Tis a truth universally acknowledged that in the second week of January, resolutions made in earnest over champagne toasts fizzle out like fireworks. This is the rubber meet road week, when we (or, I) start to crave structure around pledges to practice daily pilates, or “prepare healthy meals.”

The institutionally hosted reading challenge has become a popular support for those of us who wrote “read more” in our journals every December 31st. And though I have a vexed relationship with “the challenge” personally—reading being one of the few realms in my life that doesn’t foster a competitive spirit—I admire a good prompt as much as the next library goblin. 

For those of you seeking a guide to the guides, here’s a list of the year’s most popular reading challenges. Athletic prowess may vary, so I’ve taken the liberty of ranking by (brain) weight class.

Featherbrain:
StoryGraph Genre Challenge

The stalwart StoryGraph is an independent book tracking platform that’s been quietly coming for Goodreads’ corner of the sky. The site allows users to design, develop and host their own challenges. The best one for chill readers looks to be the Genre Challenge. 

The ten prompts in this challenge are broad enough to cover a big tent. You can pick up a “translated classic,” a new release, or a philosophy book to make your bingo card. Plus, ten is reasonable. I believe you personally can beat the odds and read ten books. 

Lightbrain:
Popsugar Reading Challenge

This challenge considers itself akin to a “virtual book club,” which is very sweet. Also, it’s themed! The name of the game this year is gardens. As in, growth. 

The Popsugar challenge has the benefit of pliability. There are 40 regular prompts, plus an additional ten for the “advanced” reader. I appreciate the commitment to whimsy. (See: “A book that makes you want to travel to Italy” or “A book with any type of fruit on the cover or in the title.”) This challenge makes a race look more like a stroll. 

Welterbrain:
Book Riot’s 2026 Read Harder Challenge

Now in its 12th year, this challenge has the benefit of being time-tested. Its relatively modest 26 prompts ask readers to expand their stacks into new genres. (Always a good thing.)

The Book Riot architects also place a premium on diverse writers, via prompts to read work by intersex, deaf, and/or African authors. But I also love the prompts that invite readers to challenge assumptions around genre. Like my favorite pull from the list: “Read a nonviolent true crime book.”

Heavybrain:
The 52 Book Challenge

As you can likely infer, the 52 Book Challenge is all about quantity. You sign up for this bad boy, you’re gunning for at least a book a week. 

Individual prompts can be vague on this list—see: “provokes strong emotion” or “requires suspension of disbelief”—but that’s not necessarily bad for a numbers game. There’s also a pleasant puzzly quality that can reward the type of math head reader who also loves a scavenger hunt. (See: “[a book set] in the 800s of the Dewey Decimal system” or “[a book by] two or more authors, with one pseudonym.”)

Craving some personal coaching? Chances are, your local library has a challenge of its own—and one complete with an IRL accountability group. San Luis Obispo residents, for instance, can work off an actual bingo card. Springfield readers on a time crunch can join the city’s month long winter break challenge via this handy list. 

Readers in Upper Michigan can turn reviews into prizes. And if you’re close to the Fargo Public Library you can join one of two ongoing challenges for adults.

If you’re looking for the like-minded? Identity-based challenges abound on Storygraph. My personal favorite remains the Free Black Women’s Library Reading Challenge. 

Godspeed and read. 

The post » Resolved to finish more books in 2026? Here’s your guide to the web’s best reading challenges.  appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Instead, book influencers on every platform can look forward to an influx of comments that say something like, “Some of us can’t read that much because we have full-time jobs. And children.” Some will ask, “How do you read so much?” while others will subtly — or not-so-subtly — imply that the creator didn’t really read 50 or 100 or 400 books this year.

Commenters rush in to litigate those numbers: audiobooks don’t count. And graphic novels don’t count. And romance doesn’t really count. Neither does YA. Or novellas.

Some people even make their own TikToks to reassure others that no one is reading hundreds of books by any definition: they’re all lying about it. They’re making up those numbers to brag.

If you’ve been on the bookish internet for long, you’ll realize the truth: there’s always someone reading more than you. I read about 100 books a year. By normal standards, that’s a huge amount of books. But I personally know multiple readers who get through 500+ books a year. (Yes, really.)

