Reading Harder in 2018
Aside from keeping a journal, which is something I've been doing for over twenty years, reading is my most consistent habit. Since late elementary school, junior high I have pretty much always been reading something. While I love talking to others about books and giving and getting recommendations, reading for me is a solitary enjoyment. While I'm not a member of a book club, I am trying a reading challenge for the first time -- Book Riot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge.
The whole point is to challenge you to read outside of your normal preferences and get introduced to authors and formats you've maybe never heard of or considered. The 2018 challenge includes 24 categories. It is perfectly acceptable to read books that fulfill more than one challenge category but I'm working towards reading a book for each one. Just this past week I reached the halfway point...reading my twelfth book. I thought it was a good milestone that called for a book blog.
I'm approaching the challenge in a few different ways. First, I looked at the categories and checked to see if any of the books in my personal library would meet the challenge -- that took care of three so far. I read John Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven to take care of read "a book of true crime." Betty White's If You Ask Me fulfilled read "a celebrity memoir." And Sidney Poitier's The Measure of a Man checked the box on read "an Oprah Book Club selection." This could have also fit the celebrity memoir.
After looking through my personal library I looked at my Amazon "Wish List" of books I'm interested in reading. This took care of another three challenges. Michael Pollan's Second Nature: A Gardner's Education fulfilled read "a book about nature." Pollan describes covering his plants with sheets to protect them from frost: "On silvery nights like these the vegetable garden looks like a congregation of ghosts and the earth feels like it's lost its blanket; nothing stands between it and outer space. Bedsheets, a tender annual's spacesuit." I read Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others as a book on social science. And Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge introduced me to "a book with a female protagonist over the age of 60."
I turned to the Internet to search out recommended books for other categories. This lead me to Octavia Butler's Kindred for read "a sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author." I really enjoyed Butler's book, which was published in 1979. It's a similar concept to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series -- a modern black women from the 1970s travels back in time to the slave-holding South. Beautifully written and does not spare anything when it comes to describing the realities of slavery. Alyssa Cole's Civil War-era book An Extraordinary Union took care of read "a romance novel by or about a person of color" and was a really enjoyable read. And Boundless by Jillian Tamaki for read "a comic written or illustrated by a person of color."
For read "a children's classic published before 1980" I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. A book I've never read and had a lot of interest earlier this year with the movie adaptation.
I was at the library last week picking up four more books for the challenge and came across Anna Quindlen's Good Dog. Stay. A very short book -- essentially a short story -- about her beloved black lab Beau. I check it out and it easily met the criteria of read "a one-sitting book." In honor of Beau I had the boys pose for a picture with the book.
The final category of the twelve is read "an assigned book you hated (or never finished)". This was the biggest and most enjoyable surprise so far of this reading challenge. I selected Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy, a phenomenal biographical novel about the life of Michelangelo. It was an assigned book when I was in high school that I never read it. Coming in at over 750 pages is it any wonder why! I'm so grateful I revisited this book. It is definitely the most enjoyable and enriching book I've read so far this year. I learned a lot and it's really going to give new depth to our trips to Florence and Rome coming up later this year. It is a life and a talent I'm in awe of and he lived in such a historically significant time. Michelangelo lived to be nearly 90 and literally worked up until his final days. For some reason I had never pictured him as having lived such a long life. Some of the lines I copied into my journal: "For as long as art lives, man does not perish." "A man is as old as the creative force within him." "My best interests can only be my best work." I highly recommend this book!
So there they are -- the first twelve. I have five books on the shelves that will get me well towards the remaining twelve.
These will take care of read a book published posthumously (A Moveable Feast), a western (True Grit), a comic written and illustrated by the same person (Fun Home), an essay anthology (Best American Travel Writing) and a mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author (Rubyfruit Jungle). If you have any recommendations on a book with a cover you hate or the first book in a great young adult/middle grade series please leave a comment below.
Happy reading!
The whole point is to challenge you to read outside of your normal preferences and get introduced to authors and formats you've maybe never heard of or considered. The 2018 challenge includes 24 categories. It is perfectly acceptable to read books that fulfill more than one challenge category but I'm working towards reading a book for each one. Just this past week I reached the halfway point...reading my twelfth book. I thought it was a good milestone that called for a book blog.
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| My 2018 Reading Challenge List |
After looking through my personal library I looked at my Amazon "Wish List" of books I'm interested in reading. This took care of another three challenges. Michael Pollan's Second Nature: A Gardner's Education fulfilled read "a book about nature." Pollan describes covering his plants with sheets to protect them from frost: "On silvery nights like these the vegetable garden looks like a congregation of ghosts and the earth feels like it's lost its blanket; nothing stands between it and outer space. Bedsheets, a tender annual's spacesuit." I read Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others as a book on social science. And Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge introduced me to "a book with a female protagonist over the age of 60."
I turned to the Internet to search out recommended books for other categories. This lead me to Octavia Butler's Kindred for read "a sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author." I really enjoyed Butler's book, which was published in 1979. It's a similar concept to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series -- a modern black women from the 1970s travels back in time to the slave-holding South. Beautifully written and does not spare anything when it comes to describing the realities of slavery. Alyssa Cole's Civil War-era book An Extraordinary Union took care of read "a romance novel by or about a person of color" and was a really enjoyable read. And Boundless by Jillian Tamaki for read "a comic written or illustrated by a person of color."
For read "a children's classic published before 1980" I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. A book I've never read and had a lot of interest earlier this year with the movie adaptation.
I was at the library last week picking up four more books for the challenge and came across Anna Quindlen's Good Dog. Stay. A very short book -- essentially a short story -- about her beloved black lab Beau. I check it out and it easily met the criteria of read "a one-sitting book." In honor of Beau I had the boys pose for a picture with the book.
The final category of the twelve is read "an assigned book you hated (or never finished)". This was the biggest and most enjoyable surprise so far of this reading challenge. I selected Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy, a phenomenal biographical novel about the life of Michelangelo. It was an assigned book when I was in high school that I never read it. Coming in at over 750 pages is it any wonder why! I'm so grateful I revisited this book. It is definitely the most enjoyable and enriching book I've read so far this year. I learned a lot and it's really going to give new depth to our trips to Florence and Rome coming up later this year. It is a life and a talent I'm in awe of and he lived in such a historically significant time. Michelangelo lived to be nearly 90 and literally worked up until his final days. For some reason I had never pictured him as having lived such a long life. Some of the lines I copied into my journal: "For as long as art lives, man does not perish." "A man is as old as the creative force within him." "My best interests can only be my best work." I highly recommend this book!
These will take care of read a book published posthumously (A Moveable Feast), a western (True Grit), a comic written and illustrated by the same person (Fun Home), an essay anthology (Best American Travel Writing) and a mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author (Rubyfruit Jungle). If you have any recommendations on a book with a cover you hate or the first book in a great young adult/middle grade series please leave a comment below.
Happy reading!
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