#readlikeme 2020
You know I love a good reading challenge. I thought maybe some of you would join me if I made one up just for us.
The premise is simple: read as many books as you can in 2020 based on these categories.
It’s called #readlikeme – the me is not me, it’s YOU.
Back to the BINGO card format, so you needn’t achieve every square to complete a challenge. Nor must you stick to boring old lines. Choose any pattern you like! You can choose a four-, five-, eight- 12- or 16-book challenge, see samples here. Feel free to make up your own pattern. Make numbers. Make your first initial. Make a zig zag. Make it completely random.
The point is to use these prompts to expand your reading in volume as well as genre, style and voice. If you don’t read any books at all, why not read one or two? If you typically read one or two, try one of the four-book challenges. If you typically read a few, go for eight or 12 or 16. If you always read the same kind of thing, try something new.
A few of the categories are cut and dry (page count, publication year, The Guardian list etc.), but many are subjective, and they are to be broadly interpreted. I can’t stress this enough. Fulfill them however you wish. Essentially, if you can make an argument that a book fits a square, it’ll count. (There are no reading challenge police!)
Sometimes you’ll have to plan in advance to find a book that fits a square. Sometimes you can simply read with abandon and be pleasantly surprised to find that a book applies to a square.
Fiction or non-fiction are both acceptable for all categories; you could finish the entire card with one or the other. I do recommend picking up the opposite of what you usually read at least once – just put a little thought into your pick and I promise, you’ll like it!
If you think this is a cinch for me, not so… these categories aren’t all “gimmes” and I’m going to have to come up with ideas same as you.
How to participate
Step 1: Read books.
Step 2: Keep track of what you read and what categories the books fulfill. Jot them on a scrap of paper, keep a list on your phone, enter them into Goodreads or your library account, or download this handy PDF.
Step 3: Chat about it! Post comments either on the blog here or on Insta. Use the hashtag #readlikeme2020.
Step 4: When you’ve completed whatever challenge you set for yourself, let me know. You can either email me your list or PDF, or submit this online form.
What you get out of it
Would you believe fame and fortune?
Well then would you settle for expanding your horizons, having fun, and the chance to talk about what you glean from all these books with your friends who will surely be impressed?
I’ll even make anyone who wishes an Instagram badge when you’re done to showcase your accomplishment.
How to find the books
Google, Amazon and Goodreads are your friends in this regard. Type what you’re looking for, let the algorithms do their magic, and try not to get lost too far down in the rabbit hole. (There’s a list for pretty much everything on Goodreads Listopia (www.goodreads.com/list), so you might want to bookmark that.) Also check bestseller lists, prize lists, best-of-year lists and upcoming lists. Check the social media feeds of libraries, bookstores and publishers. Or, y’know, actually go a library or book store. Ask your reading friends. And always feel free to ask me!
The fine print
Any book you finish reading between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 is eligible.
And by book, I mean something published in bound pages between two covers. You can read the e-book or listen to the audiobook, but the text has to exist in the world as a book. It can be from a mainstream publisher, a small press or micro-publisher, or self-published. (If it’s self-published and electronic only, that’s cool, as long as it’s book-length.) Individual articles, essays, short stories and poems do not count, but of course collections of those do.
You can decide for yourself if you’ll allow for repeats of the same book for multiple squares. I am a reading challenge purist – only one square per book. But hey, maybe you’d like the challenge of finding a book that covers as many squares as possible.
Yes, you may re-read a book that you have read before. Yes, you have to finish the book.
No, you don’t have to check off the square right away. For instance, if you read a book early in the year and find out it’s been prize listed later in the year, you can apply it to the square then. You can change your mind and move things around right up until you submit your final list.
And now… the categories:
A book of CanLit listed for a 2020 prize
Any Canadian book vying for a literary prize that will be awarded in 2020. Can be from the long list, the short list, or the eventual winner. Doesn’t matter what year the book is published, so long as it’s listed for a 2020 prize.
Here are some Canadian literary awards, with notes as to whether they include fiction or non-fiction, and the month the winners are announced (long lists usually come out two to three months before, short lists usually come out four to six weeks before):
- RBC Taylor Prize | NF |awarded March 2 (long list Dec 4, short list Jan 8)
- Canada Reads | NF/F | awarded March 20 (long list Jan 8, short list Jan 22)
- Trillium Book Awards | F |awarded June (short list May)
- Governor General’s Literary Awards (the GG’s) |NF/F | awarded October (short list early Oct)
- Toronto Book Award | NF/F | awarded October
- Canadian Jewish Literary Awards | NF/F | awarded October
- Scotiabank Giller Prize | F | awarded November (long list early Sept, short list late Sept)
- Writer’s Trust Prizes | NF/F | awarded November (short lists mid-/late Sept)
Note: While the book must be a work of CanLit, the prize does not have to be Canadian. Canadian authors also sometimes show up on international prize lists, such as the Women’s Prize for Fiction (June), International Dublin Literary Award (June) and Booker Prize (September) lists, so check those as well.
A feminist book
You needn’t necessarily read a book by Gloria Steinem or other feminist icon for this square. (Although I do recommend My Life on the Road!) It doesn’t have to be labeled “women’s studies” or marketed as “feminist” or, for that matter, even written by a woman. (Don’t @ me. Men and non-binary people can be feminists, too!) Any book of fiction or non-fiction that you think tells a story of women’s empowerment or equality or general kick-ass-ness counts.
