Stretch Your Bookish Muscles: 2023 Reading Challenges
With the first month of 2023 winding to a close, I hope we have all settled into our routines and reading lives. One of my favorite things about a new year is new reading challenges, which enrich and enliven my reading life and stretch my brain each year. I use reading challenges as a way to keep myself out of reading ruts and to check my readerly blind spots. I am always up for trying new tropes, forms, and genres, and love being prompted to do so. I also read a rather large quantity of books, so I don’t find this too onerous, but other people, like my husband for example, prefer a more laid-back reading challenge where it won’t be too hard to complete. For every type of reader, this is a reading challenge that would fit.
If you’ve only ever tried the Goodreads reading challenge, or any other one where you simply track the number of books read, then maybe take one of these reading challenges out for a spin. You might find yourself pleasantly surprised by what your reading life becomes!
Book Riot’s 2023 Read Harder Challenge
If you know me at all, you know I cannot shut up about the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. Book Riot focuses on helping you read more diversely (including not only social justice issues, but also different genres and mediums). This reading challenge genuinely pushes me to the outer limits of my reading life–something I deeply enjoy–with 24 different prompts. For example, I had never purposefully read a translated book before, but one year, a prompt for this challenge was “read a non-European book in translation” which ended up leading to our Found in Translation book club. Prompts this year include “read a completed webtoon” or “read a book of poetry by a queer or BIPOC author” among 22 others. You can make this challenge easier on yourself by allowing books to count for more than one prompt or you can read 24 individual books. If you really want to push yourself in your reading while also making sure to read diversely, this is the challenge for you.
Reading Glasses Reading Challenge
Hosted by author Mallory O’Meara (whose Girly Drinks and Lady from the Black Lagoon are among my favorite non-fiction titles) and filmmaker Brea Grant, Reading Glasses is tied for my favorite bookish podcast. Each week, they put out an episode on a variety of bookish topics, from discussing the best reading snack to how to get yourself out of a book slump. Their reading challenge is equally as broad–rather than focusing on only books to read, they also challenge you to do certain bookish activities. This year’s challenge includes prompts like “attend a library event–either virtually or in-person” or “read an interview with an author you love”, and the reading prompts include “read a novella” or “give a book a second chance”. This challenge would be great for someone who doesn’t read a huge quantity of books and wants to improve their reading life as a whole.
Who wouldn’t wait to join in on a reading challenge with these two lovely ladies?
Professional Book Nerds Reading Challenge
Run by literal bookish professionals–the staff librarians for OverDrive, the top supplier of ebooks and audiobooks for libraries–this is another bookish podcast-hosted reading challenge. Professional Book Nerds talks about their favorite books, gives personalized recommendations, and covers new releases, and their reading challenge is similar to this in tone. Of maybe an easier difficulty than the Read Harder challenge, prompts include “Read a friend’s FAVORITE book” or “read a book about found family”. Not focused on genre or form, this would be a great all-purpose reading challenge for those who just want to dip their toes into the waters of reading challenges.
Beloved by us here at Dog-Eared, Anne Bogle (aka the Modern Mrs. Darcy), has wowed us again with an inventive and customizable reading challenge. Designed as a choose-your-adventure-style document, Modern Mrs. Darcy’s reading challenge helps you reflect on your reading life and then prioritize challenging your reading in ways that are most valuable to you. To get started, you just need to visit this page on her website and enter your email, which then sends the form to your inbox. The downloadable, printable form will walk you through how to form your challenge, reflecting and refining until it’s just right for you. Like the reading glasses challenge, it includes non-reading related prompts like curating a bookshelf or perfecting your own reading nook. When you do get to the reading prompts, you create your own list of tasks based on what you value. So if you want to focus more on cultivating a reading community, you might try the task “read a book ‘everyone’ has read”; if you want to learn new things, you might try the prompt “read a translated book”. The customizability and focus on you make this specific reading challenge and excellent one for a person who wants to prioritize reading for themselves.
She Reads Romance Reading Challenge
One of the great things about genre specific reading challenges is that you still get to live well within your wheelhouse, but are also pushed into areas you might not have explored before. I know for one of my favorite genres (wintery Eastern-European-inspired fantasy) I can often feel like I have completely plumbed its depths, but through different reading challenges, I have discovered more and more titles that I might not have otherwise read. This challenge specifically is great for having structure–it asks you to read one book a month based on a specific trope or sub-genre–while also being open-ended–the tropes and sub-genres are broad, like “historical” or “slow-burn”. For the romance-lover, it might help you explore this hugely diverse genre and find some new favorites.
Read Around the World Book Voyage Reading Challenge
This reading challenge is oriented toward the world traveler, stuck at home, or the reader that loves exploring and living a thousand lives. With this challenge, you’ll read one book set in a different geographic location as a means of armchair traveling and learning more about all of the wide, wide world out there. They have a different region listed for each month and a list of books they recommend, and there are also online discussion communities you can take part in. By staying in the loop with their newsletter and Facebook groups, this challenge almost has a book club built in, perfect for anyone who likes a more guided reading experience. Push your reading goals by picking up a story set in the Arctic or partake in a novel describing a train journey. This one looks so fun, I think I’m going to add it to my own docket!
This is just a tiny collection of all the different reading challenges out there, and already they get me even more excited and motivated to read. Do you like do do any reading challenges? Let us know your favorite ones in the comments below!
