2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This is my first year attempting to push myself further with my reading and catalogue my results.

Reading Resolutions
1. Plan my reading more thoroughly.
2. Don’t waste time attempting to finish books I’m just not into.
3. Catalogue my reading more efficiently.
4. Write more reviews.

Goals
Goodreads Challenge: 0/50
Popsugar Challenge:
Regular 0/40
Advanced 0/10

Rating System
★★★★★ - Absolutely loved it. Memorable read.
★★★★☆ - Excellent, really enjoyed it.
★★★☆☆ - Average. Nothing special. Likely to forget about it.
★★☆☆☆ - Just OK
★☆☆☆☆ - Really didn't like it.

2020 Statistics
Totals
★★★★★
★★★★☆
★★★☆☆
★★☆☆☆
★☆☆☆☆

Fiction 0/35
Non fiction 0/15

POPSUGAR CHALLENGE
One of the most popular reading challenges is back! The 2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge contains 40 tasks to broaden your horizons and 10 additional book prompts for the “hardcore” readers out here!

Duration: January 1st - December 31st
✔️ Read
strikethrough change of plan

Regular
1. A book that's published in 2020
If It Bleeds
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
2. A book by a trans or nonbinary author
Gender Failure
3. A book with a great first line
Rebecca
4. A book about a book club
The Prison Book Club
5. A book set in a city that has hosted the Olympics
6. A bildungsroman
Gone With the Wind
In the Castle of My Skin
7. The first book you touch on a shelf with your eyes closed
8. A book with an upside-down image on the cover
The Outsider
9. A book with a map
10. A book recommended by your favorite blog, vlog, podcast, or online book club
11. An anthology
October Country
12. A book that passes the Bechdel test
13. A book with the same title as a movie or TV show but is unrelated to it
14. A book by an author with flora or fauna in their name
The Twisted Ones - T. Kingfisher
15. A book about or involving social media
The Last Day of Jack Sparks
The Last Post
16. A book that has a book on the cover
17. A medical thriller
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
18. A book with a made-up language
A Clockwork Orange
Watership Down
19. A book set in a country beginning with "C"
King Leopoldo’s Ghost - Congo
Before Night Falls - Cuba
20. A book you picked because the title caught your attention
21. A book published the month of your birthday
August
Where the Crawdads Sing
House of Salt and Sorrows
22. A book about or by a woman in STEM
23. A book that won an award in 2019
24. A book on a subject you know nothing about
25. A book with only words on the cover, no images or graphics
The Road
Interview with the Vampire
26. A book with a pun in the title
27. A book featuring one of the seven deadly sins
Wrath - A Clockwork Orange
Greed - Dead Souls
Vanity - Paradise Lost
Gluttony - Behind the Beautiful Forever
28. A book with a robot, cyborg, or AI character
29. A book with a bird on the cover
30. A fiction or nonfiction book about a world leader
31. A book with "gold," "silver," or "bronze" in the title
The Golden Compass
Silver Witch
The Devil in Silver
32. A book by a WOC
33. A book with at least a four-star rating on Goodreads
34. A book you meant to read in 2019
35. A book with a three-word title
36. A book with a pink cover
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud
37. A Western
38. A book by or about a journalist
39. Read a banned book during Banned Books Week
40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Advanced
1. A book written by an author in their 20s
2. A book with "20" or "twenty" in the title
3. A book with a character with a vision impairment or enhancement (a nod to 20/20 vision)
4. A book set in the 1920s
5. A book set in Japan, host of the 2020 Olympics
6. A book by an author who has written more than 20 books
7. A book with more than 20 letters in its title
8. A book published in the 20th century
9. A book from a series with more than 20 books
10. A book with a main character in their 20s

AROUND THE YEAR IN 52 BOOKS
The 2020 List
Duration: January 1st - December 31st

1. A book with a title that doesn't contain the letters A, T or Y
2. A book by an author whose last name is one syllable
3. A book that you are prompted to read because of something you read in 2019
4. A book set in a place or time that you wouldn't want to live
5. The first book in a series that you have not started

6. A book with a mode of transportation on the cover
7. A book set in the southern hemisphere
8. A book with a two-word title where the first word is "The"
9. A book that can be read in a day

10. A book that is between 400-600 pages
11. A book originally published in a year that is a prime number
12. A book that is a collaboration between 2 or more people
13. A prompt from a previous Around the Year in 52 Books challenge (Link)
14. A book by an author on the Abe List of 100 Essential Female Writers (link)

15. A book set in a global city
16. A book set in a rural or sparsely populated area
17. A book with a neurodiverse character
18. A book by an author you've only read once before

19. A fantasy book
20. The 20th book [on your TBR, in a series, by an author, on a list, etc.]
21. A book related to Maximilian Hell, the noted astronomer and Jesuit Priest who was born in 1720
22. A book with the major theme of survival

23. A book featuring an LGBTQIA+ character or by an LGBTQIA+ author
24. A book with an emotion in the title
25. A book related to the arts
26. A book from the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards
27. A history or historical fiction

28. A book by an Australian, Canadian or New Zealand author
29. An underrated book, a hidden gem or a lesser known book
30. A book from the New York Times '100 Notable Books' list for any year
31. A book inspired by a leading news story

32. A book related to the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Japan
33. A book about a non-traditional family
34. A book from a genre or sub genre that starts with a letter in your name
35. A book with a geometric pattern or element on the cover

36. A book from your TBR/wishlist that you don't recognize, recall putting there, or put there on a whim
37. Two books that are related to each other as a pair of binary opposites: Book #1
38. Two books that are related to each other as a pair of binary opposites: Book #2
39. A book by an author whose real name(s) you're not quite sure how to pronounce

40. A book with a place name in the title
41. A mystery
42. A book that was nominated for one of the ‘10 Most Coveted Literary Prizes in the World’ (link)
43. A book related to one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse
44. A book related to witches

45. A book by the same author who wrote one of your best reads in 2019 or 2018
46. A book about an event or era in history taken from the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire"
47. A classic book you've always meant to read
48. A book published in 2020

49. A book that fits a prompt from the list of suggestions that didn't win (link)
50. A book with a silhouette on the cover
51. A book with an "-ing" word in the title
52. A book related to time

LISTOPIA LISTS
Duration: January 1st - December 31st

Everyone's Read It But Me
1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
3. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Best Environmental Books
1. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
2. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
3. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
4. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
5. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

Best Horror Novels
1. 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
2. Dracula by Bram Stoker
3. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
4. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
5. Ghost Story by Peter Straub

The Definitive Horror Book List
1. The Stand by Stephen King
2. I Am Legend and Other Stories by Richard Matheson
3. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three by Clive Barker
5. Hell House by Richard Matheson
6. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Best Science Books - Non-Fiction Only
1. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
2. The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking
3. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Notable Atheist Books
1. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
2. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
3. Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell
4. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
5. Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker
6. Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

Favourite Travel Books
1. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
2. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
3. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
4. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz
5. The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux

Best Books to Read When the Snow Is Falling
1. Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
2. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
3. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

GR Personal Challenge: Lou’s 50 in 2020