Keen Reader's 2025 Book Challenge

[KeenReader]

26th July 2025: 23 of 30 competed

✅1- YA book (young adult)
✅Apocalypse Cow

2- Takes place during a holiday or about a holiday. Any holiday.

✅3- A banned or challenged book
✅ Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
According to the Authors Guild this has been banned in various places including Hudson Falls, New York (1994), Prince William County, Virginia (1988), Lemont, Illinois (2017), Nebraska (2022), and Iowa (2023)

✅ 4- STEM ( any field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) or a character who works in or is involved with any STEM area.
✅ The Number Mysteries by Marcus du Sautoy

5- A book about a world leader or notable person(s) (living or dead)

✅ 6- A book from your TBR list or a book you own but never read.
✅ Feed by Mira Grant - I don't know exactly how long I've had this lurking on my bookshelves, but it's been there at least 10 years

✅ 7- A book published in 2025
✅ Murder at Gulls Nest - published 11 March 2025

✅8- A book that was nominated for a prize or won a book award prize. (any year, any prize)
✅Ghost Town by Kevin Chen. It won the Taiwan Literature Award in 2020

✅ 9- A book involving the Arts or character involved in the Arts
(dance, music, painter, theater, drawing, architecture, film, photography)
✅ A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr. The main character spent a month in Yorkshire (UK) restoring a medieval mural.

20- Animal, vegetable or mineral

11- Re-read a book you read before

✅112- History, Current event, or historical fiction
✅1The Familiars

✅13- A book that takes place in or is about a country you don't currently live in
✅Death and Croissants by Ian Moore. Set in France

14- ...OLOGY --- Any field of study that ends in the suffix ology. For example: psychology, sociology, archology, cardiology, dermatology, zoology, ecology, oceanology, biology, zoology etc.
Can be non fiction or a fictional character that is involved in that field.

✅ 15- A book dealing with mental health, physical disability or other health related issue
✅ Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

✅ 16- Author's Last Name begins with R, E, A or D.
✅ Karsten Dusse - Murder Mindfully

17- Self help, motivational, inspirational, spirituality, mindfulness, or communication.

✅ 18- Biography, autobiography or memoir
✅ A Kentish Lad: The Autobiography of Frank Muir

✅19- Mystery, thriller, suspense or true crime novel
✅ A Party in San Niccolo by Christobel Kent. The book focuses on a group of ex-pats living in Florence, Italy, when a crime is committed.


✅20- novella, short story collection, essays collection, or play.
✅Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories by Truman Capote

✅21- (for 2025) Select a book that was published at least 25 years ago.
✅Orlando

✅22- A book that was translated into English.
✅Valse Triste by Marcello Fois (Translated from Italian by Richard Dixon)

✅23- Travel or a journey ( could be literal or spiritual)
✅Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb

24- Bildungsroman - Coming of age

✅25- (for 2025) A book title with at least 5 words in the title. ✅Bonus if it is exactly 5.
✅A Good House for Children: Longlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award by Kate Collins

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Bonus prompts or substitution
NOT required to complete the challenge!
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1- humorous or funny book

✅2- fantasy, magical realism or science fiction
✅ The tooth fairy by Graham Joyce(A young boy wakes up and sees the tooth fairy, who has little resemblance to the flower fairies and while not exactly evil, is not entirely benign either).

✅3- A book that features water. (ocean, swimmer, lake, ship/boat or has picture of water on cover)
✅The Old Man and the Sea

✅4- Romance or love 💖
✅ Much Ado about Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin. Despite the title, this is a retelling of Persuasion

✅5- A book with a female detective
✅ Fortune Favours the Dead