BookRiot Read Harder Challenge

The folks over at BookRiot have challenged readers to "Read Harder" in 2015 with a reading task list. Since the main thing I like about reading challenges is that they encourage me to read books I might not otherwise jump into this one seems like a good fit for me. I have joined the GoodReads group and will try to remember to use the #ReadHarder hashtag when posting about this. There are lots of resource lists to help find books for each task in the original BookRiot post. 

There are 24 tasks to accomplish (basically 24 books to read): 

1. A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25
2. A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65
3. A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people)
4. A book published by an indie press
5. A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ
6. A book by a person whose gender is different from your own
7. A book that takes place in Asia
8. A book by an author from Africa
9. A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture (Native Americans, Aboriginals, etc.)
10. A microhistory (the history of a specific thing, like milk or the color mauve)
11. A YA novel
12. A sci-fi novel
13. A romance novel
14. A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade
15. A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.)
16. An audiobook
17. A collection of poetry
18. A book that someone else has recommended to you
19. A book that was originally published in another language
20. A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind
21. A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure (Read, and then realize that good entertainment is nothing to feel guilty over)
22. A book published before 1850
23. A book published this year
24. A self-improvement book (can be traditionally or non-traditionally considered “self-improvement”)

My plan is to deal with these in quarterly groups, so by the end of March I should have completed 6 of them. Here is what I think I will start with:

• A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ -- Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World has been in my reading pile for way too long -- it is time to read this.
• A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure -- I don't actually believe in the concept of guilty pleasures, but the next book in the steampunk/romance series I have been reading would probably be considered a guilty pleasure by people who do buy into the concept, so I will probably count that. 
• A self-improvement book -- there is one in my TBR pile that I bought last year, its time has come.
• An audiobook -- this is an easy one as I am usually listening to one but am currently between audiobooks.
• A YA novel -- I got a beautiful boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia for Christmas, so I will start on those and accomplish this task at the same time.
• The 6th one for this quarter will be whatever I decide to read that fits a task.