It’s okay to laugh at this title. Sometimes I wonder myself how I can “read harder” or read more each year to exceed what I did the previous year.
I set up goals, I make lists after lists, I find new challenges each year to help broaden my genres. And I usually hit my goal, or exceed it, each year.
In an effort to broaden my horizons with reading, read more books that I actually own, reduce the amount of books I buy that just sit on the shelves, and enjoy the experience, I found two great challenges that I’m going to participate in.
The 2016 Reading Challenge by the Modern Mrs. Darcy:
- a book published this year
- a book you can finish in one day – What Would Jane Do?
- a book you’ve been meaning to read – Slaughterhouse Five
- a book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller
- a book you should have read in school
- a book chosen for you by your spouse, partner, sibling, child, or BFF
- a book published before you were born
- a book that was banned at some point
- a book you previously abandoned
- a book you own by have never read – Safe Haven
- a book that intimidates you
- a book you’ve already read at least once
The Read Harder Challenge 2 by Book Riot
- Horror Book
- Nonfiction Book about Science
- Collection of Essays
- Read a Book Out Loud to Someone else
- Middle Grade Novel
- Biography (not a memoir or autobiography)
- Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic Novel
- Originally published in the decade you were born
- Listen to an audiobook that has won an Audie Award
- Over 500 pages long
- Under 100 pages – Newbies Guide to Final Cut Pro X
- About a person that identifies as transgender
- Set in the Middle East
- By an author from Southeast Asia
- Historical Fiction set before 1900
- First book in a series by a person of color
- Non-Superhero comic that debuted in the last three years
- Adapted into a movie, then watch the movie
- Nonfiction book about feminism or dealing with feminist themes
- About religion
- About politics
- A food memoir
- A play
- Main character has a mental illness
No book will be added twice, all must be read in 2016, and I’m definitely open to suggestions.
In addition, as if that isn’t enough of a challenge, I will read at LEAST 50 books that I already own (prior to 2016). When one owns 712 books they have never read, at some point you have to start reading some of them.
Curious where I’m at with that so far …. 7/50
- What Would Jane Do? by Potter Style
- The Newbies Guide to Final Cut Pro X by Minute Help Press
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
- Shakespeare, Not Stirred by Caroline Bicks
- The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz
- The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
Stay tuned to the latest update and swing by the Lit List to see this year’s full list, last year, and eventually all the years before.
Ciao.