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There is always going to be someone out there who reads more pages per minute, who is able to set aside more time in their day, who can listen to audiobooks faster than you.

I’m always puzzled by people who think that 100 books in a year is an impossible number because I simply do not read very much. I read 30 minutes to an hour every day, sometimes more on the weekends, with a few reading marathon days throughout the year. It doesn’t require being unemployed or not having any other responsibilities in my life to achieve that number. If I truly prioritized reading, if I read anywhere near as much as I scroll on my phone or watch TV or zone out watching YouTube, that number would probably triple.

For those commenters who claim that anyone online who talks about reading more books than them must be lying, I implore you to sit with that feeling for a while. Would you think someone talking about seeing a large number of movies in a year is lying? Would you feel insecure about not watching the same number of movies? What makes reading different?

Most importantly: why do you care how much a stranger is reading? This is a hobby. We’re doing it for fun. I’m not saying that no one on BookTok has ever lied about how much they read, but is it more likely that there’s a conspiracy of bookish influencers faking their Goodreads accounts through the entire year, or that there are some people who just like reading a lot?

So this year, as you hear about other people’s reading totals for the year, remember that the rules are made up and the numbers don’t matter. It’s impossible to compare two people’s reading, between the different formats, styles, reading speeds, and more — and besides, there’s no competition here. One person reading more doesn’t mean there are fewer books for you.

If you’re one of the people who feels compelled to question others’ reading totals in monthly or yearly wrap-ups, maybe it’s time to step away from social media for a while. Try a new hobby. Might I suggest picking up a book?

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The post People Aren’t Lying About Reading. You’re Just Insecure. appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

How Would You Describe Your Year in Reading?

I’ve missed The Millions as they’ve been on hiatus this year, so I’m delighted to see their annual Year in Reading tradition continue, even if in abbreviated form. If you don’t find something new to read among the highlights from 18 contributors, I don’t know what to do for you. In a year defined by AI slop, I will always be grateful for thoughtful and wonderfully idiosyncratic reading lists from real people.

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Hot Greek Summer, Here We Come

The first official trailer for Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation of The Odyssey has dropped, and I don’t know what to say besides put it in my veins. The cast is stacked beyond belief: Matt Damon. Anne Hathaway. Tom Holland. Zendaya. Jon Bernthal. Elliot Page. Charlize Theron as Circe, and, in truly god-level casting, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. It’s a good day for book nerds when one of our best living directors gets a blank check to produce an adaptation of a ten-thousand-year-old story. You’ll know where to find me on July 16. Let’s do this.

A Reading Challenge for Audiobook Lovers

Resolution season is upon us. Expand your literary horizons with 2026 with Libro.fm’s listening challenge. Its 24 challenges like “listen to an audiobook by a disabled author,” “listen to a genre you’ve never tried before,” and “read an audiobook with a buddy” are designed to help you shake up your reading habits and discover new faves. A personal rec from me: for challenge #6, “listen to an audiobook read by the author,” check out Heartbreak by Florence Williams, which incorporates entries from the author’s audio journal and conversations with friends and experts as she sets out to both recover from her own heartbreak and simultaneously research the science of heartbreak. A true one-of-one listening experience.

What We’ve Learned Returning to the Great Books

The New Yorker‘s Jay Caspian King recently wondered, “If you quit social media, will you read more books?” It didn’t work out that way for him, so I humbly submit that he (and maybe you?) should try it the other way around: if you read more great books, you will spend less time on social media. That’s been one of the best effects of having read 14 Big Books in 14 weeks for the Zero to Well-Read podcast. More brain-on time means less mindless scrolling. I don’t have time for it, and more important, I don’t want it. Another big lesson? High school is the wrong time for most of the classics. The Great Gatsby hits different when you’ve got some life experience—some regret and disappointment, some longing, some perspective—under your belt. If it’s been a while since you checked in with the canon, I think you’ll want to check out the show.

