Reading hard during a hard year

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Today Book Riot announced its 2026 Read Harder Challenge. I look forward to this annual announcement and immediately start considering what books I might read for which challenges. Last month I finished the 2025 Read Harder Challenge, making this the eighth year in a row I've completed the 24 reading prompt challenge.

While I worked through this year's read harder challenge, 2025 proved particularly hard on all fronts—personal, professional, and health. The health challenges have not been my own but have been impacting my immediate family. 

Despite not writing any blog posts this year, I wanted to do my annual post to share the books I read for the challenge. Below are the covers of the 24 books I read and a challenge-by-challenge list follows.

Read Harder Challenge 2025

Read a 2025 release by a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) author - Written in the Waters by Tara Roberts 
* I learned about this book through Elizabeth Gilbert's Onward Book Club. There is a great interview between the two authors on the book club website. Tara writes about her experience learning to scuba dive and traveling in support of black archaeologists who document the wrecks of ships that were part of the transatlantic slave trade.      

Reread a childhood favorite book - After the Dancing Days by Margaret I. Rostkowski

Read a queer mystery - The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka 

Read a book about obsession - The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean 

Read a book about immigration or refugees - The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui 

Read a standalone fantasy book - The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle 
* When possible I like to use the read harder challenge to read classics that I've never read and this was one I've always been interested in reading. I remember fondly the animated movie adaptation from 1982.   

Read a book about a piece of media you love (a TV show, a movie, a band, etc.) - The Making of the African Queen by Katharine Hepburn
* One of the fun aspects of reading this book was that a good portion of the movie was filmed in a part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where I've actually been. I enjoyed learning about how the crew handled the logistics of filming in such remote locations.  

Read literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled author - The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor. 
* This book won the National Book Award for fiction in 1983. The opening chapter that explains the history of Brewster Place could be a stand alone piece of writing for students to study. Near the end of the book is a chapter called 'The Two' and its ending is devastating and I was a wreck. Just wanted to give a bit of a warning in case you decide to read this award-winning novel.   

Read a book based solely on its setting - If You Lived Here I'd Know Your Name by Heather Lende 

Read a romance book that doesn't have an illustrated cover - A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole

Read a work of weird horror - Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder 

Read a staff pick from an indie bookstore - Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb
* Mostly Books in Tucson, Arizona recommended this very spicy romance book by local author Sarah T. Dubb, who writes romance novels and works for the Pima County Public Library. I already owned the book so this prompt was a perfect excuse to read the book. I went to the Southeast Arizona Birding Festival in 2024 to hear Sarah talk about the book and I got her to sign my copy. I don't read a lot of romance but I enjoyed the storyline and the characters. The sex scenes though are very steamy. Just letting you know ahead of time so that you aren't reading this at a family gathering this Christmas or reading it aloud to grandma at assisted living but maybe she'll enjoy it. ;-) 

Read a nonfiction book about nature or the environment - The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan  

Read a comic in translation - Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim 

Read a banned book and complete a task on Book Riot's How to Fight Book Bans guides - Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson 

Read a genre-blending book - The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

Read a book about little-known history - Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit 
* This was probably one of my favorite books of the challenge. 

Read a 'cozy' book by a BIPOC author - The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by 

Read a queernorm book - The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Read the first book in a completed young adult or middle grade duology - The Crossover by Kwame Alexander 

Read a book about a moral panic - Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment edited by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro  
* I've read many books about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Before finding this book, I'd never heard about photographer Dorothea Lange. She is a fascinating woman and I enjoyed learning about the work she did to photograph and document what the U.S. government did to its own citizens during a time of war. I found a biography about her called Dorothea Lange: A Live Beyond Limits, which I might try to read in 2026.  

Read a holiday romance that isn't Christmas - Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot

Read a wordless comic - The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Pick a 2015 Read Harder Challenge task to complete - I selected Read a National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade - New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe

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So there it is. Another challenge complete. Now I look ahead to 2026. 

Keep Reading! Even when it's hard.  

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