I had so much success with my own little 2016 reading challenge, I wanted to keep up the momentum.

Scanning through the interwebs in December I spied the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2017. 40 books, each with a unique requirement, aiming to expand and diversify your reading in this brand new year.

You can swot up on the rules over on POPSUGAR, and get yourself signed up to the dedicated Goodreads group, which already has over 3,000 members. This website has been invaluable for me in setting up my list of 40 books, rating them, grouping my list so I can tick them off as I go (type A personality to the max).

I was unbelievably pleased at my resolve to complete my 2016 reading challenge, I just had to continue into 2017. My aims for reading this lovely new year are to make sure I try new things, rather than just sticking to my comfort zone. 2016’s list resulted in quite a few Walking Dead graphic novels and many Harry Potter volumes.

That’s not to say I won’t be reading these as well. But I’ll be throwing in a few curve balls along the way.

It’s quite a list but if you can bear with me, here are the books that I’ve chosen to complete my challenge (subject to changes along the way – it’s a bit of a working list), but you can also check out the full list over on my Goodreads bookshelf.

If you’re a Goodreads fan, add me and we can share books together.

POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2017

1. A book recommended by a librarian The Age of Innocence
2. A book that’s been on your TBR list for way too long – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them and bonus read of Original Screenplay
3. A book of letters The Perks of Being a Wallflower
4. An audiobook Stardust
5. A book by a person of colour The Color Purple or Twelve Years a Slave
6. A book with one of the four seasons in the title Autumn
7. A book that is a story within a story The Princess Bride
8. A book with multiple authors Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
9. An espionage thriller The Bourne Identity
10. A book with a cat on the cover The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
11. A book by an author who uses a pseudonym The Cuckoo’s Calling (this covers number 39 as well)
12. A bestseller from a genre you don’t normally read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
13. A book by or about a person who has a disability All the Light We Cannot See
14. A book involving travel Braving it: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable journey into the Alaskan Wild
15. A book with a subtitle Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of The Mt Everest Disaster
16. A book that’s published in 2017 New Dani Atkins novel
17. A book involving a mythical creature The Golem and the Jinni
18. A book you’ve read before that never fails to make you smile The Secret Garden
19. A book about food A Year in Provence
20. A book with career advice #GIRLBOSS
21. A book from a nonhuman perspective Watership Down
22. A steampunk novel The Time Machine
23. A book with a red spine Fight Club
24. A book set in the wilderness Into the Wild
25. A book you loved as a child Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
26. A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited The Light Between Oceans
27. A book with a title that’s a character’s name Jane Eyre
28. A novel set during wartime A Town Like Alice or Cold Mountain
29. A book with an unreliable narrator Rebecca or Fingersmith
30. A book with pictures The Walking Dead, Vol 06: This Sorrowful Life
31. A book where the main character is a different ethnicity than you A Thousand Splendid Suns
32. A book about an interesting woman Scrappy Little Nobody
33. A book set in two different time periods The Secret History
34. A book with a month or day of the week in the title Tuesdays with Morrie
35. A book set in a hotel The Shining
36. A book written by someone you admire David Attenborough: Life on Air
37. A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017 Ready Player One
38. A book set around a holiday other than Christmas Chocolat
39. The first book in a series you haven’t read before The Cuckoo’s Calling
40. A book you bought on a trip (Still looking for this one)

PS. If you’re super hard core, there are even 12 bonus books to add on (that’s a huge 52 books in one year). I’m humbly backing down from this extra push this time around…

1. A book recommended by an author you love
2. A bestseller from 2016
3. A book with a family-member term in the title
4. A book that takes place over a character’s life span
5. A book about an immigrant or a refugee
6. A book from a genre/subgenre that you’ve never heard of
7. A book with an eccentric character
8. A book that has more than 800 pages
9. A book that you got from a used book sale
10. A book that’s been mentioned in another book
11. A book about a difficult topic
12. A book based on mythology

 

 

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