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New Reading Rainbow Host Selected as National Library Week Honorary Chair

Librarian and new Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets is a delight and a gift to the reading world, so is it any wonder the American Library Association (ALA) selected him as Honorary Chair of National Library Week for 2026. “Find Your Joy” is the theme of the 68th annual celebration, which may sound like a Sisyphean task these days, but perhaps Threets’ picture book debut, I’m So Happy You’re Here, aligning with this year’s theme and out in February will help us achieve this lofty goal. National Library Week, “a weeklong celebration of the important role libraries and library workers play in schools and communities across the U.S.,” is set for April 19-25, 2026. Of his role and the upcoming celebration, Threets had this to say:

Celebrating libraries, thanking library workers, visiting libraries is how I find my joy. There are so many library kids and library grown-ups who have yet to fully embrace their library joy, and I am so excited for them! When they enter the world of libraries and stories, I am confident they will find not only their library joy but their courage to believe in their own story and maybe even share it with others.

A Holiday Gift Guide for Readers From Publishers Weekly

If you’re still wrestling with uncertainty over what to buy the readers in your life, Publishers Weekly has stepped in to help you out with their annual gift guide. The lists are sorted into the following categories, for your convenience: Illustrated & Art Books; Children’s & YA; Fiction, Poetry & Comics; and Nonfiction. While PW doesn’t discuss what makes these picks gift-worthy, at a glance it looks like they’re all 2025 releases and they’re highly diverse in subject matter, so an easy assumption is that these are books giftees are less likely to have read yet and that PW is trying to cover ground for all kinds of readers. Some highlights include Ursula K. Le Guin’s Book of Cats (Illustrated & Art Books), Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Children’s & YA), What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang (Fiction, Poetry & Comics), and So Many Stars by Caro De Robertis (Nonfiction). Browse the full guide and may we all be done with holiday shopping toot sweet.

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Does Less Social Media Actually Equal Reading More Books?

In a piece for The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang writes that spending less time on social media did not bring him closer to attacking the stacks and explores the broader question of what literacy looks like for a population that largely reads lots of text on screens but less books, and whether the digital world is a honing tool or a blinder for our reading lives. You won’t find solid answers here, but I agree with his point that the concept of literacy demands more nuance than we get from the doom and gloom conversations about how social media is wreaking havoc on book reading.

The Biggest Book Clubs Are Ending 2025 With These Books — Join Them!

If you want to join a party to cap off your year in reading, read along with a community or two. We’ve rounded up the last of this year’s book club picks and there are some great options from major and notable book clubs. There’s a book that seems to be on every book club’s reading list, an 18th century historical novel, and more titles for all sorts of readers. Find the list here.

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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

A Jaunt With Malala Yousafzai

Have you ever randomly wondered what Malala Yousafzai’s life looks like now? I did recently when I clocked Kristen Bell’s Joanne in Nobody Wants This (I do recommend) reading Yousafzai’s bestselling memoir, I Am Malala, for a scene. The New York Times‘ Reggie Ugwu got to spend time with the activist and youngest Nobel Peace Prize-winner whose anticipated new memoir, Finding My Way, published last week. They watched The Summer I Turned Pretty together, sat in CeLiberty Row for the W.N.B.A. playoffs, and enjoyed a Dua Lipa concert. The profile reveals the challenges and joys of being an activist often viewed as a celebrity, as well as the slew of internal tensions and conflicts such a singular person wrestles, alongside the beautiful space she’s claimed for herself as an adult. It’s a worthy and, ultimately, sweet read.

Thank Goodness He Changed the Name

I didn’t research this bit of historical trivia about the name of the real-life sea animal who inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick beyond this History Facts page because I feared the Google results, but someone decided Mocha Dick was the perfect name for an understandably destructive albino sperm whale that took out more than 20 whaling ships in the 19th century. That’s it. That’s all there is and I’ll never see that title the same again.

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Read the Cards and About This Forgotten Occult Femme

Today’s Halloween treat is deliciously occult-flavored because a deep connection between bookish folks and the occult endures. There are quests for rare occult tomes in real life and in fiction, and you do after all have to read the cards. The cards I speak of are tarot and the most famous of these is the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. But do you know the woman behind these cards? Occult scholar Arthur E. Waite commissioned Pamela Colman-Smith (Pixie, to her friends) to illustrate a tarot deck, resulting in 80 tarot illustrations. Colman-Smith’s life is the stuff of novels, with the sad ending you would expect for a woman creative surviving the early 20th Century, and her race and sexual orientation are points of research and mystery. Colman-Smith had an even more direct connection to the world of books and publishing as an illustrator of children’s books and folk tales. Read all about this artist who really does deserve more attention.

