2018 Reading Goals: Adding a Layer to the Challenge | #amreading

I was going through some old posts the other day and ran across my post in which I reported the results of my 2014 reading challenge. And it made me start thinking about the books I’ve already completed in 2018 and how they’d fit into those categories. So I decided it was a good idea (?!?!) to add a layer to my 2018 reading challenge. In addition to my A-to-Z-times-two challenge (two authors/books for each letter of the alphabet), I’m adding a list of categories to read to challenge myself to ensure I’m stretching myself out of my comfort zone as much as possible.

2018 Reading Challenge Categories:

1. Annual Austen
2. Book by Fellow Grad-School Alumnus
3. Classic Lit from Somewhere Other than Britain or the U.S.
4. Classic American Lit
5. Classic British Lit
6. Fantasy
7. Contemporary Fiction (non-romance)
8. General-Market Contemporary Romance
9. Inspy Contemporary Romance
10. Historical Fiction (non-romance)
11. Inspy Historical Romance
12. Lifelong Favorite (re-read)
    COMPLETED: A Wrinkle in Time
13. Contemporary Mystery
14. Historical Mystery
15. New-to-Me Non-Romance Author
    COMPLETED: Thomas Penn (The Winter King)
16. New-to-Me Romance Author
17. Nonfiction: American History
    COMPLETED: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
18. Nonfiction: Biography
    COMPLETED: Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History—without the Fairy-Tale Endings
19. Nonfiction: British History
    COMPLETED: 1066 (The Great Courses)
20. Nonfiction: Literary Criticism (loosely defined)
    COMPLETED: Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters
21. Nonfiction: Religion or Self-Improvement
22. Nonfiction: Writing/Professional Development
23. Paranormal or Horror
24. Romantic Suspense (contemporary or historical)
25. Science Fiction
26. Goodreads: Sequels to Read Board
27. Goodreads: Sounds Interesting Board
    COMPLETED: Laird of the Mist
28. Goodreads: To Read Board
    COMPLETED: Jackaby
29. Time Travel
    CURRENTLY READING: The Jane Austen Project
30. Young Adult
    COMPLETED: Leia, Princess of Alderaan

As you can see, even though it’s not quite March yet, I’ve already completed 1/3 of the list! I spent a few hours this weekend going through the books I own (mostly Kindle content, as I got rid of most of my hard-copy books when I moved) as well as the several hundred I have saved in my library wish lists—and I was able to add multiple titles for each category without having to go beyond those sources!

(And, no, I don’t include Historical Romance as a category when I do this kind of challenge . . . because I already know I’m going to read those, so it’s more of a cheat than a challenge!)

How is your reading challenge going so far? Would you be willing to add a layer to it, to add to the ‘degree of difficulty’?