Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2018

I do two types of challenges/read-a-thons through the year. Some are easy; they’re about genres or types of books I tend to read any way. Others are more of a true challenge, pushing me outside of my usual zone, and sometimes those lead me to amazing books that I might not have picked up on my own. The Nonfiction Reading Challenge hosted at Doing Dewey falls into the second category. I think I only read 2 nonfiction books last, both faith-related, and I think I’d like to make it a point this year to read more. This will definitely be the last of my year-long challenges though.

From Doing Dewey:

Suggested Goals

Rather than suggest particular levels for this challenge, I’ve got a couple ideas for different nonfiction reading goals you could set for yourself.

• Read X nonfiction books
• Read X% nonfiction
• Read nonfiction in certain categories – I’ve put together checklists for reading diversely and for reading one book for each century in the Dewey Decimal system, or you could make your own
• Read X books from a list, such as buzzfeed’s important nonfiction you should be reading, the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, or any of these goodreads lists

Let me know if there are other types of goals you’d suggest and I’ll add them to the list. However you decide to motivate your nonfiction reading this year, I’ve got a few fun events for challenge participants. Join in as few or as many as you like 🙂

Giveaway

First, if you share a sign-up post in the link-up below by Jan 15th, you’ll get one entry in a giveaway at the end of the year just for signing up. And anyone who has signed up here, will also get one giveaway entry for every nonfiction review they share in my weekly Nonfiction Friday link-up. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be giving away yet, but I’m learning towards a bunch of my favorite nonfiction books I read in 2018 (otherwise it’ll be a gift card).

Twitter Chats

I’ll be hosting three twitter chats for participants to get to know each other throughout the year. They will be

• Jan 14th at 1pm EST/10am PST – Introductions, how you’re planning your challenge, what books you’re most excited to read, etc
• June 17th at 1pm EST/10am PST – check in, how’s your challenge going, favorite book read so far, any changes to your plans, etc
• Dec 16th at 1pm EST/10am PST – wrap-up, how did it go, favorite books read, any changes in how you feel about nonfiction, etc

Times are tentative and subject to change, especially if I hear from many challenge participants that the currently scheduled times don’t work for them.

Quarterly Group Reads

Every quarter, all challenge participants will be invited to vote on a group read. Voting will take place in early January, April, July, and October. This will give us all one nonfiction book we know other people will be reading, so we can hopefully get some good discussion going on our reviews. I’ll also try to find some discussion questions online or post some myself to get us all thinking. Let me know in the comments if you have any nominations for our first group read!

Sign-Ups

Link-up your sign-up posts here! Let us know that you’ll be joining in and what kind of reading goals you’re setting for yourself. Sign-ups are open through Jan 15th.

My goal is 6 books, preferably in different categories. I’m going to try to participate in the group reads and read a couple on my own. First up will be On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. I’m not sure what else will be on my list.

Update: The challenge hashtag is #NonFicReads18