I am procrastinating finishing my 70th book of the year so I can write about what and how I read. 

For the past 10 years, I’ve been tracking my reading in earnest. I know a lot of people don’t bother with this, but I love anything that allows me to make a list and track data in a spreadsheet so I can analyze later. Since I can’t keep things simple, I added in reading challenges which I found thanks to book bloggers. The first one I attempted was an A-Z challenge for author names which I found on Feminist Texican Reads. From there, I’d add or skip throughout the year. Aside from setting a number goal on Goodreads* for the year, I’ve done the following challenges:

• A-Z by author last name
• A-Z by title 
• Books I Own
• Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge
• Books from NPR’s 100 Must-Read for Kids 9-14  
• PopSugar Reading Challenge 
• What’s In A Name Challenge 

I keep coming back to challenges because I like them. The planning and searching process is fun as I peruse best-of lists, blogs, and bookish groups on Facebook or Goodreads. The challenge prompts nudge me to pick up a book that’s been on my to-read list for a while or discover a new author and go outside my comfort zone. I also like trying to make the challenge my own and interpret prompts creatively.  

On the other hand, it can feel like a lot. Last year I felt burned out tackling all 50 prompts of the PopSugar challenge. I was over it by the end. Reading a book just to fulfill a prompt can suck the enjoyment out of reading and I’m too stubborn to quit.

For 2024, I decided to cut back (sorta) by only doing 4 challenges:

• 70 books (Goodreads challenge)
• A-Z by author last name
• Reading Everybody Black (thanks to my friend Library Fanatic for sharing about this)
• Read Latine Lit organized by Lupita Reads who has amazing bookish content

I also added some new things:

• Choosing books at random by assigning each book a number and picking by random number generator. If I didn’t want to read the book, I just decided to remove it from my list. I only did this for the first half of the year as I had to be more intentional about book choices to fulfill the A-Z and Reading Everyone Black challenges. 
• Book club: the church I attend has a book club. I always peruse the list of books which often aligns with my interests, but never attended until this year.

A-Z by Author Challenge

Completed a couple of days ago with Helena María Viramontes’s novel Their Dogs Came with Them! I’ve done this several times now and typically have so many books on my to-read list that I only need to search for a few letters. I also have go-to authors for the hard letters like Q, U, or X.

Anzaldúa, Gloria – Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Bell, Darrin – The Talk
Collins, Suzanne – The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Danticat, Edwidge – Everything Inside
Erdrich, Louise – The Sentence
Figueroa, Jamie – Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer
Gonzales, Manuel – The Miniature Wife and Other Stories
Hayes-Bautista, David – El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition
Irby, Samantha – Quietly Hostile
Jackson, Kwana – Knot Again
Krakauer, Jon – Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Lauren, Christina – The True Love Experiment
Montgomery, Candice – By Any Means Necessary
Naumberg, Carla – How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent
Olivarez, José – Promises of Gold
Phillips, Delores – The Darkest Child
Quade, Kirstin Valdez – The Five Wounds
Ryan, Kennedy – This Could Be Us
Smith, Eric – Don’t Read the Comments
Taylor, Brandon – Filthy Animals
Umrigar, Thrity – The Space Between Us
Viramontes, Helena María – Their Dogs Came with Them
Waters, Sarah – Fingersmith
Xu, Wendy and Walker, Suzanne – Mooncakes
Yang, Kao Kalia – The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir
Zoboi, Ibi – Nigeria Jones

Goodreads Challenge

I’m almost done with my goal to read 70 books. Check our my year in books

Reading Everybody Black 

This was an A-Z challenge that you could interpret in a number of ways. For instance, A could be for author first or last name, title, genre, topic, main character, setting, etc. I generally chose books that met the challenge by author name or title. For N and Y I chose by genre, noir and young adult. I had a lot of books that were already on my to-do read list and prioritized those. 

I really liked this challenge and was happy to discover authors like S.A. Cosby, Imbolo Mbue, Aya de León, Rebekah Weatherspoon, and Brendan Slocumb whose books I really enjoyed.  I’ve already added other books by them to my to-read list.

A: Agbaje-Williams, Ore – The Three of Us
B: Bell, Darrin – The Talk
C: Cunningham, Vinson – Great Expectations
D: Williams, Denise – The Fastest Way to Fall
E: Danticat, Edwidge – Everything Inside
F: Acevedo, Elizabeth – Family Lore
G: Guillory, Jasmine – Drunk on Love
H: Hibbert, Talia – Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute
I: Mbue, Imbolo – How Beautiful We Were
J: Craft, Jerry – New Kid
K: Jackson, Kwana – Knot Again
L: Taylor, Brandon – The Late Americans
M: Montgomery, Candice – Home and Away
N: Cosby, S. A. – Razorblade Tears [noir]
O: Butler, Octavia – Parable of the Sower
P: Phillips, Delores – The Darkest Child
Q: Irby, Samantha – Quietly Hostile
R: Ryan, Kennedy – This Could Be Us
S: Morrison, Toni – Song of Solomon
T: Taylor, Brandon – Filthy Animals
U: de León, Aya – Uptown Thief
V: Slocumb, Brendan – The Violin Conspiracy
W: Wes Moore – The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
X: Weatherspoon, Rebekah – Xeni
Y: Montgomery, Candice – By Any Means Necessary [young adult]
Z: Zoboi, Ibi – Nigeria Jones

Read Latine Lit

The #ReadLatineLit challenge was simple: read at least one book by a Latine author per month. By this standard, I did not meet the challenge because I didn’t read any books by a Latine author in April, June and August but I made up for it in other months. Overall I read 20 books that fit the challenge. Based on my habits, this was a pretty easy challenge, but I added it because I wanted to promote Lupita Reads’ content and hope that readers will read and support literature by Latine authors.