Book Challenges. Some readers like them, some don’t.
Personally, as a reader, I find book challenges enrich my reading, broaden my knowledge of books, helps me discover different authors and genres and gives me something to aim for.
Many readers express a dislike of challenges because they feel too pressured by deadlines or feel the lists are too competitive.
While I enjoy sharing a Book Challenge with other readers, I am not in competition with them. Many read far more books than I do, others read less. That is not the point, as we all read differently – at different rates, in different circumstances, for different reasons and with different tastes. The only person I’m in competition with is myself. And even, then, if I don’t meet my challenge for a year, then I don’t. After all, I read (mostly) for pleasure.
Here are some challenges I’ve encountered in recent years:
The Goodreads Challenge
This challenge is numerical – set a goal for the number of books you hope to read for the year. It could be one a month (12), one a week (52) or two a week (104) or any other number you choose. The nice thing about this challenge is that Goodreads keeps a tally of your books and also gives you a charming summary at the end of the year (shortest book, longest book, most popular book etc.) This was my Goodreads challenge last year.
The Popsugar Challenge
The Popsugar Reading Challenge gives a list of book categories (40 regular & another 10 on the extended list). The categories change each year and some are trickier than others.
What I like about this challenge as it encourages me to read outside my set reading patterns, it introduces me to new authors and new genres (such as Afrofuturism) and it gives me a focus to my reading. Some of the categories are fun – like “A book with a Tiger on the Cover or in the title” while others can be more serious “A book that discusses body positivity.”
I’ve enjoyed completing this everchanging challenge every year since I started in 2017, but feel like a break from it this year. Here is my efforts last year and a link to this year’s categories.
The Around the World Challenge
The premise of this challenge is simple – read a book that is set in a country or is written by a person from this country (or both) for each of the countries or nations across the globe.
Depending how you count them – there are 193 or 197 nations in the world. And, that doesn’t take account of distinctive ‘countries’ within nations. For instance, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all part of the UK. Or Taiwan is an island with it’s own governance, identity and history, though it is often included in with Mainland China.
The Around the World Challenge is not for the faint-hearted and might be best completed over a couple of years with almost 200 boxes to tick. Chances are your usual reading may be focused on a handful of countries and finding books from some of the smaller areas, while not impossible, can be a challenge.
Perhaps this Challenge could be broken down in smaller units, e.g. Read a Book from each country in Asia or Europe. Or it could be adapted, e.g. Read a Book from every State and territory of Australia and/or the provinces of New Zealand.
The Alphabet Challenge
This year, I’ve decided to take an easier challenge – the Alphabet Challenge. Which is as it sounds – Read a Book with a title starting with each letter of the alphabet. That comes to 26 books – with Q, X, Z perhaps being the hardest to find. In most cases, like librarians, one might ignore ‘the’ and ‘a’ at the start of the title. I’ve set up a Alphabet Reading challenge here.
(I could fill quite a few letters with my own books, especially if I include the anthologies – A – Akrad’s Children, B – Blood Crystal, C – Caverns of the Deep, F-Futurevision, G- Glimpses of Light, H – Heart of the Mountain, I-Imagine (Poetica Christi), L – Let the Sea Roar, M-Mixed Blessings, Q-The Quantum Soul, R-Rasel’s Song, S- Stone of the Sea, T-Tales of the Underground, W-Wonderment (Poetica Christi) – 14 of the 26 letters. Maybe I should do it as a writer’s challenge, as I continue to write more books in my series 🙂 )
Other challenges abound – for instance, a Classics Challenge, or a list drawn from women authors, or books related to Australia or New Zealand or to read the whole Bible in a year. Perhaps, we could invent our own Australasian Christian books challenge.
What book challenges have you encountered? Do you love them or hate them? What categories would you add if you were creating a Book Challenge?
As a mood reader who reads fiction to relax, I find most book challenges really interesting but too stressful. I like the idea but not the reality of having to read in every category. But I do love the Goodreads challenge and do that every year. It’s more of a way of keeping track of the books I’ve read than an actual goal I purposely work toward though. Love the stats at the end of the year as well. They’re fascinating!
Hi Hannah
Thanks for your comment. It could be possible to use a talent more as a guide than prescriptive, but really, it’s what works best for you. And, yes, the Goodreads reading challenge is a great way to tally the books read during the year.
Happy reading 🙂
In the past I did a few reading challenges.
I’ve done the ABC one – for X I ended up reading a book about one of the Olympic Games because the title did actually start with an X for the Roman numerals relating to what number games it was.
I stopped doing them for a while because most of them were very repetitive.
Another one I did was to read the entire Anne of Green Gables series – one per month. Since that was only 8 books, I added other books by or about L M Montgomery to make it up to 12 for the year.
This year, as a family, we are working on the Sunday Book Club challenge and my sister added an extra one to read a book published in the year you were born.
I do set a goal with Goodreads each year, but I don’t really think of that as a challenge.
Hi Beth,’
Thanks for commenting. I like you idea of a Anne of Green Gables challenge. And that could be adapted to other authors or fandoms too, which could be fun. The Popsugar Challenge often have something similar to reading a bestseller in the year you were born.
All the best with the Sunday Book Club – and Happy reading 🙂
I have done one where you read a book from all states of America and extra points for other locations.
A friend is doing one set in different locations around the world and asked for suggestions.
I find some of the challengers can be too difficult. any asking to read a classic or re read a book I am not interested. or read certain genres. I have never been into Jane Austin or heavy suspense or horror so I prefer ones that I may actually be able to do. I don’t mind the goodreads challenge which I have almost reached.
Hi Jenny
There you go, I thought I’d pulled the a book from every state of the USA out of a hat, but it makes sense that someone else had already thought of it. One could also say, read a book set in every city the Olympics have been held in.
I can hear you about not reading authors or genres you’re not interested in. I guess the trick is finding or adapting a challenge to suit your own tastes, though I have been surprised at times to find I enjoy books I didn’t or at least have learnt something new.
Congrats on almost reaching your Good Reads challenge. I’m behind on mine as I got an exciting story time and that’s been distracting from my reading.
Hi Jeanette, I’m tempted to try a proper reading challenge at some stage. The more obscure StoryChats podcast topics that we discuss can feel like their own little reading challenge. Thanks for sharing with us. 😊