The Alternate Book Challenge-
Here is a suggestion for an alternate kind of book challenge, if the “Read Your Shelves” challenge does not sound that interesting to you. While it can be relatively easy to find a book to read on your electronic device, some of the other categories might be a bit trickier. A quick internet search for the specific type of book will yield so many titles you might be overwhelmed, and it also depends on the type of books you are drawn toward reading. Reading challenges are geared to help broaden your horizons with reading things you might not otherwise have thought of, so try a few titles or genres that seem out of your usual zone and you may be pleasantly surprised. To save you some trouble, I’ve included a few reading suggestions for some categories. Some books will fit into more than one category.
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| An adaptation of a Russian folk Tale, which would fit in the "Retelling of a Fairy Tale" category. |
1. Read a book on an electronic book reader.
If you own a Kindle, Nook, or even a mobile phone, you can add a reading app and there would be no need for an additional electronic device.
2. Read a historical fiction or non-fiction or time travel related book.
3. Read a book with a male protagonist or male author (or vice versa female protagonist and female author). The twist here is to choose the type of protagonist or author that you usually don’t regularly choose to broaden your horizons).
4. Read a book with a sword or knife depicted on the cover or about something war related (real or imaginary).
5. Read a book that is a collection of stories, all by one author or by a variety of authors.
6. Read a horror or ghost story, something spooky, boooo.
7. Read a book based on a fairy tale or a retelling/variation of a fairy tale.
8. Read a book with a number in the title.
9. Read a book with a less than 5-star rating and then make sure to write your own review of it.
10. Read a book from the perspective of a non-human or animal.
11. Read a book with a color in the book title.
12. Reader’s choice! You choose!
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| This would fit in the "Ghost Story" category. |
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| This would fit in "Historical Fiction" or also in the "War Related" category. |
A Few Books featuring Time Travel:
A Wrinkle in Time (YA classic, movie made recently) by Madeleine L’Engle (also fits female protagonist category)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Can you fall in love with your future husband when he travels back in time?) by Audrey Neffenegger (also fits female protagonist)
All our Wrong Todays (Would you stay in an alternate universe to change your life?) by Elan Mastai
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #2) by Douglas Adams (also fits male protagonist)
What the Wind Knows (travel back in time Ireland) by Amy Harmon
The Doomsday Book (travel back in time to the Black Plague) by Connie Willis (also fits female protagonist)
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (SF, comedy, time travel to try and change history by using magic) by Neal Stephenson
A Few Books featuring Historical Fiction:
Books by Jean Plaidy covering European history, royalty, Medici, War of the Roses, etc. England, France, Italy
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (WW II) (Also fits in the War/Sword on Cover category and female protagonist)
Roots by Alex Hailey
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (also has a color in the title) (also fits the Color in the Title category)
The Winter King by Bernard Cromwell (King Arthur) (male protagonist)
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
A Tale of Two Cities (classic) by Charles Dickens (Also fits the Number in the title category)
A Few Books Featuring a Sword or Knife on Cover or about War: Fiction and Non-Fiction
Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald (WWII)
Life in a Jar by Irena Sendler (WWII)
The Dairy of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (WWII)
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom (WWII)
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (WW II, jazz musician in Berlin and Paris)
What is the What by Dave Eggers (Lost Boys of Sudan) (fits male protagonist)
Night Watchman by Louise Erdich (Native American tribes in the 50’s)
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnamese War)
A Thousand Splendid Sons by Khaled Hosseini (History and Memory in Afghanistan) (Also fits Number in title category)
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Swords on Cover:
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (Fantasy, comedy)
Magic Bites by Kate Daniels (Urban Fantasy) (female protagonist)
Hounded by Kevin Hearne (Urban Fantasy) (This whole series includes a lot of Norse mythology so it could fit in the fairy tale category and in male protagonist)
Shogun by James Clavell (Japan)
Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn (Japan)
Collections of Stories
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016 Oprah book pick)
Dear Life by Alice Munro (2012)
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (2013 featuring the supernatural)
A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin (43 stories about women and their various jobs)
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
Jack London Story Collection, Writings of Rudyard Kipling, Writings of Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, (good authors for finding free titles of story collections for your kindle)
Sword and Sorceress Anthologies (21 volumes) edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley (DAW Fantasy Books) (female protagonist)
Jeffrey Ford Story Collections, The Drowned Life, The Empire of Ice Cream, and others) (Fantastic fiction)
Legends (I) (II) and (III) edited by Robert
Silverberg (Fantasy)
Spooky, Horror or Ghost Story Suggestions
Dracula by Bram Stoker (classic) (male protagonist)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly (classic) (male protagonist)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (classic) (male protagonist)
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (classic) (male protagonist)
The October Country by Ray Bradbury (SF)
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
Collections of stories by Edgar Allen Poe
Collections of stories by J. S. Le Fanu
The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (female protagonist)
Anne Rice Vampire Books
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell
Jaws by Peter Bentley
The Loch by Steve Allen
Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl (not Willy Wonka, this is for adults!)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon
Retelling or Variation of a Fairy or Folk Tale
Robin Mc Kinley books: Beauty, Rose Daughter, Spindle’s End, Deerskin (female protagonist)
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Gilbert
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Enchantment by Orson Scott Card (Ukranian Sleeping Beauty variations) (female protagonist)
East by Edith Pattou (Old Norwegian folk tales)
Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman (Norse Mythology, Vikings)
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Books with Numbers in the Title
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (SF)
The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer (male protagonist)
The 13th Tale by Diane Setterfield (female protagonist)
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
The Two Towers by J. R.R. Tolkien
12 Years as a Slave by Solomon Northup
The Big Four by Agatha Christie
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Four (Part of the Divergent Series) by Veronica Roth
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
1984 by George Orwell
Books from a Non-Human or Animal Perspective
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Fluke by James Herbert
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Books with a Color in the Title
Green Rider by Kristen Britain
Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The White Dragon by Anne Mc Caffrey
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (story collection also)
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
Jason and the Golden Fleece by Apollonius of Rhodes (fairy tale category also)
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg
Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