6 of the Best New Book Releases Out October 28, 2025

In more big book release chatter, Harper Lee’s newest posthumous work hit shelves. This one’s a collection of stories and essays and perhaps has less controversy attached to it than Go Set a Watchman because these are complete works. Find out more about the Lee’s latest and this week’s new books here.

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As has been tradition every year, Barack Obama shared his summer reading list on social media this week. The list showcases his usual mix of fiction and nonfiction, and it shows off an interest in both books that have been popular and some that are lesser-known. 

This year, we’ve got a couple of heavy hitters when it comes to titles already seeing critical acclaim and award talk. There’s a biography of an American literary legend, as well as a work of nonfiction that’s generated a lot of social media discourse–positive and less-so. And genre? President Obama’s got some of that in his reading life this summer, too.

Here’s the list:

The former President Obama also shared that when the Obama Presidential Center opens next year, there will be a new branch of the Chicago Public Library on site.

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Check out some of former Reader-in-Chief Obama’s past reading lists, including his 2024 summer reading list, his 2023 summer reading list, his 2022 summer reading list, and his summer 2021 reading list.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.

The post Barack Obama Releases Summer 2025 Reading List appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Is the Decline of Reading Causing Political Dysfunction?

Americans are reading less and scrolling more. Social media erodes critical thinking skills and contributes to polarization. As book people, it can be tempting to think everything would be better if everyone just read more books. Vox‘s Eric Levitz examines the the claim that the decline in reading is poisoning our politics, and while his answer isn’t the straightforward affirmative you might be hoping for, it’s exactly the kind of nuanced analysis the moment calls for. We all need to have our assumptions challenged and to be reminded that reading itself is not resistance.

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Sure, Why Not, Let’s Do Another Jane Austen Adaptation

The studios behind the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice and 2020’s Emma are running back the play one more time. Daisy Edgar Jones will star in a forthcoming adaptation of Sense and Sensibility produced by Focus Features and Working Title Films. From the marsh of Where the Crawdads Sing to Twisters to an adaptation of a an enduringly beloved classic? Hell of a glow-up for Edgar Jones.

NPR Staffers’ Favorite Books of the Year So Far

NPR hosts tend to get all the glory, so it’s fun to see this round-up of their correspondents’, editors’, and other staffers’ favorite books of 2025 so far. A lot of familiar titles—Audition, The Antidote, and The Dream Hotel among them—but some fresh selections, too. I added Liquid and Fair Play to my TBR and got the nudge I’ve been waiting for to pick up Vantage Point.

Summer Releases by Latine Authors

Book Riot’s managing editor Vanessa Diaz is here to crash your TBR with a look at summer releases by Latine authors. Subscribe to our Latine Lit newsletter for regular news, recommendations, and more.

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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

A Wealth of Summer Releases From the NYT

Between our own list of the best beach reads of all time (more on that below) and the New York Times lists of novels and nonfiction out this summer, it’s apparent that we all want you to have a great upcoming reading season. Highlights from the list of novels include a new Taylor Jenkins Reid because what’s a summer without a TJR novel, the highly anticipated Flashlight by Susan Choi and King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby and Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. And on the nonfiction list, we’ve got How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast, daughter of feminist icon Erica Jong, Blessings and Disasters by Alexis Okeowo, and The Dry Season by Melissa Febos. The good books can’t stop won’t stop and I’m pleased as punch about it. Check out the full list of novels out this summer and nonfiction out this summer.

Another Epic Fantasy Adaption Bites the Dust

Wheel of Time is saying goodbye after three seasons. Amazon’s big-budget fantasy epic based on the Robert Jordan high fantasy series saw success with high viewership in its first season, but those numbers declined while the show remained high cost. I watched part of the first season when the series was well underway and while I ultimately transferred that TV time to my favorite recent SF/F adaptation, Silo, I enjoyed the stunning visuals and was warming up to the story as a whole. It just didn’t grip me the way Silo did, perhaps because the story and characters felt too familiar. So far, nothing has seen as much success as Game of Thrones when it comes to big budget, big viewership SF/F adaptions, but we’ve got a whole host of works in the catalog to continue making attempts.

