If you’re anything like me, you may have started off 2026 with some unreasonably ambitious reading goals, only to fall off track a few months later. It’s hard to hold on to that burst of motivation from the new year when life so easily gets in the way of reading for leisure. However, there are ways to regain passion for the hobby, and what better way than to try out a reading challenge?
I love a personal reading challenge for many reasons – it provides bookish inspiration, it encourages me to try books or genres I’m unfamiliar with, and it appeals to my completionist side that enjoys nothing more than ticking a box. I scoured the web (and the corners of my brain) for some interesting reading challenges to give us all some ideas to keep up with our reading.
Book Bingo or Reading Roulette
To gamify your reading experience, you could select a list of titles or reading prompts and turn them into a bingo sheet. Every time you read a book that matches a square on your card, stamp it. Try hanging it up on a wall or leaving it near your bedside to remind you how much more reading is required until you’ve filled out a line or even completed your entire Bingo card! To turn it into a roulette, pick a book or prompt from your list entirely at random. I like to do this kind of challenge with a pile of books I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t gotten around to – it’s such a good motivator to get through my backlist!
Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue
This romantic challenge for the greatest of book lovers requires you to read the following:
- Something old. Perhaps this could be a classic or something not of this century, or it could be a book you have wanted to read for a long time.
- Something new. Try reading something released this year! Check our new titles or recent reads our selectors have picked for you.
- Something borrowed. Technically, you could stretch this definition to mean any library book you have borrowed… but I also like to approach this challenge as either a recommendation from a friend or family member, or a book someone has lent me!
- Something blue. Take this literally - i.e. a book with a blue cover, or figuratively - i.e. a sad tearjerker!
For these four books, you could try finishing one a month – or perhaps one a week for the speedy readers out there. Here's my picks that I'm planning to get through in the next while:
A Russian classic written during Stalinist Moscow that explores good and evil and is draped in fantastical imagery. I have wanted to read this one for so long!
I loved Marcus Kliewer's previous release "We Used to Live Here" and am highly anticipating his latest release, which follows a caretaker on a remote property whose deceptively simple job leads her to encounter an unimaginable horror.
A friend who knows I love novels about messy, complicated families recommended this one to me - looks like it's right up my alley. The drama!
Aside from the obvious tears on the cover, I have heard that this is a heartwrenching book and I cannot wait to cry to it.
Read around the world
One of the perks of living in this interconnected world is that we get to hear stories from people and cultures everywhere. There are so many excellent works that are being published for wide-scale audiences outside their home country of publication, including a bunch of English translations for titles written in other languages. Read Around the World is a fun and popular challenge where you pick books from countries other than your own, whether fiction or non-fiction. Reading these titles gives you a window into the culture, history, and way of life of people from across the globe and introduces you to brilliant authors you may not have heard about before.
Obviously, you don’t have to read a book from every single country in the world (unless you are a superhuman reader and can smash through 195 books in a year. Although, there’s no real time limit on this challenge… so maybe you could make it a long-term goal?) For the regular reader, pick a few countries you are interested in or do not know much about, and read away. This Bad Bunny inspired booklist is focused on just the Americas (there are more countries than you think!)
Isn’t it great to do some armchair travel without having to fork out a fortune on plane tickets?
Read through the Dewey Decimal System
For non-fiction lovers, a fantastic way to expand your knowledge is to challenge yourself to read a book from each category of the Dewey Decimal system. For those who are unfamiliar with this system, it’s a classification method used to organise non-fiction titles into their different subjects, and the method we use at Christchurch City Libraries. It includes 10 main sections from 000 to 900, with each representing an overarching subject, and the myriad of decimal points in between representing more detailed or specific subjects.
For this challenge, then, you would start by picking any book from 000-099 (computer science, information and general works) and next read a book from 100-199 (philosophy and psychology) - and so on until you have read across the entire Dewey spectrum (and likely discovered topics you have never heard of before).
For the eager beavers out there, you might like to share your reads with a Dewey Book Group. These monthly meet-ups are free to join, with one group running on the first Tuesday of the month and the other meeting on the last Wednesday of every month, both from 6-7pm. Just phone or email the library to express your interest!
To get some inspo, check out the fun and fascinating titles our Dewey Book Groups have been reading recently.
Try the Novelist genre reading challenge
NoveListPlus is an eResource you can access for free with your library card. Not only is it a great tool for finding read-a-likes to your favourite books, browsing curated book lists, and searching for reads based on story elements like “intricately plotted” or “well-developed characters” – it also has its own reading challenge each year! In 2026, each month has been assigned a different genre to try out. For example, April’s focus is Graphic Novels, and May focuses on Urban Fiction (exploring energetic urban settings – a coincidentally perfect tie-in to Open Christchurch 2026 from May 1-3!) Check out the other month’s genre challenges in NoveList’s blog post. If you're unfamiliar with a genre or want to find the perfect read for you, browse our librarian-curated genre reading guides for inspo.
Happy reading!
Go forth and try out a reading challenge - you might just encounter a new favourite book you never would have discovered otherwise.
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