1. Goodreads Goal - I'm happy to report that I have far surpassed my initial goal of reading 52 books. In fact, I finished my 52nd book (The Joy of Leaving Your S*it All Over the Place by Jennifer McCartney) on May 7.
2. Poetry365 - I've been consistent with posting a new poem every day! I recently checked the #LitsyPoetry365 hashtag on Litsy, and I think I'm the only person who's still going with this challenge.
3. Litsy A to Z - So. I'm still committed to reading through my Penguin Drop Caps, which was my original challenge, but I'm not as far along as I thought I'd be at this point. We're in the 7th month of 2017, and I've only read 4 out of the 26 in the collection. There's still plenty of time, so I'm not quite at DEF CON 1 (or am I).
4. Litsy Reading Challenge - For this one, I was randomly generated a BINGO-type card, and had to read books that fit the different criteria. You could "complete" this challenge any number of ways, but I want to push myself and read a book for every space.
I'm happy with my progress, but there are still quite a few categories left to complete:
- Starts with Z - I have no ideas...
- Non-Fiction about Food/Drink - I'm planning to pick up a copy of Bianca Bosker's Cork Dork to read when I'm out in CA Wine Country this autumn
- 2016 Award Winner - I have a copy of Paul Beatty's The Sellout, which won the Man Booker prize in 2016, on my shelf. I just need to get to it.
- Set in the 1970's - This is a decade I don't read about very often, so I'm looking for ideas...
- Person of Color Memoir - Roxane Gay's memoir Hunger is on my hold list at the library!
- Freezer-Worthy Horror - Admittedly, I don't read much in the "horror" genre (I don't like being scared by fiction), but I have Mary Shelley's Frankenstein on my TBR, so I may choose that to meet this challenge.
5. Book Riot's "Read Harder" Challenge
There are a whopping 24 tasks on this reading adventure, and so far I've completed 19 of them. These are the remaining items, and what I'm considering as possible books:
- Read a Book About Sports - I'm not up for The Sport of Kings (my initial choice) at this point, so a more manageable option might be 10 Speed Press' Women in Sport: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win by Rachel Ignotofsky
- Read a Book That is Set Within 100 Miles of Your Location - Every year, on Christmas Eve eve, I re-read 2AM at The Cat's Pajamas, which is set in Philadelphia, right around the 100 mile mark, so I'm setting that as my challenge read.
- Read a Book That Has Been Banned or Frequently Challenged in Your Country - I'm doing a re-read of The Handmaid's Tale in conjunction with watching the Hulu series once all of the episodes have been released. I'm going to binge the whole thing over a weekend, if I can handle it.
- Read a Book Published By a Micropress - I'm struggling with finding micropresses, let alone books published by them, so any suggestions are welcomed!
- Read a Collection of Poetry in Translation on a Theme Other Than Love - I recently aquired a collection of translated poetry from Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, which should fulfill this requirement perfectly.
And that's all of my challenges. I think I'm in a pretty good place, except perhaps with Litsy A to Z. I still have a bunch of big books (Great Expectations, Moby Dick) on that list, but I'm staying positive about being able to complete them all by New Year's Eve. How are you doing on your reading challenges? Any recommendations for my remaining challenge tasks?
Librorum annis,
