Create Your Own Reading Challenge

You know those reading challenges on the internet? The ones that say things like “Read a book with the word ‘whimsical’ in the title” or “Read a book with 257.8 pages” or “Read a book with a puce cover”? If you’re the sort of person who likes that sort of thing, keep reading.

If you’re not the sort of person who likes that sort of thing, just scroll all the way down and click the button at the bottom of this post to go straight to the Keep.

Anyway, have you ever thought of making your own reading challenge? Why not? You don’t have to share it with anyone. You just have to tailor it to your own interests. Simply select one of the following methods:

The Favorite Word Method

This method involves choosing some of your favorite words or phrases. Make a list of words you find cool, decide how many books you want to read in the course of a year, and seek out titles with the words in them. You’re done!

Feeling stuck? Here are some words to get you started:

1. Whimsical
2. Excellent
3. Astounding
4. Noodles
5. The (What? It’s a word, and it gives you lots of options!)
6. Fluorescent
7. Effervescent

If you want an added challenge, randomly choose a word out of a dictionary, and find a book with that word in the title. This is not for the faint of heart.

The Cover Design Method

This method involves choosing a visual theme of some sort, and then proceeding to select books based on their covers’ relation with that theme. Basically, go out and judge those books by their covers!

Here are some examples:

1. A book with clouds on the cover. (Notice that “clouds” is plural. One cloud simply won’t do here.)
2. A book with something gold on the cover. (Note: If the title of the book is written in gold, that counts. However, if the word “gold” is written on the cover, but it is not written in gold, then that does not count.)
3. A book with absolutely no polka-dots on the cover.
4. A book with a cover that makes you remember your last vacation with fondness.

The Page Number Method

This method involves selecting books by the number of pages they have, just so long as you remember that page count doesn’t matter when it comes to story quality.

This method is quite simple.

1. A book with at least 451 pages, but not more than 679 pages.
2. A book with 512.5 pages.
3. A book with a page count that is divisible by 12.
4. A book with so many pages that just looking at it makes you say, “Wow!”

And there you have it! Simply choose one or more of these methods, and you can create your own reading challenge. There are many other methods as well, which I will explain about in future posts. But for now, click the button below, and go to the Keep!