Yesterday I talked about how my challenges went for 2025. Today I will outline some of my challenges for 2026. I say “some” because there are a few that would be hard to track here, which I will explain later.

Yes, of course, I will always do my GoodReads challenge. This year, since my reading has been very inconsistent as of late, I am only challenging myself to read 52 books. One book per week is very doable and I’ll most likely read quite a few more than that, but I want to take things easy this year.

They also have other challenges that unlock throughout the year, which I discovered late last year and missed out on a bunch. I’ll describe those as I do them this year.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This challenge was so much fun last year that I decided to do it again this year and read all the winners of the GoodReads Awards. Here is a list of them:

• Best Fiction: My Friends by Fredrik Backman
• Best Historical Fiction: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Best Mystery/Thriller: Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
• Best Romance: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
• Best Romantasy: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
• Best Fantasy: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
• Best Science Fiction: The Compound by Aisling Rawle
• Best Horror: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
• Best Debut: Alchemised by SenLinYu
• Best Young Adult: Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
• Best Nonfiction: Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
• Best Memoir: The House of My Mother by Shari Franke
• Best History/Biography: How to Kill a Witch by Zoe Veditozzi & Claire Mitchell

Two winners have been excluded from my list: Best Audiobook went to Onyx Storm, which was already a winner in the Romantasy category, and Best YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi was Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, which I’ve already read. Everything else is brand new to me, even most of the authors.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bringing back Beat the Backlist to try and whittle down my ever growing TBR. I don’t think I’m going to shoot for a specific number, but one of the things they created was a bingo card with reading prompts. So I will be going for at least a few bingos on that. Here’s the card:

You can see better descriptions of these prompts over at their website. They have an even larger bingo card with 49 squares, but that seemed a bit much. This will be tricky enough.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There may be a few more small challenges that I do. I bought a really cool reading planner for this year and it lists a few challenges in there that I may or may not do. Like I said with the other GoodReads stuff, I’ll talk about those as I complete them if I decide to do so. But yeah, that’s it for this year! I’m really excited about getting started – there’s something nice about having a fresh slate. Wishing you all good luck on your challenges!

Categories: Challenges

Tags: books, reading challenge