My 2022 Yearly Challenges

 2022 Nonfiction Reader Challenge

HOW IT WORKS

You can select, read and review a book from the categories listed below during the year for a total of up to 12 books; OR select, read and review any nonfiction book. A book may be in print, electronic or audio format.

Choose a goal:

Nonfiction Nipper: Read & review 3 books, from any 3 listed categories

Nonfiction Nibbler: Read & review 6 books, from any 6 listed categories

Nonfiction Nosher: Read & review 12 books, one for each category

OR

Nonfiction Grazer: Read & review any nonfiction book. Set your own goal

Categories:

1. Social History...How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith

2. Popular Science...I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

3. Language...In Other Words by Christopher J. Moore

4. Medical Memoir...Patient Zero by Lydia Kang

5. Climate/Weather...The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

6. Celebrity...The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs

7. Reference...The Happiness Dictionary: Words from Around the World to Help Us Live a Richer Life

8. Geography...An Atlas of Extinct Countries by Defoe Gideon

9. Linked to a Podcast...Don't Overthink It by Anne Bogel

10. Wild Animals...Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by F.B.M. de Waal

11. Economics...Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel

12. Published in 2022...Read Dangerously by Azar Nafisi

5/12

Welcome to the Japanese Literature Challenge, sponsored by Dolce Bellezza, now in its fifteenth year. What a joy it is to share our affection for Japanese literature together! The term ”challenge” comes from the early days of blogging, when reading challenges were set forth by so many of my blogging friends. But, this is not really a challenge; it is more of an opportunity to read and share works written by Japanese authors.

Here are a few guidelines:

• Read as many books as you like from January through March. (Even if that is ”only” one.)
• Make sure the work was originally written in Japanese.
• Choose from classic to contemporary works, whatever appeals to you.
• Leave a link here to your review so that we can visit you.

My hope is that I can read a book a month during the challenge. The books I may read are:

        * Night of the Milky Way Railway by Kenji Miyazawa (1001 Children's Books You Must Read)

        * Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein (children's picture book)

        * The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

        * How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino (MG fiction)

        * Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka (1001 Children's Books You Must Read)

The Back to the Classics Challenge has been hosted by Karen from Books and Chocolate for nine years.

"IThe Back to the Classics Challenge is a year-long challenge in which participants are encouraged to finally read the classics they've always meant to read -- or just recently discovered."

I will try to read from twelve categories in 2022. 

Here are the books I hope to read:

1. A 19th century classic. The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett.

2. A 20th century classic. Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham.

3. A classic by a woman author. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton.

4. A classic in translation. Nana by Émile Zola. 

5. A classic by BIPOC author. Native Son by Richard Wright.

6. Mystery/detective/crime classic. Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux.

7. A classic short story collection. Dubliners by James Joyce.

8. Pre-1800 classic. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

9. A nonfiction classic. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

10. A classic that's been on your TBR list the longest. Lost Horizon by James Hilton.

11. A classic set in a place you'd like to visit. First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir.

12. Wild card classic. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.

3/12

The 2022 Chapter-a-Day Read-along is hosted by Nick of One Catholic Life. In 2022, Nick is planning to read books in 2022 that I'm not interested in, so I have decided to create my own list of books.

How to Participate in the 2022 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: A Year of Classic Women Authors

• Get a copy of each of the books listed below. Or read them online. All of them are available at Project Gutenberg at the links found in the descriptions below.
• Commit to reading a chapter a day, starting on January 1, 2022. If you get behind or race ahead, no worries. As 2020 taught us so well, life happens.
• If you feel like it, highlight a line a day from the current chapter.

To recap, here is the broad outline of the year:

• Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield: January 1 to January 12 (12 chapters = 12 days)
• Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton: January 13 to February 27 (46 chapters = 46 days)
• Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: February 28 to March 6 (7 chapters = 7 days)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy: March 7 to April 6 (31 chapters = 31 days)
• Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton: April 7 to April 16 (10 chapters = 10 days)
• Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell: April 17 to May 24 (38 chapters = 38 days) 
• The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot: May 25 to July 20 (57 chapters = 57 days)
• Middlemarch by George Eliot: July 21 to October 14 (86 chapters = 86 days)
• Agnes Grey by Emily Bronte: October 15 to November 8 (25 chapters = 25 days)
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte: November 9 to December 31 (53 chapters = 53 days)

• December. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
• January. Prince Caspian.
• February. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
• March. The Silver Chair.
• April. The Horse and His Boy.
• May. The Magician’s Nephew.
• June. The Last Battle.
• July. Optional read: From Spare Oom to War Drobe by Katherine Langrish

Gum Trees and Galaxies is hosting the 2022 Nature Reading Challenge. There are no real rules; simply read as many nature books during the year as you wish.

1. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

2. The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathieson

3. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by F.B.M. de Waal

4. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

5. Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells by Helen Scales

6. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

7. My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir

8. Bird Therapy by Joe Harkness

9. How to Be a Wildflower: A Field Guide by Katie Daisy

10. Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez

11. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

12. Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World

2/12

Anne at My Head is Full of Books writes: "Prior to 2017 my priority in blogging was writing reviews for the YA books I was reading. I purposely didn't review all the adult books I read, thinking my students wouldn't be that interested in them. Now I realize that many of the books I never reviewed are some of my favorites and I really, really wish I hadn't neglected them. I keep wondering if it is possible to write reviews for books I read years ago? Well, this project will be my attempt to go back and correct the record, writing super-duper past due reviews."

