Reading Women Challenge


We've been fans of reading challenges for a while now and are quite excited to get to host our own. Reading challenges are a great way to read outside your comfort zone—and you get to do it with other bookish friends!
It officially begins January 1st, 2019 and ends December 31st, 2019.

Here’s the rundown: complete as many challenges as you can from the list below. If you have one book that covers two categories, feel free to count it for both. It's not a contest. Our goal is to encourage you to read widely (and fight the patriarchy, but that was probably a given), so just have fun with it! To help cheer you on, we’ll be hosting mini giveaways along the way. 
Be sure to share your progress, use the hashtag #ReadingWomenChallenge.

Need some recommendations? Scroll to the bottom of this page for a list of resources and join the Goodreads group.

Happy reading!
A + K

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Reading Women Challenge 2019

All books read for this challenge must be by or about women.

  1. A mystery or thriller written by a woman of color

    • Check out our episode about mysteries and thrillers for some great options.

  2. A book about a woman with a mental illness

  3. A book by an author from Nigeria or New Zealand

  4. A book about or set in Appalachia

  5. A children's book

    • While it includes middle readers, this prompt does NOT include young adult (YA) literature. There is a separate prompt for that.

  6. A multigenerational family saga

  7. A book featuring a woman in science

  8. A play

  9. A novella

    • A novella is a text of written, fictional, narrative prose normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel, somewhere between 17,500 and 40,000 words.

  10. A book about a woman athlete

  11. A book featuring a religion other than your own

    • If you have no religion, then choose to read about whatever religion you like!

    • Note: The spirit of this challenge is to read books with a positive representation of a religion other than your own, so we discourage picking up a book about cults or extremist sects of larger religions for this challenge.

  12. A Lambda Literary Award winner

  13. A myth retelling

  14. A translated book published before 1945

    • While the translation can be published after 1945, the original text must have been published before 1945.

  15. A book written by a South Asian author

  16. A book by an Indigenous woman

    • This includes Native, First Nations, and Indigenous women from anywhere in the world.

  17. A book from the 2018 Reading Women Award shortlist

    • 2018 RWA Fiction Shortlist

    • 2018 RWA Nonfiction Shortlist

  18. A romance or love story

  19. A book about nature

  20. A historical fiction book

  21. A book you bought or borrowed in 2019

  22. A book you picked up because of the cover

  23. Any book from a series

  24. A young adult book by a woman of color

    • We define young adult as book targeted toward readers ages 12 - 18.

BONUS:

  • A book by Jesmyn Ward

  • A book by Jhumpa Lahiri


Other Resources


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