9 Reading Challenges to Try in 2026

A Number Only Tells You So Much

By the middle of the year, your book count tells you one of two things: you're ahead of it (which feels good) or you're behind it (which can be discouraging). What it doesn't tell you is what to read tonight.

That's the flaw in a plain number. It counts what you finish and says nothing about what actually decides your reading: what you pick up, what you avoid, and what's been sitting on your shelf since 2023. A mid-year reset fixes the size of the number (how to run one →), but not the way a challenge does – the decisions behind the number.

A challenge is one rule that changes what you choose: a decade, a genre you never touch, a shelf you have to clear first. The rule makes the decision for you. Nine to steal below. Take one.

Pick the One That Fixes Your Problem

I run on a plain number goal. Eighteen books for 2026, built from my reading speed and the two windows I read in, and I passed it in May. So take this as a menu I've researched rather than a personal recommendation.

Choose by what you're short of. Variety points at the genre challenges. Focus points at a single author, theme, or language. Fun points at bingo, or at handing the pick to someone else. A backlog points at the shelf-clearing rules.

Then compare it against your actual year, not just your best month. Twelve books from twelve countries is a great idea and a hard year if you finish eight in a normal one (the math on that →). A challenge you drop in March can cost you your reading habit, and we don't want that to happen.

9 Reading Challenges to Try

Nine rules, (roughly) ordered from easiest to start to hardest to maintain.

1. Reading Bingo. A 5×5 grid of prompts: over 500 pages, translated, published before you were born, one you already own and never opened. Fill a line, or go for the whole card. It takes ten minutes to build in a notes app, and afterwards the prompts choose for you.
2. Genre Roulette. Read a genre a month you'd usually never go for. Sci-fi in September, memoir in October, poetry in November. It breaks any default-fatigue, and it's the cheapest way to find out what else you like reading.
3. Read Your Shelf. No new books until you've read the ones you own. This is the one I'm doing for the rest of the year, with one adjustment: I freeze the buying, not the choosing. I still pick by mood from the eight books already loaded on my iPad mini. I just add nothing new until they're gone. It goes straight after the pile most of us keep reorganizing instead of reading (how to organize a TBR →).
4. Around the World. One book from a different country each month, in translation where you need it. It turns your reading year into a route, and your list of finished books turns into somewhere you've been. (As a bonus, you can also go for an even bigger challenge of reading a book from every country in the world – but that probably won't fit in just one year.)
5. Backlist Only. Read nothing published this year. New releases get marketed heavily, but the backlist is where the recommendations have already been tested by a few thousand people. It also makes this challenge cheap – by now, everything on the backlist is second-hand.
6. Read in Another Language. One book in a language you're still learning. I run this permanently: I'm German and read entirely in English, which slows my reading speed a lot – it's about 0.7 pages a minute compared to my partner's 0.9, on the same books. Still worth it, and the flipped version of this challenge is the one I'd pick next: read something in my own language for once (what a second language does to your reading →).
7. A Book a Month, Chosen by a Friend. Hand the pick to someone who knows you. The three books I remember most, even years later, were all given to me by someone close, and I'd have ignored every one of them if I'd seen them on a bookshelf somewhere (the full story →). Someone else's pick gets through filters you didn't know you had.
8. The Re-Read. Go back to a book you loved at least a couple of years ago. That way, you're not only re-reading the book, but also reconnecting with the person you were when you first read it. Mine is The Alchemist. (Why Rereading Books Is Underrated →).
9. Seasonal Readathon. One weekend a season, given to reading and nothing else. It's the only entry here that's a sprint rather than a rule, which makes it the easiest to bolt onto any of the other eight (How to Do a Readathon →).

The Alchemist

by Paulo Coelho

A shepherd chasing a recurring dream, in about two hundred pages. The book that restarted my reading after years of barely opening anything.

Est. read: 3h 38 min

Get your reading estimate →

Make It Stick: Track It

Challenges die quickly from losing the thread. The bingo card ends up in a drawer, the list sits in a notes app you stop opening, and the rule stops applying.

I failed just like that for years. My reading goal back then was a list (an Apple Books queue, an Audible shelf, an Amazon wishlist). The list grew every month, and the reading didn't. An intention with nothing recording it doesn't turn into a habit. It turns into a pile.

So make the challenge visible: a Post-it on the fridge, a list you cross off, a streak you can see. Whatever rule you pick, underneath it, it's always books plus progress (which is what a reading tracker already does for you). Log the session, watch the count move, and notice early if you fall off.

Pick One and Start This Week

You don't need all nine. One rule that makes tonight's decision for you is all it takes. Mine for the rest of the year is the buying freeze (which will be either finished or embarrassing by December).

Pick the one that sounded fun while you were reading it – that reaction is the whole selection process. Write the rule down somewhere you'll see it, and start it on the next book you open.