Earlier last month, I was poking around BookRiot and stumbled across the #ReadHarder Challenge. I’m normally rubbish at challenges. Put a book on a list and I pretty much lose all desire to read it.
But I started reading through the list of twenty-four prompts and realized that I had either already read or was in the middle of reading a book that counted towards six of those prompts. Twenty-five percent of the way there! So why not challenge myself to go for the full 100 percent?
2016 Read Harder Challenge List
- Read a horror book — Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
- Read a nonfiction book about science
- Read a collection of essays
- Read a book aloud to someone else
- Read a middle grade novel
- Read a biography (not memoir or autobiography) — The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
- Read a dystopian and post-apocalyptic novel — Pure by Julianna Baggott
- Read a book originally published in decade you were born
- Listen to an audiobook that has won an Audie Award
- Read a book over 500 pages long
- Read a book under 100 pages
- Read a book by or about a person that identifies as transgender
- Read a book that is set in the Middle East
- Read a book that is by an author from Southeast Asia
- Read a book of historical fiction set before 1900
- Read the first book in a series by a person of color
- Read a non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years
- Read a book that was adapted into a movie, then watch the movie and discuss which is better — Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (the movie is better)
- Read a nonfiction about feminism or dealing with feminist themes — My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
- Read a book about religion (fiction or nonfiction)
- Read a book about politics, in your country or another (fiction or nonfiction)
- Read a food memoir
- Read a play
- Read a book with a main character with a mental illness — Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Some of these topics won’t be a stretch for me as my reading is pretty focused on the Middle East, religion, and politics. But I would love suggestions for the other incomplete titles!
Ardent Reader 