A Travel Blogger’s Reading Challenge 2017

Whilst travelling, I always have a good book in tow with me. Long waits in airports, tedious plane journeys and quiet evenings sitting on balconies all call for a good book to be in my hand. I have already established what books are great reads when inspiring a sense of wanderlust in myself, but what about other genres of literary material?

How could I not write about romantic fiction? And sci-fi novels? And of course the fantasy world of Harry Potter? This post is dedicated to all of those books that just won’t fit into a wanderlust or travel inspiration post.

Last year, I embarked on a reading challenge to get myself reading more. I was finally checking off items from my never-ending ‘to-read’ list and I was being challenged by different genres that I ordinarily wouldn’t have read. This challenge saw me read 45 books throughout the year. I must confess that my reading tailed off towards October when I launched this blog, ahem other priorities called … (sorry to all you books out there, especially the really old ones)…

So, what were these 45 books?

Ready? Here we go…

1. The Time Traveller’s Wife
2. Teacher Toolkit
3. Vivien’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop
4. Churchill: A Study in Greatness
5. The Maze Runner
6. The Girl on the Train
7. Who’s That Girl?
8. The Secret
9. Death Comes To Pemberley
10. Colleen: Welcome To My World
11. US
12. A Daughter’s Secret
13. How To Be A Heroine… (or what I’ve learned from reading too much)…
14. Holly’s Inbox
15. The Jane Austen Book Club
16. Sleigh Bells in the Snow
17. Etta and Otto and Russell and James
18. Rumour Has It
19. The Simpsons Graphic Novels / Comics x9
20. The Darren Shan Saga (technically 12 books)
21. Birth of a Killer
22. Ms America and the Offing on O’ahu
23. Quidditch Through The Ages
24. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
25. The Tales of Beedle the Bard
26. Hogwarts: A Complete Unreliable Guide
27. Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists
28. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
29. Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies
30. Harry Potter Series (4 read in 2016)

My other half and I are re-reading all of the original Harry Potter novels again. We’re big Harry Potter fans as you know from our Scotland trip and from our tour of the Harry Potter Studios near London. Anyway, so we also finished the first 4 Harry Potter novels in 2016.

But I know I can do better than 45 books in a year. And okay, admittedly we’re in April already, but I still think I could tackle more than 45 good books throughout the rest of this year…

… Introducing my 2017 reading challenge

I love Popsugar’s reading challenges, so I will yet again be embarking on one of those. Interestingly this year, they have included a bonus 12 books for hard-core bibliophiles that finish the challenge before the year is up. Now, that’s a challenge!!

Right, let’s see what 2017 has in store for me and my book-loving brain…

1. A book recommended by a librarian
2. A book that’s been on your to be read list for way too long
3. A book of letters (this will totally be Lady Susan by Jane Austen)
4. An audiobook
5. A book by a person of colour
6. A book with one of the four seasons in the title
7. A book that is a story within a story
8. A book with multiple authors
9. An espionage thriller
10. A book with a cat on the cover (say, what? How random!)
11. A book by an author who uses a pseudonym (well, this has just got to be the Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling)
12. A bestseller from a genre you don’t normally read
13. A book by or about a person who has a disability
14. A book involving travel (yay, yay, yay)!
15. A book with a subtitle
16. A book that’s published in 2017
17. A book involving a mythical creature (do the Harry Potter novels count)?
18. A book you’ve read before that never fails to make you smile
19. A book about food (mmm…)
20. A book with career advice
21. A book from a nonhuman perspective (believe it or not I actually own a book told by a mouse… a mixup in the bookshop caused that)!
22. A steampunk novel
23. A book with a red spine
24. A book set in the wilderness
25. A book you loved as a child
26. A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited
27. A book with a title that is a character’s name
28. A novel set during wartime
29. A book with an unreliable narrator
30. A book with pictures (ahh, that will be some relief for my wordy brain)
31. A book where the main character is a different ethnicity to you
32. A book about an interesting woman
33. A book set in two different time periods
34. A book with a month or day of the week in the title
35. A book set in a hotel
36. A book written by someone you admire
37. A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017
38. A book set around a holiday other than Christmas
39. The first book in a series you haven’t read before
40. A book you bought on a trip

Advanced Bonus Reads

1. A book recommended by an author you love
2. A bestseller from 2016
3. A book with a family member term in the title
4. A book that takes place over a character’s life span
5. A book about an immigrant or refugee
6. A book from a genre or subgenre that you’ve never heard of
7. A book with an eccentric character
8. A book that’s more than 700 pages
9. A book you got from a used book sale
10. A book that’s been mentioned in another book
11. A book about a difficult topic
12. A book based on mythology

This year will be a little different than last year for me and this reading challenge, as I will be publishing the books I read on my blog throughout the year, reviewing what I thought of them plus which part of the challenge each book ticked off. This way, I can ensure I keep on top of the challenge (everyone loves a little bit of pressure), plus you can get some ideas of books I have loved (and hated) so that we can start a discussion. Woo! As an avid reader, that sounds amazing to me!

Right, here we go… this post is being updated each time I’ve finished a handful of books, so that you can see how I’m doing:

• #RC: Comedy, Self-Healing & A Whole Heap Of Oscar Wilde
• #RC: Celebrating Strong Independent Beautiful Women

Have you embarked on a reading challenge before? Or are you going to this year? Could we start this challenge together?

Also, do you have any recommendations for me on books I could try reading as part of this challenge? I’d love to hear from you! Just jot a note down in the comments as I’m always on the lookout for new book suggestions…

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