Reading Women Challenge
It’s time for the 2020 Reading Women Challenge! Reading challenges are a great way to read outside your comfort zone—and you get to do it with other bookish friends! The 2020 challenge officially begins January 1st, 2020 and ends December 31st, 2020.
Here’s the rundown: complete as many challenges as you can from the list below. If you have one book that covers two categories (or more!), 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!
Be sure to share your progress, useing 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!
Reading Women Challenge 2020
All books read for this challenge must be by or about women.
(Please note that the spirit of this challenge is to read books that aren’t by men.)
A Book by an Author from the Caribbean or India
Authors from these countries’ diaspora are included in this prompt.
A Book Translated from an Asian Language
Bonus if the translator is a woman!
A Book about the Environment
There are so many great books out there about environmentalism and our environment. Have a look on our Goodreads group for some stellar recommendations.
A Picture Book Written/Illustrated by a BIPOC Author
BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. For more information on the acronym, visit thebipocproject.org.
A Winner of the Stella Prize or the Women’s Prize for Fiction
A Nonfiction Title by a Woman Historian
A Book Featuring Afrofuturism or Africanfuturism
Africanfuturism is defined by Nnedi Okorafor on her website.
Afrofuturism is often defined as “a way of imagining possible futures through a black cultural lens” (Ingrid LaFleur).
You can find out more about Afrofuturism in Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-fi and Fantasy Culture by Ytasha L. Womack.
Examples include N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy, Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden, Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree Thomas, My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due, Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord, and Black from the Future edited by Stephanie Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle.
We’ll be discussing Afrofuturism in as our theme for February (2020), so stay tuned!
An Anthology by Multiple Authors
Your choice for this prompt can be any type of literature—short stories, essays, poetry, plays, etc.— as long as it’s written by a group of different authors.
All of the authors do not have to be women.
Bonus points if the editor is a woman.
A Book Inspired by Folklore
Any country or culture’s folklore works!
A Book about a Woman Artist
For this prompt, we are focusing on women visual artists, like sculptors, painters, potters, etc.
Read and Watch a Book-to-Movie Adaptation
A Television Show or Mini-series is fine too.
If you typically use audio description tracks with movies/film, but can't find one for the book-to-film adaption you're looking for, listening to a radio drama adaption will count for this challenge.
A Book about a Woman Who Inspires You
A Book by an Arab Woman
Authors from the diaspora are included in this prompt.
A Book Set in Japan or by a Japanese Author
Authors from the diaspora are included in this prompt.
A Biography
A biography is an account of someone's life written by someone else. This isn’t to be confused with autobiography or memoir.
Bonus points if the biography is written by AND about a woman. :)
A Book Featuring a Woman with a Disability
This includes any kind of disability, whether from mental illness, learning disabilities, or physical conditions.
A Book Over 500 Pages
A Book Under 100 Pages
A Book That’s Frequently Recommended to You
A Feel-Good or Happy Book
This is completely up to interpretation—just pick a book that brings you joy!
A Book about Food
Both cookbooks and food writing work for this challenge.
A Book by Either a Favorite or a New-to-You Publisher
A Book by an LGBTQ+ Author
A Book from the 2019 Reading Women Award Shortlists or Honorable Mentions
BONUS
A Book by Toni Morrison
A Book by Isabel Allende
Other Resources
Reading Women Podcast Episode Show Notes - Search the show notes of our past episodes (here's a secret, most of the categories are a variation on last year's episodes). They're organized by theme, so it should be pretty easy to zero in on the category you're looking to fill.
Guest Blog Posts - A great resource for international fiction.
Join the Reading Women Goodreads group for a wealth of recommendations and to chat with others about what you're reading.
If you don't find what you're looking for, feel free to send us a message.