About half-way through this year, I decided I would participate in Book Riot’s 2015 Read Harder Challenge. You may remember, this is a list of 24 reading tasks, meant to be completed in 2015, each intended to broaden your reading horizons.

Results: 21 down and 3 to go… (see also: my Goodreads shelf)

Completed tasks:

1. A book published by an indie press — Sword
2. A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ — Afterworlds
3. A book by a person whose gender is different from your own — The Bone Clocks (plus a lot more…)
4. A book that takes place in Asia — Fire Horse Girl (plus a few more…)
5. A book by an author from Africa — Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah
6. A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture (Native Americans, Aboriginals, etc.) — The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian
7. A YA novel — The Raven Boys (plus a lot more…)
8. A sci-fi novel — Fortune’s Pawn (plus a lot more…)
9. A romance novel — The Duchess War
10. A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.) — A Court of Thorns and Roses
11. A book that someone else has recommended to you — Handmaid’s Tale
12. A book published this year — Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on Their Decision Not To Have Kids (plus a few more…)
13. An audiobook — The Rosie Effect
14. A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind — Ms. Marvel vol 1 (plus a lot more…)
15. A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure (Read, and then realize that good entertainment is nothing to feel guilty over) — re-read Suddenly Royal
16. A microhistory — Astoria
17. A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade <– All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
18. A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65 <– Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith
19. A self-improvement book (can be traditionally or non-traditionally considered “self-improvement”) <– You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
20. A book that was originally published in another language <– My Brilliant Friend by by Elena Ferrante
21. A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25 <– Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch

Unfinished tasks:

1. A collection of poetry <–I’d planned to read The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems. I bought it. I read the first few poems. Then never finished reading it.
2. A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people) <– I was thinking I’d either read Magic for Beginners (which I got in an Indiespensible shipment this year) or I would finish Hieroglyph (which I started reading with my hubby, but stalled out somewhere in the middle and never finished.) I ended up reading neither.
3. A book published before 1850 <– I’d planned to read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas as a “buddy read.” We started it. Neither of us got very far. Then we decided to bail on it. I think I’ll try again at some point, but I don’t know when.

I may still finish these last three tasks in 2016. But I’m not committing to anything because I already decided that I wasn’t going to do any reading projects or challenges in 2016. So, we’ll see what happens.

Book Riot is doing another Read Harder Challenge list of 24 reading tasks to be completed in 2016. I’m tempted because I’m a sucker for a challenge. But I already said I wasn’t going to do any reading projects in 2016. So, I’m officially not doing this challenge.

But… just for fun, I am going to track how the books I do read off my TBR in 2016 match up with the tasks on this reading challenge list. I’ve already tagged some books and added them to a new Goodreads shelf. I probably won’t check off all the tasks, but I am curious how many I can check off without really trying.

Here is the list for 2016 (and selections from my TBR are in parenthesis):

1. Read a horror book (Slade House)
2. Read a nonfiction book about science (Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves)
3. Read a collection of essays (The Empathy Exams)
4. Read a book out loud to someone else (Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free)
5. Read a middle grade novel (The Neptune Project)
6. Read a biography, not a memoir, or an autobiography (Kingpin)
7. Read a dystopian or post apocalyptic novel (The Harvest)
8. Read a book originally published in the decade you were born (To Ride Pegasus <–technically a re-read, but I’d intended to re-read it anyway)
9. Listen to an audio book that won an Audie Award (Yes Please)
10. Read a book over 500 pages long (Poseidon’s Wake)
11. Read a book under 100 pages (Binti)
12. Read a book by or about a person who identifies as transgender (George)
13. Read a book that is set in the Middle East (Escape From Baghdad!)
14. Read a book by an author from Southeast Asia (The Ghost Bride or The Garden of Evening Mists)
15. Read a book of historical fiction set before 1900 (Hild)
16. Read the first book in a series by a person of color (the first book of The Inheritance Trilogy)
17. Read a non-superhero comic that debuted in the past three years (Bitch Planet)
18. Read a book that was adapted into a movie, then watch the movie (The 5th Wave)
19. Read a non-fiction book about feminism or dealing with feminist themes (Lean In)
20. Read a book about religion, fiction or non-fiction (No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam)
21. Read a book about politics in your country or another, fiction or non-fiction (maybe Our Kids or North Korea Confidential?)
22. Read a food memoir (An Embarrassment of Mangoes)
23. Read a play (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child)
24. Read a book with a main character who has a mental illness (The Boy Who Went Away)