I’m just stating this for fun. If you are doing any challenges, I’d love to hear what you’re reading too. For 2026, I will aim for 120 books again for the Goodreads challenge number. If the library does a challenge this year, I’ll do that. I’m also doing the Read Harder Challenge and two StoryGraph ones.

For the Read Harder Challenge for 2026, below are the categories and my intended books:

A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes - a micro-history

Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani - a book featured on a “best book covers” list

Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina - a YA book by a Latine author

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore - a novel with a main character who uses they/them pronouns

The Deviant's War: The Homosexual Vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini - a nonfiction book about resistance

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - a gothic novel published in the last ten years

Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates by Katie Barnes - a sports book by a woman, trans, or nonbinary writer

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler - a classic from the Zero to Well-Read Podcast

Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater - a romantasy book with a queer and/or BIPOC main character

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry - a book recently adapted for film, TV, or musical

Give Me a Sign by Anna Sortino - a book by a d/Deaf author

New Native Kitchen by Freddie Bitsoie - try a recipe from a cookbook about a culture whose food you’ve never eaten

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata, translated by Jocelyne Alleni - a nonfiction comic

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams - a work of magical realism or fabulism

That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones - a book by a librarian

Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu and others - a queer picture book

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell - a book about a cult or cults

The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in An Age of Machine Thinking by Shannon Vallor - a nonfiction book about AI or social media

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon - a book by an intersex author

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite - a book set in space

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi and translated by Jonathan Wright - a genre (SFF, horror, mystery, romance) book in translation

Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale - a nonviolent true crime book

Purple Hibiscus: A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - a book by an African author

We Computers: A Ghazal Novel by Hamid Ismailov and translated by Shelly Fairweather-Vega - Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat! (a historical fiction book set in an Eastern country from 2023).

Here are the books for StoryGraph’s Reads the World Challenge:

The Widow’s Husband by Tamsin Ansary - Afghanistan

A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare - Albania

A Short Tale of Shame by Angel Igor and translated by Angela Rodel - Bulgaria

Hair Everywhere by Tea Tulić and translated by Coral Petkovich - Croatia

The French Resistance by Olivier Wieviork and translated by Jane Marie Todd - France

The President’s Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli - Iraq

For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri and translated by Paul Bowles - Morocco

Djeliya by Juni Ba - Senegal

Beartown by Fredrik Backman and translated by Neil Smith - Sweden

The Lotus Flower by Love Dunn and Pintip Dunn - Thailand

And here the StoryGraph Genre Challenge:

The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction edited by Atef Abu Saif - a short story collection in translation

An indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - a nonfiction book about indigenous history

A Lady for a Duke - Alexis Hall - a queer historical romance novel

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - a translated classic

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland - a young adult novel by a Latinx author

James Baldwin by Magdalena J. Zaborowsko - a biography about a Black historical figure

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafán and translated by Lucia Graves - a crime novel set outside of the US, UK, or Canada

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do by Michael J. Sandel - a nonfiction book about philosophy

TBD - a literary or contemporary debut published in 2026

Scythe by Neil Shusterman - the first book in a fantasy series