A book by a writer of colour
This one’s been standard book challenge fare for a while. One day it won’t need to be, when the reading public automatically consumes diversely. For now, read at least one book by anyone not white.
A transgender or non-binary story
This one should be standard book challenge fare, IMO. Show our trans and non-binary friends some love. There’s an ever-growing trove of these wonderful books out there. For ideas on possible books, check out the Lambda Literary Awards and pay attention to the bookish chatter when Pride Month rolls around in June, in addition to the usual sources.
A book by a writer with a disability
This one’s becoming standard book challenge fare. It’s good to walk for a while in someone’s shoes who is different from you.
A book by an Indigenous writer
You’re starting to see a pattern here, aren’t you? What can I say, a multeity of voices and stories enriches us all. Need not be North American Indigenous, BTW.
A book with punctuation in the title
Your easiest route here is to go non-fiction, since most of them have sub-titles separated from the main title by a colon (even if the colon is not visible on the cover). Let’s count symbols, too, why not. There seems to be a deluge of books with asterisk-laden swear words in the title these days. Apostrophes, commas, question marks and exclamation marks can be found in book titles, even an ampersand or two. (The word “and” does not count as an ampersand!)
A book you found out about on social media
This has got to be the easiest of all. How else does anyone find out about anything these days? Blogs, vlogs, Facebook, Insta, Twitter, etc. – mine or anyone else’s.
A book featuring technology
Fiction or non that includes old inventions, new inventions, or seemingly impossible inventions. Wheel, steam engine, telegraph? Yes. EVs, AI, social media? Yes. Nanobots, space elevator, time travel? Yes. Smartphone, gaming or technology addiction? Yes yes yes. This one lets you run the gamut from anthropology to history to current events to chick lit to true crime to thrillers to science fiction to psychology to self-help.
A book that taught you something
If you don’t learn at least a little smidge of something from every book you read, you’re not doing it right.
A polarizing or controversial book
Oooooooh, scandalous! Polarizing or controversial can apply to the author, the subject, or the book itself. Lots to pick from in politics or religion. But it could be a book that is polarizing for literary reasons, for example if it’s one that is fiercely loved and fiercely hated with not much middle ground, or if there are prize shenanigans (cough… Nobel! Booker!) or if it’s been banned or challenged.
A book about plants
The UN has declared 2020 the year of plant health. No healthy plants on Earth = no us. You needn’t read a scientific or horticultural book for this one. Anything to do with plants, trees, flowers, forests, sustainability, agriculture, etc. counts. Your selection does not have to have an environmental focus (but it can!); try a novel or memoir about plants or flowers or people who work with them, fiction or non-fiction set in a forest, a plant-based cookbook, nature-based self-help (forest bathing anyone?), etc. (And don’t think you’re outsmarting me by reading a book by or about someone named “Plant.”)
A book over 400 pages
Be happy I didn’t say 500.
A book by one half of a writing couple
Think Joseph and Amanda Boyden, Lawrence and Miranda Hill, Esi Edugyan and Steven Price, Carol Off and Linden MacIntyre, Yann Martel and Alice Kuipfers, Stephen and Tabitha King, Barack and Michelle Obama (or other President/First Lady pairs). It’s OK if one of the pair is no longer with us, in the case of Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, or if both are gone. Divorced couples, such as Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer, are also acceptable. Never-married couples, same-sex couples, and secret (at the time) affairs of course all count – as long as it’s a romantic duo. The names above are off the top of my head; Google can direct you to even more options. Read either writer.
A book by the other half of the writing couple
Then read the other one.
A book of the Southern Hemisphere
Either set there or by an author from there.
A book with a face on the cover
Can be photographed, illustrated or abstract. It’s fine if your particular edition does not have a face on the cover if an edition exists that does. Bonus if you can pull off a #bookfacefriday!
A book published more than 50 years ago
That means prior to 1970, you math whizzes.
A western
Come along for the ride! Can be a classic western or a contemporary one. Can be of the historical, romance, horror or any other flavour that westerns come in. There are even non-fiction westerns, about the frontier experience.
A book by an established author you’ve never read
This will be someone well known in the book world, if not in the mainstream. Someone with a large-ish ouevre – more than just a couple of books under his/her/their belt.
A book written in first person
Y’know, “me, myself and I.”
A book based on a little-known true story
The book you choose can be fiction or non-fiction, as long as it’s based on a story that’s true, and that story is not a well known one. (Or rather, it wasn’t before the book hit shelves!) It could also be a hidden piece within a bigger, more famous story, so to speak. Or a biography of a person who had a big impact, but is not a household name. It’s the kind of thing that sounds obscure, but there’s really a lot out there once you start paying attention. (I’m imagining along the lines of Sex on the Moon, The Alice Network, Hidden Figures, Promised the Moon, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Home and Away, An Invisible Thread, Black Klansman, Before We Were Yours, or pretty much anything by Michael Lewis.)
One of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
I love this list from The Guardian! I love its diversity of writers and publication years. I love that it exists only a couple decades into the century, a snapshot of where we are so far. I don’t agree with the rankings necessarily (A Little Life only #96!?) but that’s also the point – to open up discussion. There’s something for everyone here, any one of these 100 will do for this square.
A book with a catchy first line
Theoretically, they should all have this, otherwise, why would you keep reading? But one that you particularly like.
I’m in!!