So yesterday, I posted the categories and my choices for what I’m calling my “primary reading challenge.” I also mentioned that I was actually doing multiple challenges and would do a follow-up post on that today.

I was tempted to use a Who-What-Where-Why-When-How organization for this post, but actually 3 of those questions are self-evident, and the fourth is pretty darn easy to answer as well.

Who? Me. When? 2019. Where? Wherever I happen to be.

What? In addition to my main challenge categories, I’ll be reading books to cover the categories in the 2019 PopSugar and Book Riot Read Harder challenges.

See how easy that was?

The How? question is also pretty easy to answer, even though it’ll take a lot more words. My personal rules are that any book I read can count towards checking off a single category in any or all of the 3 challenge lists, so my plans totally capitalize on that by carrying most titles across multiple challenges. If I’ve tallied up my spreadsheet* correctly, I think I’ve found a way to cover these 126 compiled categories with 67 books.

Here’s the PopSugar list, with boldface indicating books that didn’t appear on yesterday’s list.

1. Becoming a movie in 2019: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
2. Makes me nostalgic: Becoming by Michelle Obama
3. Written by a musician: Mo Meta Blues by Questlove
4. Think should be turned into a movie: 11/22/63 by Stephen King**
5. 1Mil+ ratings on Goodreads: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
6. Plant in title or on cover: Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
7. Reread a favorite book: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
8. About a hobby: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
9. Meant to read in 2018: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
10. With “pop,” “sugar,” or “challenge” in the title: Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
11. Item of clothing or accessory on the cover: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
12. Inspired by mythology, legend, or folklore: Circe by Madeline Miller
13. Published posthumously: Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man by Joseph Heller
14. See someone reading on TV or in a movie: Watership Down by Richard Adams
15. Retelling of a classic: Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
16. Question in the title: Who Thought this was a Good Idea? by Alyssa Mastromonaco
17. Set on a college or university campus: Secret History by Donna Tartt
18. About someone with a superpower: Ms. Marvel, vol. 4: Last Days by G. Willow Wilson
19. Told from multiple character POVs: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
20. Set in space: The Martian by Andy Weir
21. By two female authors: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows
22. Title containing “salty,” “sweet,” “bitter,” or “spicy”: All that is Bitter and Sweet by Ashley Judd
23. Set in Scandinavia: Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
24. Takes place in a single day: Ulysses by James Joyce
25. Debut novel: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
26. Published in 2019: TBD
27. Featuring an extinct or imaginary creature: Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
28. Recommended by a celebrity I admire: Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
29. With “love” in the title: Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield
30. Featuring an amateur detective: Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
31. About a family: Wild Swans by Jung Chang
32. By an author from Asia, Africa, or South America: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
33. With a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
34. Includes a wedding: Less by Andrew Sean Greer
35. Author whose first & last names start with the same letter: Winter by Marissa Meyer
36. Ghost story: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessmyn Ward
37. Two-word title: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
38. Based on a true story: Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
39. Revolving around a puzzle or game: An Unwelcome Quest by Scott Meyer
40. Favorite prompt from past challenge: Watchmen by Alan Moore
41. Climate fiction: The Swan Book by Alexis Wright
42. “Choose-your-own-adventure”: Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North
43. #ownvoices: Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea by Sergio Ramirez
44. Read a book during the season it’s set in: Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness by Marie Turell Soderberg
45. LitRPG: Off to be the Wizard by Scott Meyer
46. No chapters/unusual chapter headings/unconventionally numbered chapters: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
47. Two books with same title, 1: Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer
48. Two books with same title, 2: Spell or High Water by ReGina Welling, Erin Lynn, et al.
49. Book that has inspired a common idiom or phrase: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
50. Set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent: Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

And, finally, here’s my choices for Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge. Again, I’m using boldface to indicate new titles that haven’t yet been listed–either yesterday, or above in the PopSugar list.

1. Epistolary novel: The Martian by Andy Weir
2. Alternate history novel: 11/22/63 by Stephen King
3. Book by a woman and/or author of color (AOC) that won a literary award in 2018: The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
4. Humour book: Less by Andrew Sean Greer
5. By a journalist or about journalism: Who Thought this was a Good Idea? by Alyssa Mastromonaco
6. By an AOC set in or about space: Binti by Nnedi Oforafor
7. An #ownvoices book set in Mexico or Central America: Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea by Sergio Ramirez
8. An #ownvoices book set in Oceania: The Swan Book by Alexis Wright
9. Book published prior to 2019 with fewer than 100 Goodreads reviews: All the Twists of the Tongue by Cathleen Allyn Conway
10. Translated book written and/or translated by a woman: House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
11. Manga: Barefoot Gen, vol. 1 by Keiji Nakazawa
12. Animal or inanimate object is POV character: Watership Down by Richard Adams
13. By or about someone that identifies as neurodiverse: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14. Cozy mystery: Let’s Play Dead by Sheila Connolly
15. Mythology or folklore: Circe by Madeline Miller
16. Historical romance by an AOC: An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
17. Business book: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
18. Trans or nonbinary author: Believe Me by Eddie Izzard
19. Nonviolent true crime: Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger by Ken Perenyi
20. Written in prison: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
21. Comic by a LGBTQIA creator: This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
22. Children’s or middle grade book that has won a diversity award since 2009: As Brave as You by Jason Reynolds
23. Self-published book: TBD
24. Collection of poetry published since 2014: Obsidian Blues by Herman Beavers

All this leaves is the question of Why? I’m doing this: the one question that doesn’t have a straightforward answer. However, it’s late, I just got home from rehearsal, and I need to get some sleep before work tomorrow. Besides, this post is already like 6 miles long or something.

Guess I’ll be explaining Why? tomorrow….

* Of course there’s a spreadsheet. Feel free to pop on over whenever you want to see how the project’s unfolding.

** Yeah: turns out it’s already been done. I don’t pay attention to Hulu, okay?!?

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Image credit: Flickr user Aaron Davis, via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.