Reading Challenges to Break You Out of Your Slump
Despite being an avid reader, I’ll sometimes have periods where life is rough and I don’t feel like reading anything. Then not reading anything makes me feel guilty so reading feels like a chore. When I get stuck like this, it helps to turn to a reading challenge to make reading exciting again.
Alphabet Challenge
A yearly goal I started in 2016 is an alphabet challenge. I try to read at least one book for every letter of the alphabet. For example, Alice in Wonderland would count for A, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks would count for I since the leading determiner doesn’t count. Most of the letters will come easily if you already read 50+ books a year, but others are more difficult to find, like C, I, J, O, Q, U, V, X, Y, Z. So in trying to find a book that starts with Q, I may stumble across something like Quite a Year for Plums, which was unexpectedly fantastic. Of course, you may end up with a sub-par zombie book trying to find a Z, but I almost always love the books I search out for the more challenging letters. Sometimes I don’t quite make it to all the letters, but I still find some gems in the effort! It can also be a fun way to get your overall reading count up if you typically read 20 or fewer books a year.
Some favorite challenging letter books:
C: Coraline, Circe, Cemetery Boys, Chicken with Plums
I: The Invisible Library, I Was Born for This, I Hear the Sunspot, I’m Still Here, Iron Widow
J: Jane Eyre, Jinx, Jackaby
O: One Last Stop, Once Upon a Time in the North
Q: Quite a Year for Plums, Queenie
U: Under the Whispering Door, The Utterly Uninteresting and Uneventful Tales of Fred the Vampire Accountant
V: The Viscount Who Loved Me, Voices, The Vanishing Half
X: X (About Malcolm X), X Marks the Spot (Lumberjanes), XOXO, Xingu
Y: You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
Z: Zita the Spacegirl, Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Genre Challenge
I would probably read 80% sci-fi/fantasy and 20% romance if I didn’t push myself to have a more diverse reading profile, so I set genre goals for myself to reach. I don’t think I’ve ever completed every goal in a single year before, but that’s not necessarily the point. To keep my brain active by reading different forms of writing, some of my goals include 2-5 books per year in poetry, plays, and short stories. I also have a 5 book goal in two languages I’m working on, plus books in translation. But my biggest goals are in categories that I know I need to read in order to better empathize with others; being a non-queer white woman, 2 of my 3 largest goals are books by and/or about BIPOC authors/characters, and books by and/or about queer authors/characters. (My other big goal is books published in this calendar year.)
At the end of each year, I look at my totals and assess how close I came to each goal in order to set my goals for the next year. Typically, my easiest goals to fulfill have been graphic novels, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+. I still struggle with reading “enough” poetry, plays, and sometimes nonfiction, but if I can at least read something in the category, I know I made an effort and it makes me feel better about myself. The amounts can be tailored to your reading quantity, so if you only have time for one book of poetry and two non-fictions mixed in with your usual fiction pursuits, that’s totally fine! Or if you can’t stand poetry and don’t want to read any at all, that’s fine too! I personally find it fulfilling to reach outside of my comfort zone since I almost always find books that I connect with that I never would have found otherwise. If you’re looking for ideas, my genre categories are: classics, published in 2022, French, Spanish, in translation, comics, graphic novels, nonfiction, (auto)biographies/memoirs, plays, poetry, short story/essay collections, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+. If this kind of goal is new to you, I recommend starting small and adapting your lists each year.
Other Challenge Possibilities
There are lots of random reading challenges out there with wide ranges of difficulty. There are those that prompt you to read books from other countries, or one book a week, or women focused, Black focused, etc. The most difficult one I’ve seen is the Read Harder Challenge by Book Riot; they go beyond simple prompts like “A book with the word Red in the title”, and instead push you with prompts like, “An adventure story by a BIPOC author”, “A romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40”, or “A queer retelling of a classic fairytale, folklore, or myth”. If you’re like me and find joy in simply searching for books that may fit their qualifications, you can have a lot of fun with these types of lists.
The point of these challenges is never to guilt you about not reading enough or diversely enough- it is simply to help you find ways to grow and have fun with something you already love doing. So don’t feel bad if you start a challenge and don’t finish it- life happens! Just because you didn’t finish doesn’t mean you didn’t find some fantastic reads anyway. Let me know if any particular challenges help motivate you throughout the year. Happy reading!