On why I created this special niche of bookish joy:

I was visiting my friend Maggie’s blog for her 30 Days of Thankfulness posts (November 2013), of which, I happily consumed today in earnest! When I noticed that she had a curious header on her blog that mentioned: Events & Read-A-Longs! I was thinking for while now that I should have a place where I could filter all my read-a-long and reading challenge posts but how to do it and how to organise it felt a bit daunting! Therefore, I am thankful she lead the way! I am going to move them away from my “Joyfully Absorbing Lit” page and store them here instead! :) You will still find my personal reading challenge for Inspirational Fiction, & the Classics Club List all have their own pages! Cheers!

{ written: 2014}

Read-A-Longs (RALs), Readathons,
and Reading Challenges

Archive of Past RALs & Challenges:

{ 2013 } { 2014 } {2015}

2017 Reading Challenges & Readathons

~ let the journey begin! +

I cannot say the years of 2013-2016 yielded the best results for what I was hoping to accomplish per reading challenge I attempted, but throughout my eagerness to read new authors & stories, I had the best of intentions at heart. I simply ran out of the hours necessary to complete the challenges per month and whilst I had twelve months in 2014 to play with, I must confess they evaporated before I could even pick up a farthing of the stories I aimed to have read! Therefore, I am re-defining this section of my blog as re-focusing on personal reading challenges with a few added challenges which truly interest me!

Invalid challenge name.

+ last year’s results (as these percolate as I read and post reviews)

Artwork Credit: Stephan Martiniere

Declaration of Intent & Journal of Challenge (WIP)

Hosted by: Stainless Steel Droppings

#SciFiExperience | Challenge

| attempting to pick-up the pieces of SFN: 2016 (<–Reading List) (after my Dad’s stroke) |

#FlightsOfFantasy Reading Challenge & Book Club:
January 1-December 31, 2017

No levels, no stress reading challenge where each reader or blogger who signs up to participate can read at their leisure throughout the year. No upfront commitments except your passion for Fantasy Literature which suited me fine! The book club component is what I was looking forward to the most, which is why I created a Riffle List to keep track of the books we’re meant to discuss and the series I will be reading during the year.

#FlightsOfFantasy | Challenge

Follow my progress with the Book Club selections via Riffle

#ModernMrsDarcy | #ReadingForGrowth | Challenge

Officially tags: #MMDchallenge and #MMDreading

Specifically seeking out:

• a Newbery Award winner or Honor book
• a book in translation
• a book that’s more than 600 pages
• a book of poetry, a play, or an essay collection
• a book of any genre that addresses current events
• an immigrant story
• a book published before you were born
• three books by the same author
• a book by an #ownvoices or #diversebooks author
• a book with an unreliable narrator or ambiguous ending
• a book nominated for an award in 2017
• a Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award winner

#ReadHarder | Challenge

OverDrive’s List of Recs for this Challenge

• Read a book about sports.
• Read a debut novel.
• Read a book about books.
• Read a book set in Central or South America, written by a Central or South American author.
• Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.
• Read an all-ages comic.
• Read a book published between 1900 and 1950.
• Read a travel memoir.
• Read a book you’ve read before.
• Read a book that is set within 100 miles of your location.
• Read a book that is set more than 5000 miles from your location.
• Read a fantasy novel.
• Read a nonfiction book about technology.R
• Read a book about war.
• Read a YA or middle grade novel by an author who identifies as LGBTQ+.
• Read a book that has been banned or frequently challenged in your country.
• Read a classic by an author of color.
• Read a superhero comic with a female lead.
• Read a book in which a character of color goes on a spiritual journey (From Daniel José Older, author of Salsa Nocturna, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, and YA novel Shadowshaper)
• Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel (From Sarah MacLean, author of ten bestselling historical romance novels)
• Read a book published by a micropress. (From Roxane Gay, bestselling author of Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, Marvel’s World of Wakanda, and the forthcoming Hunger and Difficult Women)
• Read a collection of stories by a woman. (From Celeste Ng, author Everything I Never Told You and the forthcoming Little Fires Everywhere)
• Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love. (From Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery series, including The Unquiet Dead, The Language of Secrets, and the forthcoming Among the Ruins)
• Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color. (From Jacqueline Koyanagi, author of sci-fi novel Ascension)