I shall try to join her. I will start with books that are on my list of favorites and my list of must-reads, but which I have failed to review.

For more about Anne's project, take a look here.

1. The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers

2. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

4. Dubliners by James Joyce

5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

6. Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms by Philip Dacey

7. The World is Not Enough by Zoé Oldenbourg

8. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

9. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

10. A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

11. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

12. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2022 Discussion Challenge

Welcome to the 2022 Book Blog Discussion Challenge hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight! This challenge has been going on for seven years now, and we’re excited to keep discussing books with you!

Here’s All You Have to Do:

• Create a sign-up post announcing your intention to participate and link up below. There’s no need to say what your discussion posts will be about–just tell us you’re joining and let us know your goal. (Can be in an update post or a post with other challenges–you’re not required to make a completely separate sign-up post.)
• Please link back to both challenge hosts and include the challenge button in your sign-up posts. Feel free to also link back in your actual discussions (we appreciate it, so more people can find us!), but that’s not required.
• The challenge runs from January 1st until December 31st, 2022. Sign-ups will remain open through December 28th, 2022. So, you can basically sign up all year long. Come join us!
• Share it! The more people we get to participate in this, the more awesome discussions we can all be a part of and the more fun it will be! So, invite your friends to join us!
• On the 1st of every month, a link-up will go up on both Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight where you’ll leave your links for that month’s discussions. Every month, we’ll update this 2022 Book Blog Challenge Page with the links to that month’s Challenge linky–so you’ll always know where to find the latest link-up!
• There will also be monthly giveaways, so make sure you check in!

I plan to join in on the third Thursday of the month. 

January: The Last 2,000 Books of My Life

February: What Your Unread Books Say About You

March and April: Skipped while on vacation

2022 Support Book Bloggers Challenge involves checking off a list of tasks, all of which support other book bloggers by giving their blogs and posts attention and love. What's not to like? If you love this idea as much as I do, please click on over to Pages Unbound and sign up. It's going to be lots of fun!

1. FIND 10 BOOK BLOGGERS YOU’VE ENJOYED READING IN THE PAST AND GIVE THEM A SHOUT OUT

The shout-out can be as a blog post on your blog, a list on Twitter, or any other way you want to show them support.

1. _______________
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2. FIND 10 NEW-TO-YOU BOOK BLOGGERS TO FOLLOW

Follow 10 new book blogs. They don’t need to be new blogs, just new-to-you. Optional: write a post, create a Twitter thread, etc. sharing their URLs with others.

1. bookishmaine.com
2. Annabookbel
3. Bookish Beck
4. Hopewell's Public Library of Life
5. _______________
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3. LEAVE COMMENTS ON 10 BOOK BLOGS

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4. WRITE A POST SUPPORTING BOOK BLOGGERS

Ideas include:

• A round-up of blog links you enjoyed reading in the past week or month
• A post about why you enjoy reading book blogs in general
• A post about how other people can support book blogs
• A list of bloggers with affiliate links or ko-fi accounts that people can support

5. SHARE 10 BLOG POSTS TO SOCIAL MEDIA

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6. RESPOND TO 5 COMMENTS OTHER PEOPLE HAVE LEFT ON A BLOG

Instead of leaving a comment replying to the blog posts, try starting a discussion by replying to a comment someone else has left on another blog.

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7. WRITE A POST ABOUT BOOKS YOU’VE added to your tbr BECAUSE OF OTHER BLOGGERS

Your list can be specific (I read X book because Y blogger recommended it), or it can be more general (I read these books because they seem popular with bloggers in general).

8. FOLLOW 5 NEW BOOK BLOGGERS (LESS THAN 1 YEAR OLD)

Optional: write a post, Twitter thread, etc. sharing their URLs with others.

1. _______________
2. _______________
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9. WRITE A GUEST POST FOR A BLOG OR FEATURE A GUEST POST ON YOUR BLOG

Guests posts seem to have declined in popularity on book blogs in the past couple years, but they can be a fun way to increase your reach and introduce readers to new bloggers.

10. READ 10 BLOG POSTS AND “LIKE” THEM

This is the simplest way to support book blogs — read them! — but sometimes we get busy, and this falls by the wayside. So take the time to read 10 posts and leave a “like” is possible. Bonus: comment on them, as well.

11. LINK TO OTHER BOOK BLOGS IN FIVE OF YOUR OWN POSTS

Ideas include:

1. Creating a round-up of interesting links from other blogs
2. Writing a discussion post inspired by someone else’s and linking back
3. Linking to other bloggers’ reviews at the end of your reviews
4. Linking to another blogger’s post in a discussion post to support a point
5. Including quotes from other bloggers and linking back to them in one of your posts

12. SHARE 10 MORE BLOG POSTS TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Repetitive? Maybe. But bloggers love when other people share their posts, and they get more traffic!

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MINI CHALLENGES

Other small things you can do to boost bloggers this year:

• Comment on a book tour post. (Why: So publishers can see bloggers have an audience and these marketing posts are reaching people.)
• Comment on an author interview. (Why: These posts tend to get few comments, so commenting shows authors and publishers that people are reading them — and blogs in general.)
• Tag a publisher on social media when you retweet a 5 star review from a blogger. (Why: These posts often get little recognition from publishers.)
• Vote for book bloggers in any end-of-the year awards where “book influencers” are nominated. (Why: Usually these categories are dominated by bookstagrammers and booktubers.)
• Share your secrets to blogging “success.” (Why: We’re all in this together! If you have a great way to get traffic or comments, let others know so we can succeed as a community.)

Are you in? Sign up now at Pages Unbound!