Every year in January we (or at least I do…I can’t be the only one, right?) see a whole hoop of reading challenges crop up.
For the uninitiated, a reading challenge is essentially a list of types of books to try and read during the calendar year. They can range from topical (e.g. a book about mothers and daughters), to genre (e.g. something classified as contemporary Christian fiction), to obscure details (e.g. a book with a butterfly on the cover) and…well really anything!
Often, reading challenges will have multiple levels, so you can choose how many books you want to commit to. I think most of y’all who read our blog are big time readers, so you’re probably already consuming a minimum of 50 books each year, but there are reading challenges out there that feature smaller levels, too.
Once you find your reading challenge (or challenges for those over achievers out there), you generally proclaim it loudly and track your progress in some sort of communal location where all challenge participants gather.
Or so I hear.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually participated in one. Every year I see them. Every year I think, “Oh, what a fun idea! I should do that!” And then, every year, I don’t.
Part of it, I think, is that I like re-reading and generally speaking, reading challenges don’t take that into consideration. And also? I like to read what I want, when I want. Because I’m kind of ornery that way.
Despite all that, this year? I actually made up a reading challenge.
You see, I’m the primary admin in the Facebook group associated with the InspyRomance blog. The Christian Romance Reader Gathering is a fun little group where we try to promote conversation about only contemporary Christian romance. There are some weeks when it’s quiet and some weeks when we get a little rowdy, but it’s always fun. And if you’re ever looking for a CCR recommendation, it’s the place to be. And I thought it might be fun to put together a little reading challenge that encouraged folks to read InspyRomance authors this year as part of what they’re reading.
So I asked in our IR author group for people to give me a hook that might feed into one of their back list books and one that might hook into a book they’re expecting to release in 2020. And then I took those and played with them a little, and we ended up with this:
As you can see, our challenge is pretty small — just 12 books. So only one a month to add to your list! It’s accessible to everyone! I think they’re all (well, maybe not the singing personal chef one, but maybe even that one!) generic enough that it’s not just a straight up riddle to figure out a specific book I mean. And you’re more than welcome to read any book that meets the bill. But over in the CRRG, if you do the challenge and post what book you chose for each prompt, we do have points and, eventual prizes.
If you want to read along, we’d love to have you join in! (If you’re not a member of the CRRG, hop on over to Facebook to join – please do remember to answer the 3 entry questions when you ask to be added.)
Let’s talk reading challenges — have you done them? Loved them? Dislike the idea of them? Think they’re something you might do maybe? Or if you have a suggestion for a book that fits one of the prompts above, feel free to list it as an idea, maybe someone who’s stuck will appreciate the tip!
Elizabeth Maddrey is a semi-reformed computer geek and homeschooling mother of two who lives in the suburbs of Washington D.C. When she isn’t writing, Elizabeth is a voracious consumer of books. She loves to write about Christians who struggle through their lives, dealing with sin and receiving God’s grace on their way to their own romantic happily ever after.
I would feel pressured if I partook in a reading challenge. I prefer to just read at will.
Hi Elizabeth! Yes, I enjoy Reading Challenges. As a retiree and avid reader, reading challenges have me reading outside of my comfort zone, explore new authors, and examine my reading in a new way. For 2020 I printed 3 different and interesting reading challenges: Inspy Romance Reading Challenge, Christian Fiction Readers Challenge with 3 different tiers, and Christian Fiction Monthly Reading Challenge. I have only looked at this type of reading challenge for two years. Not sure I completed any in the past, but made me pause and think about what I am reading and why? Best wishes.
I worry about the pressure too – it’s also why I don’t set specific reading goals for the year (like a # of books). Totally valid.
How fun! And I love that they do get you to stop and ponder the next book. :) And thanks for doing our challenge!
For the past three years, I’ve enjoyed the challenges set by my Goodreads group, Christian Fiction Devourers (https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/742-christian-fiction-devourers). They have so many challenges that no one can do them all, so I can pick and choose which ones I do. They have monthly challenges, 6-month challenges, and yearly challenges.
These have led me to find some new-to-me authors (especially because of their author-of-the-month and buddy reads challenges). But sometimes I end up reading a book just to fulfill the challenge and never get to the books I wanted to read. So this year, I’m taking a balanced approach. I made my own goals and will only join a challenge if it helps me fulfill my goals.
This year so far I’ve joined the January Clean Your Bookshelf challenge, the Kindle challenge, the Connect the Dots challenge, the Do Some Good challenge, and the Blowing Your Stack challenge. All of these let me choose any book that I want, so they work with my goals.
Oh wow! That’s a lot of challenges! I’m glad you’re focusing more on books you want to read this year!
I’m with Lila in the Christian Fiction Devourers Facebook group. There are lots of challenges. I’m doing Clean the shelf in January and a mystery and author of the month. And maybe a few more., such as new releases because I’m on a lot of author’s teams. The great thing is that you can choose how many you want to do. I’m only doing 8 out of 12 for authors.
Then there is my overall, big challenge for number of book to read on Goodreads. My goal this year is 160. I completed my challenge last year at 155. The other thing in goodreads is you can make a shelf for each challenge and it keeps track for you! There are several other challenges out there that I copied but don’t know if I’ll use.
