The folks over at Book Riot issued a 2015 “Read Harder” challenge. They created a list of 24 reading tasks. Since I got the mug as a birthday present, I figured I had better participate…
It’s possible to check off more than one task on the list with only one book, but I’m trying to do each with a different book. Several tasks are easy for me and I have a ton of books I’ve read this year that would qualify. In those cases I tried to just chose the first book I read this year to list as my example.
These are the tasks I’ve completed so far:
- A book published by an indie press — Sword
- A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ — Afterworlds
- A book by a person whose gender is different from your own — The Bone Clocks (plus a lot more…)
- A book that takes place in Asia — Fire Horse Girl (plus a few more…)
- A book by an author from Africa — Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah
- 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
- A YA novel — The Raven Boys (plus a lot more…)
- A sci-fi novel — Fortune’s Pawn (plus a lot more…)
- A romance novel — The Duchess War
- A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.) — A Court of Thorns and Roses
- A book that someone else has recommended to you — Handmaid’s Tale
- A book published this year — Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on Their Decision Not To Have Kids (plus a few more…)
- An audiobook — Astoria and The Rosie Effect
- A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind (Hi, have you met Panels?) — Ms. Marvel vol 1 (plus a lot more…)
- 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
And I have books in my TBR for these three tasks:
- A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25 — I discovered that Snow Like Ashes qualifies here, and I already own it!
- A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade — All the Light We Cannot See is on my hold list at the library…
- A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people) <– I have several of these in-progress… but I think I’ll try to read/finish Magic for Beginners because it came in one of my Indiespensible boxes this year…
That leaves six tasks where I haven’t figure out what to read yet. So, I’m looking for some ideas and/or recommendations for books that might check off any of these…
- A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65 <– no idea…
- A microhistory <– the suggestions offered in that linked article are okay, but maybe you have a better idea for me…
- A collection of poetry <– ugh. Poetry. I need a good suggestion here… something that I might actually like considering the only poetry I like is song lyrics…
- A book published before 1850 <– what do you think about Count of Monte Cristo? It’s already on my TBR… unless you have a better suggestion…
- A self-improvement book (can be traditionally or non-traditionally considered “self-improvement”) <– Yuck. I hate self-help books. Does Lean In count? because I already own that one… not excited about reading it, but I probably should…
- A book that was originally published in another language <– I’ve heard really good things about My Brilliant Friend, but I can’t figure out if it is truly “in translation” or if it’s just written in English by an Italian author… anyone know or have other ideas?
If you have ideas, please let me know in the comments (or recommend me a book on Goodreads)!
Anyone else doing this “read harder” challenge this year?
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