A challenge of relative ease and merriment discussion

What have you read so far that fit the categories? There's no doubling up, but you can totally change categories and/or later if you want.

When you've read a book you want to count towards the challenge, feel free to add it to the group shelf. As I understand it you can't add a custom shelf without adding a book. So if you're the first one to finish a book for a specific category, make a shelf! It doesn't have to have the exact name as is on the list in the description, and you can shorten it if you want (like "female author" or "YA" etc).

I have already read books this year that fit into 5 of the categories for this Challenge. I put them in the group's bookshelves if you want to have a look. Can't wait to see what books you guys will add! :D

So the categories that I ticked off the list so far are:
written by a man
written by a woman
released before I was born
non-fiction
YA

Well done Sofie! You're off to a splendid start! :D

I'm going to wait to add some of mine I think. Cause I'm not sure what I want where. At least I have contenders for short stories, non-fiction, children's, fantastical, and I suppose romance too. And I definitely have both male and female authors down.

Let's see, I've already read something (or more than one) for:

a book written by a woman
a book written by a man
a YA book
a book for adults
a romance
a fantastical book (fantasy, sci fi, supernatural, etc)
a mystery
a book of contemporary fiction
a collection of short stories

I know I will read more than one for a lot of the categories; do you care if I stick multiple books on the shelves, or do you just want one per person? I thought multiple books might be helpful if someone was looking for ideas (like microhistory, for example).

I definitely think it's alright to put more than one book per category, because I want even more book inspiration! I might have some extra I can add there too. But I'm not the boss around here, so maybe Pocki has opinions?

Yeah, I don't want to overwhelm Pocki with books, since last year I read 80. At least you can click on the categories to narrow it down.

(I will probably have multiple books for fantastical, for sure. I have an urban fantasy problem. ;-) )

By all means, shelve away!
I will have a lot for some categories too. I mean last year I read something like 27 non-fiction books (of all kinds). And fantastical and YA tend to sneak in in decently high numbers too. And really, it's super easy to read a whole bunch of children's books!


Okay I'm going to say that as of yet I have finished:

a book for children (Leo: A Ghost Story by Mac Barnett)
a collection of short stories (The Heart of Aces by a bunch of people. I do not really recommend it)
fantastical fiction (Star Wars: Before The Awakening by Greg Rucka)

Well, I'm about to triple the short story collections, and actually all of them could count for fantastical, too. :-)

Okay you guys. It's been a few months. How's everyone doing so far?

Pocki wrote: "Okay you guys. It's been a few months. How's everyone doing so far?"

I have 5 categories left, I *think*:

- Award-winning (not sure which one I'm gonna do - if people want to list the awards they are considering, that would be interesting)
- Banned (prob. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
- Bought before 2016 (prob. Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South...I have two different nerdy copies, so I'll have to decide which one to read, haha)
- For Children (no idea yet; maybe I'll just walk the shelves at the library and see what speaks to me ;-D)
- Recommendation (prob. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita)

I have long since killed short story collections, contemporary and fantastical. LOL Those suckers are DEAD.

I am almost done! I tried to be strategic so that I have some leftover categories with decent "reach."

I still need:
-Fantastical concept (This is where "reach" comes in. I thought Parable of the Sower was going to be more fantastical, and while there is some light sci-fi/supernatural, it's really not enough that I want to use it for this category. I will use it for "Written by a woman" and read something else for this!)
-Before you were born (I am leaning toward This Perfect Day, but I wrote out a HUGE list of possibilities. I also might go for The Dead Zone. Either of these could also work for another category I need, in case I read both.)
-Written by a woman (Just have to finish Parable of the Sower.)
-Written by a man (There are so many possibilities that I'm sure I'll stumble across something I like while nailing down other categories.)

This is such a fun way to give my "what to read next" some direction! I too often end up reading a bunch of similar junk when left to my own devices.

I would love to hear how everyone else is doing!

I haven't really nailed down my choices for some of the easier categories. Like, written by a woman/man could be whatever is left over. I have plenty of both.
I did manage to cover "Before I was born" with The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee, originally released in 1981, six years before I graced this Earth.

So I'm not sure exactly what I have left of the sort of middle difficulty ones. I know YA and fantastical are covered, and non-fiction and micro history is more than half of all the books I've read this year. Contemporary is probably going to be my trickiest one tbh. And historical fiction will probably have to be a conscious choice since I will tend toward fantastical historical rather than pure history. I recently read all four books in the series Memoirs by Lady Trent (written by Marie Brennan). They have an air of historical fiction but they are very much fantastical. So if you need something for that category I can't recommend them enough! There are dragons! And science!

Oh and for award winning to answer E up there, I am thinking I'll go with Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I started listening to the audiobook on my last day of commuting so can just as well continue. And when I looked at my screen I saw that the cover proudly boasted that the book had won the Pulitzer. I was originally thinking of just reading some more genre-specific award winning book, but why not go with one of the biggest awards out there? There are so SO many tiny awards out there. Just clicking any somewhat well liked book here on Goodreads will get you some awards they've won. But hey, challenge yourself! Go for some big awards! And I suppose if you find yourself really struggling there is always our very own Goodreads Choice Awards.

Actually, when I was looking at the winners for 2015 I found this:
https://www.goodreads.com/award
That's a list of literary awards. You can pick one that sounds fun and then a book from their list of winners and tadaa!
If I don't finish Guns, Germs, and Steel I'll probably just pick something from the Hugo Awards or the Nebula Awards. Both are scifi/fantasy ones. Actually, a book I'm considering for the "recommended by someone you know" slot has won both the Hugo and the Nebula.

I kind of had a confirmation-bias-like approach to a few of the categories. . . for "award-winning," I looked through my to-read for some books that had probably won awards and checked their GoodReads page to assure that they had won something.
I was "strict" with myself on some of the categories, but if I'd wanted to read something badly enough, I think I would have allowed any award! As it was, I read Annihilation, which won the Nebula. Nebula, Hugo, Pulitzer, or Newberry would have been my preferences.

I just have to finish one of two books I'm working on, and I will be done! O_O I will lock in a book I've already finished into whichever category I don't fit with my current read, because I strategized so that it could work for multiple last categories.
One of them, The Bees, is kind of a struggle, and probably won't be the one I finish. It is definitely about a fantastical concept, but it is weird and hard to relate to. . . I can't quite give it up, though. I perversely feel like I "owe it" to the real bees of the world, especially the ones in my backyard bee tree that seem to have died. :-/
The other book I started is Looking for Alaska, which is a much easier read. I watch John Green sometimes on YouTube, and I genuinely think he intended to write a less annoying book, haha. I find it very readable, even though I already know the ending, so I will probably finish that one this weekend, if not today!

After the challenge, I will probably go on to read some of the sequels of series I started during the challenge and didn't want to burn flexible categories by reading, LOL. By choice, I took some of it very seriously!

I just got stuck in the non-fiction trap! Now with summer I will try to read more with my eyes instead with my ears and take this challenge a bit more seriously.

And wow Laura, you're working fast! Well done!
I think I started Looking for Alaska, or did I start An Abundance of Katherines? I honestly don't remember. But I apparently wasn't in the mood for John Green's writing at that point (even if I did watch a lot of Vlogbrothers stuff. Don't anymore though) I suppose I could give it another go for contemporary.

You're working much faster, in terms of books read; I just have been more challenge-focused! ^_^

Yeah, I do very much have to be in the mood for John Green. It has been a long time since I read The Fault In Our Stars, so I think I'm due for it. Every now and then, even though it's not my favorite genre, I like to take in a realistic YA novel. ^_^