Hi, Paula! I love that we can set our own levels usually, too.
Excellent! And 160 is a great goal for the year! Challenge flexibility is a good thing
I just need to challenge myself to read more. I wish I could be two people. The reading person and the writing person. :)
I love the idea of a reading challenge! If I was a fast reader I’d participate for sure, but I’m not. A book generally takes me a month or more to get through. I’ve started listening to books too, which allows me to “read” more books than I normally would since I can listen while doing other things, like cleaning. :)
Hi Paula! Thanks for the Goodreads Shelf tip – may make a shelf for my monthly local book club and for challenges. I think I will add that on Goodreads. My Goodreads challenge is 150 books a year, which I surpass. Learning about some other challenges to investigate. Thanks, Paula and Lila.
Kimberly, as a retiree – reading comes first. Never liked to clean and still don’t. Such a mundane repetitive task. Read more, clean less. Did too much of cleaning as a pastor’s wife living in parsonages. Now daily maintenance, and biweekly spit and polish. LOL.
Merrillee! I can relate. As a literature, my reading was limited by my career. Has to be even more difficult as an author.
Oh I would love to clone myself! I might need two copies tho – writer, reader, mom.
Audiobooks are the best for doing while reading. My husband goes through them on his commute every day. I get too distracted.
Renate – I am loving having kids who can help clean right now. I’m going to miss them when it’s all back on my shoulders :)
I don’t do challenges, as I have quite a few author’s I read ARC’s for, and don’t like doing something I’m probably not going to get too far into! In other words, I don’t want “lose” or feel that I have failed. I did decide to keep track of how many books I’ll read this year, as for some reason, that seems the thing to do, too!! Don’t know how well I’ll do at keeping track, but so far so good!! I’ve already finished 7 books this year, so I’m doing pretty good!
Haha – that’s absolutely part of why I don’t tend to do challenges too. I don’t like to set myself up to possibly fail!
I’m with you, Kimberly. I am a slow reader. I haven’t gotten into audio books for fiction yet. Cleaning is a whole different…OW! Sorry, I was attacked by a very large dust bunny, LOL!
I haven’t done challenges because I want to read what I’m in the mood for :-) I was amazed when I got an email from Goodreads showing I’d read over 200 books last year! Since I’m retired, and don’t like to clean either, I do a LOT of reading :-)
I feel like you get to do what you want when you’re retired. At least that’s the hope I’m clinging to for my own future.
I always get excited when I see a challenge…but then I get saw caught up in reading I forget about the challenge requirements 🙄
They sound interesting but I would feel obligated to complete them and I don’t need the added stress. Thank you for sharing.
Gosh yes! That can definitely be an issue.
Totally fair!
This is the first I’ve read about reading challenges that is not “how many books you’ll read” type. I usually never care for those because I don’t know how much time I’ll have in a year, and how many long vs short books I’ll end up reading.
This challenge sounds intriguing and got me thinking about what I remember from the IR books I’ve read so far… (or been wanting to read).. The house renovation books? Definitely one of yours that I still haven’t been able to get to (they are on my list because the first 3 were just great), the five brothers can’t think of any other than Angela’s Lake brothers (but then I’ve read and re-read those a few times). The beauty pageant sounds like Valerie’s books. .. and so on.
You’ve got some great leads – as a hint for the brothers, there’s definitely a Spark involved. :)
In the past I have done a few reading challenges, but these days I just set a target number on Goodreads and leave it at that.
I was finding that a lot of the challenges were very similar to previous ones. I also wasn’t blogging as much (now not happening at all) as my life and interests had moved in different directions.
One year I did an Anne of Green Gables challenge to read the entire series in the year. By the end I was sick of L M Montgomery books, so I think it will be a while before I read them again – such a shame because they were some of my favourites as a child/teen. One of the hardest I ever did was reading a book with the title starting for each letter of the alphabet – by the way, X is the hardest to find!
Oh the alphabet sounds awful! Goodness :)
I am not reading like I use to but I use to do a challenge to read a book set in every state of America and bonus points for international books. I made it several years in a row. I tend to not be reading as much now and like to have a variety of historical and contemporary books.
I prefer a theme like the a book from every state to a set book like the ones you have mentioned. a couple of the themes are not my cup of tea. (surprise babies for one). Also would like more generic like instead of 5 brothers a series with a group of siblings. instead of just air force any branch of the services. (it would be like a book with a dog in it when I would much rather a cat or unique pet like if they had a pet squirrel.)
It’s tricky to find the balance between accessible and super unique – plus I did want to point to books by IR authors (if anything, that’s the theme) I suppose I could just have said “read a book by every IR author” and made the bonus levels include a back list and a new release, but I thought this was more fun.
I thought about Liwen’s books too, but for some reason I thought they were four… hum, I need to revisit that too ;)
I do the Goodreads challenge each year (150 books), and I’m doing a Mt. TBR challenge this year (to try and reduce the size of that to-read pile!).
But I’m not such a fan of challenges where I have to read a specific genre or subject. I guess the idea is to try and get people to read outside their comfort zone, but my more common reaction is to dislike the books … they remind me why I have a comfort zone!
Ha. I like it in my comfort zone too :)