Hello Bookworms!
Today is a red letter day for me here at Casa Lucinda because the 2019 Read Harder Challenge from Book Riot is here! I am SOOOOOO EXCITED!
In case you don’t know, Read Harder is a reading challenge designed to push you out of your bookish comfort zone. There’s 24 categories and you simply read a book that you think fits each of the criteria. There’s no hard and fast rules, you can be as abstract or rigid as you like!
There’s plenty of online support for the challenge including a dedicated Goodreads group, the hashtag #readharder and the Book Riot website, where they post suggestions and recommendations. If you want to learn more (and maybe even join in) you can visit the Read Harder page here.
So, without further ado, here’s the list for Read Harder 2019!
- A epistolary novel or collection of letters
- An alternate history novel
- A book by a woman and/or AOC 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 childrenโs or middle grade book (not YA) that has won a diversity award since 2009
- A self-published book
- A collection of poetry published since 201
I’m already flicking through my TBR and NetGalley backlog to see what books I can possibly assign to each category…a self published book should be easy, a book of mythology or folklore – Norse Gods by Neil Gaiman, been meaning to read that for ages…I literally came across a book about a sham doctor pushing ridiculous dieting methods yesterday, that would fit the true crime category… a cozy mystery though (yuck, not my thing)…and where TF is Oceania?
So…to Google! *points and states into middle distance*
Are you thinking of doing this reading challenge? Do you have any recommendations for any of the categories? Let me know in the comnents!
So, I don’t read a lot of cozy mysteries, but Alan Bradley has a series that I absolutely ADORE. The first book is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – the books revolve around an 11 year old ‘detective’, but it’s definitely not middle grade fiction. I think it’s a really unique spin on the cozy mystery, and can’t recommend it highly enough.
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Oh wow, that sounds great! Thank you so much for the recommendation! โบ
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I haven’t tried this before, but I’m doing the beat the backlist challenge. Good luck! Silvia Moreno Garcia might be good to look for the own voices set in mexico city, if you don’t have one for that yet.
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OK this is definitely a challenge… good luck! ๐
I don’t have any suggestions, except for humour – you could try one of Dave Gorman’s books, or Miranda Hart, or a collection of Garfield comics (depends on your sense of humour obv)
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Thank you!
Funnily enough (no pun intended) I think I’ve read most of Dave Gorman’s books, plus Miranda Harts and I used to love Garfield comic collections when I was younger! Maybe I should dig some out ๐
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We have the same taste in humour then ๐
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Good luck to you! Looks like an interesting challenge ๐
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Thank you! ๐
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I tried the Book Riot challenge this year. I completed the Pop Sugar Challenge in 2016 & 2017. The 2019 Book Riot challenge looks fun ๐
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I did the Popsugar challenge in 2017 too but I prefer Book Riot. It is really fun ๐
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I loved doing this challenge in 2018, so I’m looking forward to doing it again! Some of this list seems oddly specific (Oceania?) But I’ll give it a try! Gaiman’s book is great, or you could read Circe by Madeline Miller.
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Great point – Circe has been on my TBR for ages now and it’s available in my library! Thank you!
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Oceania has me a bit stumped, too! I do want to read more by Liane Moriarty, but that seems like a cop out, even though she’s from Australia. After all, this is the Read Harder Challenge, not the Read Convenient Challenge. I think I might read The Bone People by Keri Hulme because it not only won a Booker in 1985, but the author is from New Zealand, is of Maori/European descent, and is writing about Maori/European people. Hopefully I’ll get to learn something about the mixture of those cultures.
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That sounds really interesting, what a great pick! ๐
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I definitely recommend Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society if you’re interested/still looking for something epistolary!
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it’s kind of fresh in my mind ๐
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Yes! I’ve just read your review and thought that this would fit. Looking forwards to reading it!
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