I love Book Riot’s yearly Read Harder Challenge. It always has an original mixture of prompts that encourage readers to stretch out of their comfort zone – whatever that comfort zone is. It represents diversity across the board and doesn’t make any reader’s favourite genre, format or topic seem inadequate. I never manage to finish all the prompts, but I love trying!
Here’s the 2020 Challenge:
- Read a YA nonfiction book
- Read a retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, or myth by an author of color
- Read a mystery where the victim(s) is not a woman
- Read a graphic memoir – Good Talk by Mira Jacob
- Read a book about a natural disaster
- Read a play by an author of color and/or queer author
- Read a historical fiction novel not set in WWII – The Innocents by Michael Crummey
- Read an audiobook of poetry
- Read the LAST book in a series – Middle England by Jonathan Coe
- Read a book that takes place in a rural setting – Women Talking by Miriam Toews
- Read a debut novel by a queer author
- Read a memoir by someone from a religious tradition (or lack of religious tradition) that is not your own
- Read a food book about a cuisine you’ve never tried before
- Read a romance starring a single parent
- Read a book about climate change
- Read a doorstopper (over 500 pages) published after 1950, written by a woman – Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
- Read a sci-fi/fantasy novella (under 120 pages)
- Read a picture book with a human main character from a marginalized community
- Read a book by or about a refugee
- Read a middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the U.S. or the UK
- Read a book with a main character or protagonist with a disability (fiction or non)
- Read a horror book published by an indie press
- Read an edition of a literary magazine (digital or physical)
- Read a book in any genre by a Native, First Nations, or Indigenous author
Let me know if you’re participating, and if you have any great recommendations for any of this year’s prompts!