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A Summer Reading List…for the Wealthy?

In this age of oligarchs where I deeply wish wealthy tech bros would stop subjecting us to their sociopathy, I kinda don’t know what to say about this summer reading list for the wealthy. To be fair, JP Morgan simply published a summer reading list with no mention of it being for the wealthy–that’s the media’s doing. But CNBC notes that the list has “become the go-to selection of beach books for the wealthy,” so here we are. I decided to share the list because I actually don’t hate it. In fact, Book Riot’s own Jeff O’Neal was in conversation with Professor Shigehiro Oishi, author of Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life, about his book, which is a JP Morgan selection. I’m not interested in reading most of these books myself, but there’s a memoir about buried childhood trauma I’ve heard good things about and a book of photos from the NASA archives that includes essays and commentaries by interesting people like Nikki Giovanni.

The Best Beach Reads of All Time

Need a beachy read for the summer? Our whole team of editorial staff and contributors got together to curate a list of 50 of the best beach reads of all time for your summer reading list. We considered not only our personal favorites, but also the beach reads canon. We also used the broadness of the category to gather a list that, we hope, has books for just about every kind of reader. So take a gander and get your summer reading list a glow up.

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May 20, 2025, 11:16am

Today, a Bluesky user shared a photograph of what appears to be a summer reading insert published in this Sunday’s edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. The feature looks normal enough, until you actually read it and discover that only five of the fifteen books recommended by this supposedly legitimate newspaper “to deliver the perfect summer escape” are actually, um, real.

Image via ‪@rachaelking70.bsky.social‬, original credit @tbretc.bsky.social

The first ten books on this list are imaginary. The authors might be real, but the titles and descriptions are not. Needless to say, these are not mistakes that a human would make. It’s obvious that this list is AI slop. The only real question is, how did it get published?

The Chicago Sun-Times responded with versions of the same statement on multiple platforms: “We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon.”

This is pretty disheartening, especially for “the hardest-working paper in America.” There are a lot of hard-working writers out there who would be thrilled to recommend fifteen actual books for summer reading, and even more hard-working readers who don’t deserve to be cheated like this.

For the record, Literary Hub’s summer reading list will be 100% AI-free, now and forever. Keep an eye out for it next week.

Update: 404 Media’s Jason Koebler reports that the listicle was “written” by Marco Buscaglia, who admits he used AI to generate it. “I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first,” he told 404. “This time, I did not and I can’t believe I missed it because it’s so obvious. No excuses… On me 100 percent and I’m completely embarrassed.”

404 also found other evidence of AI usage in the section, which was mostly written by Buscaglia, and which appears to have been syndicated in multiple markets.

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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

24 Books to Read This Summer

Oh, how I love to see a seasonal reading list that thinks beyond frontlist! The Atlantic offers up a refreshing spin on the summer reading list with 24 recommendations that range from cult classics to buzzy new releases, one-sitting page-turners to doorstoppers that might take you the whole season to finish. R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, the virtually indisputable most-anticipated book of summer, makes an appearance, as does one of my longtime faves, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (you might think you don’t want to read a biography of cancer, but I promise you’re wrong). It’s a list with real range that—more important—understands that most readers don’t live and die by the new release shelf, and it even introduced me to a few books I hadn’t heard of before.

The Politics of Dressing an American Girl

American Girl books were a staple of my childhood in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but I’ve never thought of them as more than vehicles for selling expensive dolls. This deep dive into the making of Addy, the series’ first Black character, changed all that. Jaha Nailah Avery speaks with the series author and historians who served on the advisory board (there was an advisory board! of historians!) to explore why they chose for the first Black American Girl to be enslaved and what her clothing is meant to communicate about her life. I had no idea that such care and detail went into the planning the American Girl books, and it’s wonderful to see the folks who made it happen receive some long overdue recognition.

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