Ever since graduating from nursing school in May of 2015, I have been incessantly adding books to my ‘to-read’ list and reading as much as possible. It feels amazing to curl up on my couch with a soft blanket and a good book and not have to worry about studying for the NCLEX or my latest nursing exam. As much as I loved learning to become a nurse, the elation I feel for not having to read another college text book…..ahhhhh. It make me anxious just thinking about it!
Reading for pleasure has been one of my favorite hobbies since I learned the alphabet. I absorbed words like a sponge, and that voracious appetite for books has never left. Now that I am an adult, daily life makes it hard to sit down and read like I want to. But that will change this year!
Without further ado, my own personal reading challenge for 2016!
I googled a few reading challenges, and decided to compile my own list of books from suggestions from some of these lists.
2 of my favorite lists were the Modern Mrs Darcy 2016 reading challenge and the Book Riot 2015 Read Harder Challenge. (disclaimer: I meant to find 2016 challenges, but somehow didn’t realize that I was looking at the Book Riot 2015 list…I really liked the suggestions, so I just stuck with it!) Here is the link to Book Riot’s 2016: Reading Challenge. I also included some of these on my list as well 🙂
Now I haven’t chosen a book for all of these categories, but it takes me a while to choose a new book. I like to read a few reviews before I put my time into it. Here are my compiled categories:
- A collection of short stories: Neil Gaiman has been on my radar since reading his book Ocean at the End of the Lane. For this category I’m choosing ‘Trigger Warning‘.
- A book by an author from Africa: ‘Half of a Yellow Sun‘ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- A sci-fi or fantasy novel: I recently joined a sci-fi reading group on GoodReads where I found this book. Emily St. John Mandel’s ‘Station Eleven‘. This is one of my favorite genre’s of books, so I’m looking forward to this one!
- A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade: ‘All the Light We Cannot See‘ by Anthony Doerr (2015 Pulitzer Prize winner)
- A book that was recommended to you
- A collection of poetry
- A book by or about someone from an indigenous culture
- A book by or about someone that identifies at LGBTQ
- A book you can finish in a day
- A book chosen for you by your spouse, friend, sibling, etc.
- A Horror book: ‘House of Leaves‘ by Mark Danielewski
- A book that was banned at some point
- A book you own but never read
- A book that intimidates you (I’m excited about this one!)
- A book you’ve already read at least once: Without a doubt, this one HAS to be Betty Smith’s ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn‘. This has been my favorite book ever written since the first time I read it in 9th grade. This will be the 6th or 7th time I’ve read it.
- Read a biography
- A dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel
- A book published in the decade you were born
- A book under 100 pages
- A book of historical fiction set before 1900
These last 4 are just books I have been eyeing.
- Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman‘
- Antione de Saint Exupery’s ‘Wind, Sand and Stars‘
- Lawrence Hill’s ‘The Book of Negroes‘
- Jung Chang’s ‘Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China‘
I am proud of myself for setting this goal, and will be updating my progress on my Good Reads reading list and editing my blog post to reflect the books I choose!
Add me on GoodReads
Please share with me! Does a reading challenge sound like something you would be interested in? Tell me your suggestions for books you plan on reading this year, I would love to hear them, and possibly add some new ones to my list!
Happy Reading this year!
Your list overwhelms me! haha. But it’s so good and I am definitely going to have to return and reference this list to spark ideas for me. This year, I’m making it a goal to read one fiction and one nonfiction book each month. The biggest hurdle for me is purchasing the books (my husband and I travel full-time so we don’t have access to a library membership) but a few dollars a month will be worth it if I can expand my horizons by reading! 🙂
Author
Hi, Linda! It overwhelms me too! But that’s why I love it! I suggest Abebooks.com for purchasing hard copies, otherwise e-books are another option I love (my Nook has tons of books stored for a rainy day ;).
(also, can I just say how geeked I am to have my first comment! thank you!)
Love some of these suggestions. I would particularly love to read a book that was published before I was born (1986), because I hardly read any after it was mandatory in high school. Being Dutch, I haven’t read any of th eEnglish/American classics except a few in their Dutch translations.