With the start of a new year brings the start of my quest – to read dangerously.
What does reading dangerously mean? To me, it means to take on challenges and hold myself accountable to keep them. This year, I’ve set myself up to complete three different challenges and they are as follows:
- Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge 2019
- Reading Woman’s Reading Challenge
- Our Shared Shelf Book Club Selections
That’s 3 challenges, 54 books, and one year to complete them.
I’ve chosen these specific reading challenges for a few reasons:
- Diversity: All three challenges (and yes, I’m calling Emma Watson’s OSS Book Club a challenge) promote reading diversity. That’s diversity in gender, race, subject, and genre. Pretty much we’re reading across the map here.
- Book Selection: Each of these challenges necessitates reading book selections outside of my normal comfort zone (that being subjects, genres, authors I love). Each challenge offers the opportunity for me to find a book that I normally wouldn’t have come across or picked up on my own.
- Quantity: These challenges present the chance to challenge myself with a long reading list. I have 54 books I have to read in one year. That’s slightly more than one book a week. This is a tall order, but if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be reading dangerously!
A few caveats: while the amount of books each challenge proposes equal 54, I will most likely be doubling up on a few (i.e. a few of my books will work for categories on different reading challenges). So, ultimately, it might not end up equaling 54 books. However, this does not mean I’ve shirked my duty and found a loophole. I still plan to read that many books, perhaps even more, since I am not limiting myself to reading just for these challenges. I reserve the right to read a few things for pleasure here and there!
So there you have it: my year of reading dangerously. Let me know in the comments what your own personal reading challenges are, or if you’re planning on doing one (or more!) of the challenges I’ve listed above.
And, as always, happy reading – and if you’re going to be reading, don’t forget to read dangerously!
