Reading Challenge Ideas for 2026: 15 Creative Challenges to Read More This Year | Chapterly Blog
Reading Challenge Ideas for 2026: 15 Creative Challenges to Read More This Year The classic reading challenge is simple: read a certain number of books in a year. Goodreads popularized the format, and millions of readers set annual book count goals. But the count-based challenge has a fundamental flaw. It incentivizes finishing books, not engaging with them deeply. It rewards short books over long ones and easy reads over challenging ones. The best reading challenges do more than increase your book count. They push you to read more broadly, think more deeply, and build a reading practice that enriches your life rather than just padding a number. Here are 15 reading challenge ideas that go beyond the book count, each designed to target a different dimension of your reading life. Challenges for Reading More Broadly 1. The Around-the-World Challenge Read one book by an author from each of 12 different countries, one per month. This challenge forces you out of your literary comfort zone and exposes you to perspectives, storytelling traditions, and cultural contexts you might never encounter otherwise. To make it manageable, start with countries whose literature you are curious about. Use translated works freely. The goal is geographic...