December 30, 2014

Read Harder

http://bookriot.com is a fabulous literary website. Like right now, for instance, the stories on their front page include: Backlist Binge: Clearing out the TBR, 10 Best Literary TED Talks of the Year, An African Reading List,and 47+ of Your Favorite Books About Dragons. Feel free to go check them out, then come back.

Okay, is that done? Perhaps while you were browsing there, you noticed Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. They have put together a reading challenge for 2015, and you know how I love a challenge! Actually, it's not going to be too difficult to do this challenge. There are 24 challenges. You just read a book that meets the parameters of the challenge. The idea is to stretch your boundaries and read more diversely; read books by or about people you woudn't normally be drawn to. Most of the challenges won't be much of a stretch for me, so it's not too daunting.

Here is the intro to the list on the Goodreads Group Page for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. "There are 24 tasks in the Read Harder Challenge (or roughly two per month). You can tackle them in any order, make any changes, do them all in a month or spread them out over the year. Make the challenge yours!"

Without further ado, here are the challenges:

  1. A book written by someone when they were younger than 25.

  2. A book written by someone when they were older than 65.

  3. A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology.

  4. A book published by an indie press. This one might be more difficult for me. I haven't checked my shelves to see what books I have by indie presses, but maybe there are one or two.

  5. A book by or about someone who identifies as LBGTQ.

  6. A book by a person whose gender is different from yours.

  7. A book that takes place in Asia. I have at least 3 of these on my shelf right now.

  8. A book by an author from Africa. I have a couple on my list of to-read books.

  9. A book by or about someone from an indigenous culture (Native Americans, aboriginals, etc.) I just started 1491, which will probably take me 6 months to read because it's my bedtime book.

  10. A microhistory. First I have to figure out what a "microhistory" is.

  11. A YA novel. No worries.

  12. A sci-fi novel. Again. I got this.

  13. A romance novel. Well, I might stretch the definition of "romance" to meet my needs.

  14. A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade.

  15. A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairy tale, Shakespearean play, classic novel, etc.)

  16. An audiobook. Since I already have audiobooks going in my car at all times, this will be a cinch!

  17. A collection of poetry. **Ugh. I'm not a good poetry reader. I'm probably reading the wrong ones."

  18. A book that someone else has recommended to you.

  19. A book that was originally published in another language.

  20. A graphic novel, a graphic memoir, or a collection of comics of any kind.

  21. A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure (Read, and then realize that good entertainment is nothing to feel guilty over). Good attitude to entertainment reading!

  22. A book published before 1850.

  23. A book published this year.

  24. A self-improvement book. (Can be traditionally or non-traditionally considered "self-improvement"). Sadly, I have several of these books on my shelf.

So, there it is. What would you read for any of these challenges.