New Year, New Reading Challenges!

2022 Book Challenges

Book Stack #1

 

For the past few years, I’ve done the Read Your Shelves book challenge, where the idea is to read books you already have, by giving you incentive to read them. It’s been an interesting and rewarding voyage, and a way to dig into the books already sitting on your shelves that can often get put aside when getting sidetracked at the library or bookstore. Also, it’s a way to de-clutter a bit and share books you don’t need or want any more with others. The stipulation is that you must already own the book before you choose it for one of the challenge books. Regular reading, e-reading and audio books also count of course, as long as you already have them before the challenge begins.

Stack #2

It’s a simple challenge, randomly pick 12 books from among your bookshelves and read one book a month for the year. Since I am at a stage in my life where I can usually read more than one book a month, I can choose another from my overflowing shelves after I finish the chosen book, or just start on the next one I picked for the challenge. The 12 books chosen for the challenge are given a place of honor on my nightstand shelf, and I like watching the pile dwindle during the year. I feel good about actually enjoying the books I own and in seeing the To Be Read stack grow shorter as the year goes by. Win-win!!

Since I have done this same challenge for at least 3 years and I find value in it, I also wanted something different to add to a book challenge this year. I found it in the Book Girls ‘Voyage Around the World’ reading challenge (Check out their web site and Facebook page for details, they have reading suggestions and other challenges posted as well.) The Voyage challenge focuses on a different section of the world every month, and by the end of the year you have -traveled around the world- with your reading. What a terrific way to enjoy your reading and learn about our big, wonderful world and all the unique people and places in it. I added a twist to my personal challenge, I tasked myself with finding a book to fit in each world destination from within my shelves, combining the two challenges into one.

My Combined Challenge List of Plan to Read Titles

(I may decide to update this list at a future date.)

Penguins in the Antarctic

 

Jan.- (Arctic/Antarctic): Shipwreck at the Bottom of the Ocean by Jennifer Armstrong/ The Bear and the Nightingale by K. Arden, The White Darkness by David Grann

Surviving photo of the Endurance voyage to the Antarctica lead by Ernest Shackleton in 1916

 

Feb.-(Europe): Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith (England), and/or Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi (Italy)

March- (Eastern Europe): People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin (a Turkish author not sure if Turkey belongs in Asia or Eastern Europe.)

 

April- (Northern Asia): The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and/or Japanland by Karin Muller, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

May- (Southern Asia): A Passage to India by E.M. Forester, In the Field of Fire (Viet Nam) ed. By Jeanne Van Buren Dann and Jack Dann

June- (Islands): Caribbean by James Michener, and/or Krakatoa by Simon Winchester, Molokai by O A Bushnell

 

July- (Australia and New Zealand): The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

August- (Middle East): The Arabian Nights, and/or The Egyptian by E. Waltari

Sept.- (Africa): Born Free, Living Free by Joy Adams, and/or The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandria Fuller

Oct.- (South America): City of Beasts by Isabel Allende

Nov.- (North and Central America): Ghosts of the Golden West by Hans Holzer, and/or Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esqivel

Dec.- (Books spanning multi-continents): The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett, and/or Cutting for Stone by Abraham Vergese