Midyear - It's Not Too Late to Unshelve Using Reading Challenges

 It's not too late to use Reading Challenges to create opportunities to highlight your collection. Becky Spratford at RA for All talks about the NYT reading challenge which features ten items that are easy to complete. Read her post here. This challenge is a great one to focus on as a book display or online post. As Becky mentions in that post, you should have an adult summer reading program. One way to start is to highlight a variety of reading challenges in your displays and lists. Help your patrons complete or find a challenge. 

One thing to note in your signage is that your staff can help find titles to meet a challenge. Libraries should be the place where people come for reading suggestions. Not everyone in your community realizes that we are able to help patrons find their next great read. We need to shout that loudly and often. We know that AI suggestions are not able to provide the service that we can offer. (I have been suggested self-help after reading horror. Likely, this was an algorithm offering up something really popular.)

You can make an interactive display or post by having your readers make suggestions for a variety of prompts. Let your readers help each other. 

You can take this sort of marketing tool outside of your library and pair up with a local bookseller. They might have a book challenge of their own that you can help promote. Join with local businesses like a brewery, bakery, or coffee shop and create a local summer challenge in which you pair local fare with certain kinds of books. The businesses might be open to hosting/participating in an end of summer event for adults. 

Here are some websites with 2026 reading challenges listed. Pick a few to focus on and add suggestions to the display each month. If you have a website or blog, you can add suggestions there as well. Make sure you link to your catalog and digital collection. Create digital displays, shelves, or lists. 

Resolved to finish more books in 2026? Here’s your guide to the web’s best reading challenges. - Literary Hub

2026 Challenge Link Megathread - Reddit

Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge - Shelf Reflection 

If you search for 2026 Book Challenges, you can find a wide variety of challenges which should meet just about every readers' need. 

Book Display Idea - Annual Reading Challenge Suggestions

 If you need a good idea for a fill-in book display, you can always return to the many reading challenges that pop-up in December and January. These challenges sometimes have an overall theme based upon a genre and sometimes they are very broad. Each month, a prompt to read a certain kind of book is presented. "Read a book that takes place in [city/country]" or '"read a book There are months where readers will struggle to find a title. In addition, some readers will discover a reading challenge that they didn't know existed. This might be an idea you reserve until June when you can set it up a half way through the challenge theme. While I am on record as advising against too many signs and decorations on a display, remember to include information about the challenge and where patrons can find out more. 

Your book clubs can use these challenges for those months where there is a struggle to agree upon a title. There are challenges which focus on books by particular groups of authors such as queer authors or Black authors in addition to genre focused ones. 

These challenges are also a great way to get some attention focused on your back list. 

Here are some challenges you can use: 

• The Candid Cover has what is perhaps the most comprehensive list of reading challenges. Olivia has done a magnificent job providing a wide variety of challenges including those for kids, those on Instagram, and bingo reading challenges. 

• Goodreads has an annual challenge that may be appealing for those readers who use the site. It's centered around readers picking a goal as to how many books they will read for the year. Some find this approach invigorating and drives them to read more and some find that it just causes anxiety. You can suggest novellas or shorter non-fiction to help patrons "catch up." The Carnegie-Stout Public Library (Iowa) has their own version of this type of challenge. 

• Book Riot titles their annual challenge "Read Harder." There are 24 ideas to help readers "explore settings, characters, formats, genres, and perspectives that might be outside of your reading norms" The New York Public Library created a list of suggestions in December that you can use to springboard your own suggestions. 

• The Massachusetts Center for the Book has a reading challenge that would work for any genre of fiction as well as non-fiction. Your local consortia, county system etc can create one for you patrons as part of a larger program. 

• Pop Sugar has a popular reading challenge. There are 45 reading prompts for the year and 5 advanced prompts. This kind of challenge may appeal to those who like to gamify their reading or those looking for a challenge that allows the reader to pick from a list rather than be limited to just one.