Find Your Next Favorite Read in 10 Years of Read Harder Challenges!
Can you believe this year is the 10th Read Harder Challenge? We’ve been doing them since 2015! There have been a whole lot of tasks in that time—240, to be exact—which means there are a lot of options for the final task of the 2024 Read Harder Challenge: Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat.
This may be the easiest task on the list; between all those previous years of tasks, you’ve probably completed at least one accidentally this year. It’s also one of my favorite tasks, because there’s so much flexibility, and it’s a good excuse to take a trip down memory lane. Below, I’ve selected a task from each year and a recommendation for a book that completes it.
This is the last recommendation post I have for the 2024 Read Harder Challenge, but we have still have lots more excitement coming before the end of the year: I want to check in with you about your favorite books you’ve read for the challenge this year, and the 2025 Read Harder Challenge will be announced in December. In the meantime, some of us still are still aiming to squeeze in a few more tasks before the year ends!
2015: A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
These books are delightful because the amateur sleuth who solves the crimes is an 11-year-old girl who lives in a decaying mansion in 1950s England. Her name is Flavia de Luce and she’s reviled by her older sisters and ignored by pretty much everyone else, which leaves her time for her hobby: learning about poisons. In this book, Flavia must use her wits to clear her father of a crime. —Liberty Hardy
(This book was published in 2009, when Alan Bradley was 71.)
2016: Read a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Moon of the Crusted Snow is a post-apocalyptic novel set in a small northern Anishinaabe community. When the power goes out, so do the phones and the internet, leaving this community completely isolated. This is a quiet apocalypse, as they struggle to adapt to the sudden change, especially when the food supply begins to run out and strangers start to arrive. It recently got a sequel: Moon of the Turning Leaves! —Danika Ellis
2017: Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
Former best friends-turned-partners Theo and Kit (both bisexual) are now estranged exes. Years after their painful breakup, both use expiring vouchers for a tour across Europe they never took and discover they’ve been placed in the same group.
To lighten up the trip, they start a casual hookup competition…but what happens when they realize who they really want to be with and that it may be too late? Queer chaos, that’s what. —CJ Connor
2018: A book of colonial or postcolonial literature
Islands of Decolonial Love by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
This collection of short stories by Canadian Nishnaabeg writer and activist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson follows a wide spectrum of Indigenous characters in small towns, cities, and reserves. Simpson’s writing is one of a kind, a mix of prose and poetry that explores how communities survive and thrive even in the face of continued oppression. She is also a musician and has released an album of the same name. —Kathleen Keenan
2019: A book of nonviolent true crime
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Kirk Johnson was fly fishing when he was told a wild story by his guide. There was an American orchestral musician on tour in England who broke into a natural history museum to steal hundreds of old bird skins. Why? To use the feathers to make old-fashioned Victorian ties for fly fishing, which was his obsession. That was all the guide knew about the theft. But Johnson became so captivated by this tale and determined to find out what happened to the musician and the skins he stole that he wound up investigating it himself. —Liberty Hardy
2020: Read a retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, or myth by an author of color
James by Percival Everett
Percival Everett reimagines The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s point of view in this action-packed take on the American classic. When Jim hears he is about to be sold away from his wife and daughter, he hides out on Jackson Island, where he soon runs into young Huck Finn. The two set off on a raft down the Mississippi River on a quest to reach the elusive promise of the Free States. It’s very much like the story you know, but Everett imbues Jim with all the intelligence and agency he always deserved to have. —Rachel Brittain
2021: Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love
This is one of my personal favorite nonfiction books about anti-racism. Love details the ways in which racism and intersectional oppression permeate the structure of our schools. Illustrated with anecdotes from her experience as a Black child and later as a teacher of Black and Brown children, the book presents research in a practical way. Ultimately, Love posits that “education can’t save us—we have to save education.” —Mikkaka Overstreet
2022: Read a book set in a bookstore
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
A haunted bookstore, a stolen manuscript, and a woman formerly imprisoned for stealing a dead body take center stage in this incredible new story from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louise Erdrich. Books and fiction are absolutely central to this novel. They’re what helped Tookie survive prison and what she does for a living now. She also believes it’s a book that killed the former bookshop regular now haunting her. Erdrich herself even makes a fictionalized appearance in the book.
Fair warning: this book deals quite heavily with the start (and progression) of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S. as well as the murder of George Floyd and police protests. —Rachel Brittain
2023: Read a nonfiction book about intersectional feminism
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
A number of books about women and anger have been published recently—a fact which should surprise no one! Eloquent Rage is one of the best of these. Here, Brittney Cooper looks at the power of anger to motivate and inspire women, particularly Black women, to keep fighting oppression. The book contains personal essays on a range of subjects, each one looking at the ways Black women’s anger is both justified and powerful. —Rebecca Hussey
What book are you reading for this task? Let’s chat in the comments!
Check out all the previous 2024 Read Harder posts here.
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