With just less than three weeks (yikes) of the year left, do you think it is time to start thinking ahead to 2019? I still have lots of clearing out to do this year. Books to finish reading. Books to return to their shelves for some other moment. Spreadsheets to complete. Maybe too late to write reviews. Some overview of the books I read but failed to write about? That sounds like too much work at the moment, and thinking about new reading opportunities is always so much more fun than cleaning things up. (May be lifting the carpet and pushing the dust under -- or just collecting the dust and pitching it into the bin and closing the lid!).
I already have a list of reading prompt ideas, but I'll likely just do a random draw on the themes. Or maybe not. But time enough for that now that I have a working list. I have a few little, not really reading projects, but books or series that I want to turn my attention to next year. I'll save all the little things I want to do, but something that just caught my eye and I have wanted to do in the past (but being a not very good planner sometimes) just came up, so now's the time to start thinking of it.
Have you ever done Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge? They just posted the 2019 edition of their challenge. There is even a handy little journal you can buy to help keep track (may have to put that on my wishlist--I wonder if it is sold in bookstores?). According to the description this challenge is 24 prompts that are meant to get readers to expand their horizons--"to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books." I am all for that. Surely I can incorporate these 'tasks' into my regular reading.
- An epistolary novel or collection of letters
- An alternate history novel
- A book by a woman and/or AOC (Author of Color) that won a literary award in 2018
- A humor book
- A book by a journalist or about journalism
- A book by an AOC set in or about space
- An #ownvoices book set in Mexico or Central America
- An #ownvoices book set in Oceania
- A book published prior to January 1, 2019, with fewer than 100 reviews on Goodreads
- A translated book written by and/or translated by a woman
- A book of manga
- A book in which an animal or inanimate object is a point-of-view character
- A book by or about someone that identifies as neurodiverse
- A cozy mystery
- A book of mythology or folklore
- An historical romance by an AOC
- A business book
- A novel by a trans or nonbinary author
- A book of nonviolent true crime
- A book written in prison
- A comic by an LGBTQIA creator
- A children’s or middle grade book (not YA) that has won a diversity award since 2009
- A self-published book
- A collection of poetry published since 2014
Okay, so I have to admit some of the terminology is new to me. I had to look up some things, which just shows how much I am immersed in my own little world and how good this will be to try and complete.
Ownvoices -- a term meant to define marginalized characters written by marginalized authors (as apposed to a white author writing about a black character).
Neurodiverse -- a writer or character with neurological differences, for example ASD, dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia, Tourette syndrome, dyspraxia, etc.
Nonbinary -- (I've come across this term before, but just as a reminder) a category for gender identities not exclusively masculine or feminine.
This should be interesting. I have to admit a few categories appeal less than others--like, a business book? I am not a very dedicated GR person, so books in relation to reviews on GR or rankings I might have to tweak a bit. I wonder if there are lots of books written in prison? Must be? (Expanding horizons!). But more or less I would like to try and hit all the categories.
Surely two books a month would be doable and I think I can overlap these themes with my prompts and other general reading. It will be fun/interesting to try anyway. Have you started thinking about next year's reading yet?