2017 Reading Challenges:
- #LitsyAtoZ Challenge
- Pulitzer 7s Challenge
- Read Harder Challenge
- What’s in a Name? 2017
#LitsyAtoZ Challenge:
Challenge Status: COMPLETED 12/19/17
I’ve done A to Z challenges ever since I started book blogging, but these past few years, I’ve just done it solo. This year, I’m jumping back into an “official” challenge and doing #LitsyAtoZ (you can find me on Litsy as @feministtexican).
The rules: Read a book from every letter of the alphabet, going by either title, author, or a mix of both. I’m going with author. Titles in gray are tentative.
- A – The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
- B – The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
- C – Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins
- D – The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion by Meghan Daum
- E – Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories by Mariana Enríquez
- F – The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
- G – Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
- H – The Wanderers by Meg Howrey
- I – We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. by Samantha Irby
- J – Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
- K – Licking Flames: Tales of a Half-Assed Hussy by Diana Kirk
- L – March: Book One by John Lewis & Andrew Aydin; illustrated by Nate Powell
- M – Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
- N – The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- O – Norma by Sofi Oksanen
- P – True Grit by Charles Portis
- Q – Trust No Aunty by Maria Qamar
- R – Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi
- S – Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
- T – Smile by Raina Telgemeier
- U – We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories by Gabrielle Union
- V – Smoke by Dan Vyleta
- W – A Really Good Day by Ayelet Waldman
- X – Pat the Zombie: A Cruel (Adult) Spoof by Aaron Ximm
- Y – The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
- Z – We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Pulitzer 7s Challenge
Challenge Status: 2/8
This is a personal challenge that helps me break down my much larger Pulitzer Project.
The goal: read all of the Pulitzer fiction winners for the years ending in 7. No winners were chosen in 1957 and 1977.
1927 – Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
1937 – Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1947 – All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
1957 – N/A
1967 – The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1977 – N/A
1987 – A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1997 – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
2007 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2017 – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Book Riot’s Read Harder 2017 Challenge
Challenge Status: COMPLETED 12/31/17
The rules: There are 24 tasks in the Read Harder Challenge (or roughly two per month). You can tackle them in any order, make any changes, do them all in a month or spread them out over the year. Make the challenge yours! The Goodreads group for the challenge is here.
- A book about sports: Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape by Jessica Luther
- A debut novel: The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
- A book about books: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch
- A book set in and by author from Central/South America: Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories by Mariana Enríquez
- A book by or about an immigrant: In the Country We Love by Diane Guerrero with Michelle Burford
- An all-ages comic: Smile by Raina Telgemeier
- A book published between 1900 & 1950: Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)
- A travel memoir: Kinky Gazpacho by Lori L. Tharps
- A book I’ve read before: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- A book set within 100 miles of my location: Caballero by Jovita González Mireles and Eve Raleigh
- A book set 5000+ miles from my location: Year of the Elephant by Leila Abouzeid
- A fantasy novel: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
- A nonfiction book about technology: Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture ed. by Elissa Shevinsky
- A book about war: The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich
- A YA or middle grade novel by LGBTQ+ author: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
- A banned/frequently challenged book: Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
- A classic by an author of color: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
- A superhero comic with a female lead: Ms. Marvel Vol. 2 by G. Willow Wilson
- A book in which a POC goes on spiritual journey: Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Dr. Willie Parker
- A LGBTQ+ romance: Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan
- A book published by a micropress: Licking Flames: Tales of a Half-Assed Hussy by Diana Kirk
- A collection of stories by a woman: Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins
- A collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love: Selected Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva
- A book wherein all point-of-view characters are POC: Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What’s in a Name? 2017
Challenge Status: COMPLETED 12/26/17
The rules: Between January 1 and December 31, 2017, read one book in each of the following categories. These are my tentative titles:
- A title containing a number in numbers: 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
- A title containing a building: The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
- A title which has an ‘X’ somewhere in it: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
- A title containing a compass direction: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
- A title containing an item of cutlery: The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
- A title in which at least two words are alliterative: Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
