shipping a chunk of my library overseas, especially since many of the older books are valuable and hard to replace.
5. If for some reason rule 4 won't work for a given year, whatever I pick has to be something I would have bought regardless, not just to fit the challenge.
1972: The Gods Themselves
1973: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
1974: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
1975: The Wind's Twelve Quarters
1976: Sleeping Murder
1977: In Patagonia
1978: All Things Wise and Wonderful
1979: Janissaries
1980: Lore of the Witch World
1981: Mallworld (unfinished)
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January 9, 2025
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Hirondelle (not getting notifications)
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Jan 10, 2025 10:48AM
Oh, that is an interesting challenge! Good luck! I will be keeping an eye and rooting for you,
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Ooooooh. Especially this:One book published in each year from 1972-2025
Beth wrote: "Ooooooh. Especially this:One book published in each year from 1972-2025"
It's been fun! Though there was a setback when it turned out there were over a thousand records in my database without original publication year data...
For sf and fantasy books the isfdb might be a great resource to get a list of books by publication year!
It's a great resource, Hirondelle! I used that and ŷ itself (where I discovered a disturbing series of errors in the database that made me sad) and occasionally a basic internet "publication history " search. I even discovered an error in my own database, so embarrassing.
Melissa wrote: "It's a great resource, Hirondelle! I used that and ŷ itself (where I discovered a disturbing series of errors in the database that made me sad) and occasionally a basic internet "publication..."What a fun challenge!
Unfortunately Gr/Amazon unleashed some bots on to the database which weren't properly tested (although of course you could have encountered a librarian/staff error instead) I don't think that database will fully recover from this.
You can report this in the Librarians group if you want
/group/show/...
but be aware that everything is very behind there now. :(
Thanks, Carol. This was clearly the work of a bot, and I agree, I don't think it's recoverable. Like something dumped a bucket of garbage data all over the records. I fixed the ones that had altered the real entries and ignored the rest, but this is too big a problem for fixing by hand. Sad, but I guess it's typical of how the site has gone downhill.
What Carol said. AI is just filling everything with slop. I am a librarian and I try to correct anything I see, if I have a few moments, though I do not have the heart to do it systematically and go look for it. Hopefully, drop by drop it will improve.The site has gone downhill but so has all of the internet, and I really appreciate still the old school features it has (no algorithms! Chronological feed, showing me just the people I CHOOSE to follow). I think a lot of innovation particularly AI or algorithm powered just makes thinks tend towards the median, the already popular, drowning interesting things, but that is getting really philosophical, sorry!
But even with good databases determining the real publication date can get complicated (well, for certain kinds of mind, and sadly mine is one of that), ahah, which country, ahah, does it have extra new content and so on...
One of the things I dislike about how GR handles original date of publication is if you don't know the exact date, only the year, it populates the field as "January 1." I realize it's a little thing, and I'm sure there's a coding reason for it, but it bugs me a bit.I use my librarian powers rarely these days, mainly when I run into something egregious. Sadly, the time when I could trust the data I got from the site is gone.
I am going to be more cynical, it is getting harder and harder to trust any data one gets from the internet these days. Google 2024 Dublin's Halloween Parade (AI made it up and people kept reporting it and thousands showed up for no parade..)
That's funny and awful at the same time!
Melissa wrote: "One of the things I dislike about how GR handles original date of publication is if you don't know the exact date, only the year, it populates the field as "January 1." I realize it's a little thin..."Really bugs me too - in NZ the 1st of January is a public holiday - so iI know that is always wrong! 😁
Hirondelle (not getting notifications) wrote: "I am going to be more cynical, it is getting harder and harder to trust any data one gets from the internet these days. Google 2024 Dublin's Halloween Parade (AI made it up and people kept reportin..."Hi Hirondelle
Gr has changed the way they do notifications. Other than from Support, you won't get emails any more. :/
Thanks Carol, yeah, it did - I am still getting emails from their stupid "updates" (weird picks and very late") of people I follow.I am using the notifications icon on the desktop site, but it's a bit flaky, but still better than nothing.
