2024 For The Love of Reading Challenge
What is this Challenge all about?
After a year long hiatus, the For The Love of Reading Challenge is back!! How exciting!! As the name suggests, this challenge is intended for us to enjoy books for the love of reading. New in 2024 is the introduction of a theme. This year, it’s “comfort” because this past year has been anything but comfortable in so many ways across the world. Yes, reading challenges are meant to push you out of your comfort zone, and while this one is designed to do that in its own way, the hope is that these prompts are easy enough that it won’t feel like homework and you still love to read. That’s why there are 12 prompts - not 50 like Popsugar or 52 like the 52 Book Club one. Reading is meant to be a way to escape into a whole new world, not be intimidating via numbers. So, prepare your favorite beverage, change into your comfy clothes, grab your reading glasses, a cozy blanket, and whatever else helps you get into the reading mentality and get comfortable in your favorite reading spot to read through these fun prompts. Feel free to leave comments for books you may want to try or suggest!
How Does This Work?
These prompts can be fulfilled at any time, whether you read everything in the first month, throughout the year, or scramble in December to read everything. I don’t suggest waiting until the end of the year because that can be stressful to rush to read 12 books, which defeats the purpose of the comfort theme.
Follow Books, Interrupted on social media. You can find the Challenge on Facebook, Goodreads or Storygraph, and Instagram.
Using the list below, match a book to each of the 12 prompts to equal 12 books total. The prompts are open to interpretation - be creative!
When January 1, 2024 rolls around, start reading! Though, anything that’s technically finished in 2024 counts even if you started reading it in 2023.
Once you’ve finished one of the prompts, check it off the list! You’ll find printables later in this post.
Then, share your read on social media and make sure to tag @booksinterrupted and use the hashtags #ForTheLoveOfReading and #ForTheLoveOfReading2024. Using those helps us find everyone.
The Goodreads group and StoryGraph challenge are new this year, and the Facebook group is slowly growing! Please join, participate, and share with friends to help this challenge community grow!!
How often you share is up to you! You can share when you start a book, during a read, once you finish and fulfill a prompt, and/or share all of your reads at the end of the month, or even just at the end of the year! Some participants chose to track their reads privately and simply follow along in the groups to find amazing recommendations. How you decide to participate is up to you - whatever is more comfortable for you!
Prompts
A book set in a country that you’d like to visit. Or perhaps it’s a country you’d like to visit again. Ideally, the majority of the book, if not all of it, will be set in this country. For example, The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor is set in Ireland, Titanic, and USA so it would not count for this prompt. Also, books with a vacation set during the book in your chosen country does not count either, but if the vacation takes up the majority of the book then it would count.
A backlist book by a favorite author. A backlist is a list of books by an author that are still in print as opposed to their new releases. Have you recently found a new favorite author? Perhaps you just read their latest release and loved it so much you want to read their other books, which means you’ll need to find their “backlist” of books and get a copy of the book. Or maybe you are already working your way through a backlist. Both count!
A book about an athlete or sport in the Olympics. This can be any sport or any athlete who plays a sport that’s in the Olympics. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an athlete who’s played in the Olympics, but props if it is! For example, The Boys In The Boat is about the 1936 Olympics Men’s Crew Team and was made into a movie that was released on Christmas Day 2023. The book I’ll likely choose for this prompt is Fast Girls: A Novel of the 1936 Women's Olympic Team.
A classic retelling. This does not have to be a classic you’ve read, though if you would like the extra challenge, feel free to do that or read both! For example, a few years ago, I read Jane Eyre and also The Wife Upstairs, which is what gave me the idea for this prompt.
A book that fulfills a favorite past challenge - this can be any challenge whether it’s this one or a different challenge like Read Women, Popsugar, 52 Book Club, or any others!
A book you meant to read in the last few years. You know, that book that’s been collecting dust on your shelf for the last few months or years? Yeah, that one. Maybe you spent some good money on it or it was gifted to you? Either way, if it had feelings, it’d be lonely and deserves to be read!! Ideally, this book will be one if you’ve been meaning to read for the last 3 years to differentiate it from prompt 12, but this is your challenge and I want you to be as comfortable as you can be with this challenge!
A book you and/or your kids loved growing up. I have fond memories of my mom reading the Laura Ingalls books to me and my brother when we were young, and I also loved the American Girl doll books. My mom also read Love You Forever to me on repeat when I was really little so something like that would count too!
A celebrity memoir. A book by a celebrity about their own story because as by definition, it’s meant to give you a deep personal insight into their life. Though, it could be written by someone close to said celebrity, which can also be something that’s ghost written.
A book featuring your favorite pet(s) or animal(s). You may have several different pets, or none at all! I’d probably pick a book featuring a dog because I have 3, but may also pick a books about horses or goats because those are my next favorite, but I don’t own either.
A book set during one of your favorite holidays. In case you haven’t noticed (and if you haven’t, you live under a rock), there are A LOT of books set during Christmas time. While this may be your favorite holiday, I intentionally phrased this prompt to be broader as there are so many different holidays throughout the year. I’m hoping to find a book set during Memorial Day or America’s Independence Day.
A book recommended by a loved one. This could be a book that they gifted you, which makes finding a copy that much easier, but it can be as simple as one that came up in conversation that you borrow from them or the library or ultimately purchase. The “loved one” part of this prompt isn’t a hard and fast rule. You may need to seek out recommendation(s), and that’s okay! Posting a question on social media works just as well, or asking your local librarian or bookseller! The person recommending can be anyone - do what works for you and makes you the most comfortable!
A book on your TBR for more than year. TBR stands for “to be read,” meaning a book that’s on your To Be Read list. This prompt is a little bit different than prompt 6 in that this one has a minimum time frame. The intention is that this prompt will get you to read something that’s been on your TBR for quite awhile. This can be a book you own, or not, and can be from a year ago or 10+ years ago!
Strategies
Take some time to figure out what you might want to read for each prompt. For example, for the first prompt, I’d like to visit India and Ireland someday so I now I know to look for books that are set in either country. I’ll post on social media - primarily my personal Facebook account, this challenge’s group, and on Instagram, and also do a Google search and then narrow it down from there. Then, I’ll make a note in my bullet journal and/or on my PDF printable for this challenge (found below!).
Check this blog often for recommendations, suggest some of your own and share your reading progress in the comments, or on social media using #ForTheLoveOfReading and #ForTheLoveOfReading2024. Don’t forget to also join the Goodreads group, Facebook group, StoryGraph, and follow on Instagram for recommendations and more interactive community fun!!
When you share on social media, be sure to share the graphics found in the next section.
2024 Challenge Downloads
Click on the links below to download your graphics to share on your socials or use to track on your own.
2024 Shareable Graphic for Posts - JPG
2024 Shareable Graphic for Stories - JPG
2024 Printable One-Pager - PDF
2024 Printable for Tracking - PDF