#DiverseReads2017 | Challenge

I’ll be referring to my Riffle List on #EqualityInLit as my views on #DiverseLit are equally as broad in scope as this reading challenge, which is why I’m wicked happy I’ve found this reading challenge this year! My own tag #EqualityInLit was inspired to offer a broader net of all the lovely books which I feel belong together and are meant to be celebrated together. You can read more of my views on this via my A to Z Challenge Essay: the World is a Melting Pot. I capped this reading challenge at 60 books which is the number of books on this Riffle List. I want to read *at least!* 60 books this year and if I could be specifically hopeful, I want to read ALL the books on this Riffle list I compiled a few years ago! However, 2017 will be marked by a healthy inclusion of #diverselit across genres, fiction and non-fiction as I start to read off-blog tours by pulling from my personal library and my local public library in a way I haven’t had the chance to explore my first 3 years as a book blogger. This is part of my personal Renaissance to transform how I blog and how I pool together my thoughts as a reader. Therefore, my personal stretch goal is to read 100 Diverse Books in 2017; to pick 40 past the first 60 to read!

These are the challenge monthly goals to seek out literature which falls into these categories. Unsure if I will be able to read and blog per month per theme/topic but I will be seeking out stories which fall into these categories as the year progresses. As technically speaking, they were already on my ‘list’ of #mustreads!

January – Stories based on/ inspired by diverse folktales/culture/mythology
February – POC/ Biracial/ Multiracial Main Character/Lead
March – Disability
April – Mental Health
May – Religious Diversity
June and July – Sexuality and Gender Identity
August – Non Western Setting
September – Ownvoices
October – Intersectionality
November – Diverse Retelling
December – 2017 Releases

#popsugarreadingchallenge | Challenge | Instagram Feed

1. A book recommended by a librarian
2. A book that’s been on your TBR for way too long
3. A book of letters
4. An audiobook
5. A book by a person of colour (PoC)
6. A book with one of the four seasons in the title
7. A book that is a story within a story
8. A book with multiple authors
9. An espionage thriller
10. A book with a cat on the cover
11. A book by an author who uses a pseudoym
12. A best seller from a genre you don’t normally read
13. A book by or about a person who has a disability
14. A book involving travel
15. A book with a subtitle
16. A book that’s published in 2017
17. A book involving a mythical creature
18. A book you’ve rad before that never fails to make you smile
19. A book about food
20. A book with career advice
21. A book from a nonhuman perspctive
22. A steampunk novel
23. A book with a red spine
24. A book set in the wilderness
25. A book you loved as a child
26. A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited
27. A book with a title that’s a character’s name
28. A novel set during war time
29. A book with an unreliable narrator
30. A book with pictures
31. A book where the main character is a different ethnicity than you
32. A book about an interesting woman
33. A book set in two different time periods
34. A book with a month o day of the week in the title
35. A book set in a hotel
36. A book written by someone you admire
37. A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017
38. A book set around a holiday other than Christmas
39. The first book in a series you haven’t read before
40. A book you bought on a trip
41. __> Advanced Suggestions: A book recommended by an author you love
42. A best seller from 2016
43. A book with a family-member term in the title
44. A book that takes place over a character’s life span
45. A book about an immigrant or refugee
46. A book from a genre/subgenre that you’ve never heard of
47. A book with an eccentric character
48. A book that’s more than 800 pages
49. A book you got from a used book sale
50. A book that’s been mentioned in another book
51. A book about a difficult topic
52. A book based on mythology

#CBAM2017 | Challenge

January: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott *no time!*
February: The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles
March: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
April: Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
May: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
June: The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville
July: Paradise Lost by John Milton
August: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
September: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
October: Angels in America by Tony Kushner
November: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
December: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë *only month I will be reading a different book: Tenant of Wildfell Hall 

#AllAboutAusten | Challenge

Challenge Level: Austen Addict (read 12 books)

1. Northanger Abbey
2. Mansfield Park
3. Persuasion
4. Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
5. Miss Darcy Falls in Love
6. Christmas at Pemberley
7. *more to follow*

Challenge

1. A book from Oprah’s Book Club
2. A historical romance by a persona of colour
3. A book published a decade after you were bourne
4. A collection of essays
5. A book over 500 pages
6. A book that’s under 100 pages
7. A romance series that has at least 3 books
8. The first book you see when you walk into a bookstore
9. An autobiography from someone in the music industry
10. A book that was adapted into a tv show
11. A book set in the Caribbean
12. A book about finance
13. A book recommended by someone you follow on Twitter
14. A book that always makes you cry
15. A book written by a celebrity

{SOURCES: Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. The Classics Club badge created by Jorie using Wildlife photography by Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story, badge edited & created in PicMonkey. Heaven is a book & a cup of tea badge provided by Squeesome Designs. The 2017 Sci Fi Experience badge featuring artwork of Stephan Martiniere is being used with permission. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge & Book Club; 2017 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge; Reading for Growth Reading Challenge, Read Harder Reading Challenge}