Happy New Year – Reading in 2019

It’s that day of the year again, when people stumble out of their beds at high noon nursing a terrific hangover, when resolutions are made enthusiastically only to be broken soon after, along with a promise to “really make it count this year.” It is New Year’s Day, after all – that one day of the year when there is only the promise of a brighter future in the air. No matter what life throws at us during the course of the year, we never fail to herald in every new year with stars in our eyes and hearts full of hope.

A few years back came across the concept of reading challenges and i was hooked. Of course, I sign up for the Goodreads Reading Challenge every year though I have lost often, mainly because I am too lazy to log the books I have read. (Seriously, I do read a lot but am not very sincere about updating on Goodreads. I managed to do it in 2018 though. End result: 63 books read vs. my estimate of 50. Yay!) Anyway, I am digressing from the point which is that I have started taking up the Popsugar Reading Challenge for the past couple of years. I didn’t manage to finish it the first time around but am happy to say that I accomplished my goal in 2018. The challenge essentially consists of a series of prompts for books which need to be read. Taken individually, these prompts translate to around 50 books to be read in the course of one year. My final list for the 2018 challenge stands like this:

1. A book made into a movie you’ve already seen – The Fault in Our Stars
2. True Crime – The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
3. Next book in a series you started – Unlucky 13
4. A book involving a heist – Artemis Fowl
5. Nordic noir – The Snowman
6. A novel based on a real person – Three Sisters, Three Queens
7. A book set in a country that fascinates you – The Girl You Left Behind
8. A book with a time of day in the title – Shadow of Night
9. A book about a villain or antihero – Lolita
10. A book about death or grief – The Graveyard Book
11. A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym – The Right Time
12. A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist – Annie on My Mind
13. A book that is also a stage play or musical – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two
14. A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you – Everything I Never Told You
15. A book about feminism – The Handmaid’s Tale
16. A book about mental health – The Perks of Being a Wallflower
17. A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift – Me Before You
18. A book by two authors – The Last Mrs. Parrish
19. A book about or involving a sport – Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
20. A book by a local author – The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
21. A book with your favorite color in the title – The Color Purple
22. A book with alliteration in the title – Sense and Sensibility
23. A book about time travel – Outlander
24. A book with a weather element in the title – Sandstorm
25. A book set at sea – The Woman in Cabin 10
26. A book with an animal in the title – Turtles All the Way Down
27. A book set on a different planet – The Martian
28. A book with song lyrics in the title – Change of Heart
29. A book about or set on Halloween – The Rules of Magic
30. A book with characters who are twins – The God of Small Things
31. A book mentioned in another book – The Book Thief
32. A book from a celebrity book club – An American Marriage
33. A childhood classic you’ve never read – The Railway Children
34. A book that’s published in 2018 – Keepers of the Kalachakra
35. A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner – Landline
36. A book set in the decade you were born – Tell the Wolves I’m Home
37. A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn’t get to – Origin
38. A book with an ugly cover – Crocodile on the Sandbank
39. A book that involves a bookstore or library – The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
40. Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 POPSUGAR Reading Challenges – A Discovery of Witches

2018 Popsugar Advanced Reading Challenge

1. A bestseller from the year you graduated high school – The Secret Life of Bees
2. A cyberpunk book – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
3. A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place – Bombay Duck Is A Fish
4. A book tied to your ancestry – An Atlas of Impossible Longing
5. A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title – The Mango Season
6. An allegory – American Gods
7. A book by an author with the same first or last name as you – That Thing Called Love
8. A microhistory – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
9. A book about a problem facing society today – Thirteen Reasons Why
10. A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge – The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

50 books in total (whew!) and a rich variety of genres. I relied heavily on this Goodreads group for the title choices and made full use of the libraries I am a member of to accomplish this lofty goal. It was a tight finish as I finished my last book in mid-December. Along the way I discovered some absolute gems, both fiction and non-fiction. Now that it is the 1st of January, it’s time to embark upon a new challenge. If any of you reading this post would like to join me, following is a list of a few reading challenges to check out for the year 2019. Don’t forget to comment and let me know which one you chose!

2019 Popsugar Reading ChallengeReading Women ChallengeReading Challenge 2019BookRiot’s 2019 read Harder Challenge2019 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

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