2018 Read Harder Challenge

I’ve decided to take part in a reading challenge this year. Book Riot run a challenge every year called the Read Harder Challenge, aimed at getting you out of your reading comfort zone. You can find this year’s challenge here.

It’s only 24 items long so I’ve added some self-imposed rules to make it better match my own reading goals.

• No double ups. Each item on the list must be a different book. Even if a book qualifies for different items I can only count it for one of them.
• Wherever possible the book needs to come from my already existing reading list. These are books that I already have a copy of, either a hard copy or on one of my devices. This serves the double purpose of getting through some more items on my TBR list as well as stopping me from spending too much money on new books.

Here’s the challenge list and the books I’ve chosen to read for each one. I still have three items that I haven’t chosen books for. I’ve either been unable to find anything on my TBR list for these ones, or I don’t know of any books that meet the criteria. I’ve left these in bold, if you have any suggestions or recommendations for any of these, please let me know so that I can hunt them down.

1. A book published posthumously - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
2. A book of true crime - In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
3. A classic of genre fiction (i.e. mystery, sci fi/fantasy, romance) - Neuromancer by William Gibson
4. A comic written and illustrated by the same person - XKCD Volume 0 by Randall Munroe
5. A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa) - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
6. A book about nature - Walden by Henry David Thoreau
7. A western - Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
8. A comic written or illustrated by a person of color - Raising Dion by Dennis Liu and Jason Piperberg
9. A book of colonial or postcolonial literature - Beloved by Toni Morrison
10. A romance novel by or about a person of color - Enslave by Cathy Yardley
11. A children’s classic published before 1980 - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
12. A celebrity memoir - The Way of the Fight by Georges St Pierre
13. An Oprah Book Club selection - 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
14. A book of social science - Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
15. A one-sitting book - The Monarch of the Glen by Neil Gaiman
16. The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series - Emily the Strange: The Lost Days by Rob Reger
17. A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author - The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
18. A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image - The Strain by David Lapham and Mike Huddleston
19. A book of genre fiction in translation - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
20. A book with a cover you hate - A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell
21. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey - Walter Mosley
22. An essay anthology - The Mallet of Loving Correction by John Scalzi
23. A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60 - The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
24. An assigned book you hated (or never finished) - Macbeth by William Shakespeare

24 books isn’t a lot to read in a year so I expect this list to only be a bit over half of what I read in 2018. For 2017 I set my Goodreads challenge at 42 books. As at today, I’m only at 38 so I don’t think I’ll quite make it.
I’m going to enjoy having specific books to read for a challenge, instead of just a target number, which is what I’ve always done before. What I like about this challenge is that there are enough items on the list for it to be a challenge, but not so many that there’s no wiggle room for reading other books that catch your eye throughout the year as well.

I haven’t decided yet in what order I’m going to complete the challenge. I might just go in list order because Book Riot are doing recommendation lists for each of the items. That way I can see what they are recommending for the items I haven’t chosen books for yet. Or I might continue to choose my next book the same way I have been choosing for years now - random number generator.
I would like to resume writing book reviews, so I will write a review for each of the challenge items and post it here.
Do you have reading goals for 2018? I’d love to hear about it if you do! Let me know what you’re going to be reading next year. And of course, if you have any recommendations that will help me fill in the gaps in my list please, please, please reach out and let me know.
Love,
Alice