I’m sure I can think of many more than eight reading challenges. But let’s get the ball rolling, shall we?
If you think of any ways we can expand upon these active reading techniques, drop a comment below.
1 – The Footnote Follow-up
Here is one of the most beneficial mindsets you can adopt for your reading:
Whenever you read a book, especially a book that resonates deeply with you, make it a mission to get another book out of your current book.
Maybe you’re reading John Stuart Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ and you notice he mentions a work by Tocqueville in passing. “Who is this Tocqueville?” you wonder. “And what does he have to say about democracy that so influenced Mill?”
Well, that’s your homework. To follow down that literary rabbit-hole, a rabbit-hole formed from footnotes.
Or perhaps you’re reading Anna Karenina and one of the characters mentions an aria from Don Giovanni. Interested? Then you’ll watch Mozart’s opera once you’ve finished with Tolstoy’s masterpiece.
This is how you become well-read. This is how you find eclectic reading material to recommend to others. This is how you read synoptically. It’s an adventure.
2 – The Bradbury Trio
I’ve talked about this homework assignment endlessly. I’ve written articles and even sat down and filmed a video.
Basically for the next 1,000 nights, you’re going to read one short story, one poem, and one essay.
You know what happens when you do that?
All of these disparate ideas collide in your unconscious, resulting in an overflow of creativity in your waking life.
Everyone should try the Bradbury Trio at least once and for at least 30 days.
3 – Reading Around The World
Another reading challenge I’ve detailed and will detail extensively.
This one’s all about reading diversely. Like actually diversity. Not that ‘boycott all straight white male’ writers crap.
I’m going down a list of countries in alphabetical order, starting with Afghanistan and ending with Zimbabwe, and I pick a book from an author of that nation.
It’s fun. The books aren’t always the most literary or interesting, but the insight into other cultures always is fascinating – and that’s what this challenge is all about.
4 – Marginalia Mayhem
Get over your fear of destroying your books with ink.
Unless you’ve invested in a three volume hardback set of War and Peace like this one I just impulse-indulged in, you need to start owning your books.
Mark your territory. Argue with the author. Circle, underline, rip out.
You haven’t read a book unless you’ve marked a book because marking is evidence of thought and conversation.
Get messy.
5 – Book Report Challenge
Write a book report on what you’ve just read and I can guarantee you’ll never forget it.
If you prefer speaking, do a video or a podcast. But do something.
Here’s an example of a book review podcast of mine:
The books I’ve reported on end up engraved in my mind.
Set a challenge to do twelve book reports a year.
That means a book report a month, which means you should be doing two things: one, reading a lot of material; and two, firing fast.
Stay with the books most poignant to you. Life’s too short to read bad books. If you’re reading a book and you don’t like it enough to do a book report on it, you’re reading the wrong book.
6 – Designate A Book Deity
Burden one of your close friends or family members with the impossible pressure of being a book recommendation god.
I have a friend who knows I will read anything and everything he recommends. I respect his intelligence, curiosity, and artistic sensibilities. I also wish to fill myself in with the aspects he possesses but I lack. I believe he takes the gravity of this seriously and only recommends the best of the best.
Hasn’t failed me so far.
7 – Book Buddy Up
Reading is not a solitary activity, despite what hoarded of book-loving introverts insist.
Writing is living art.
That’s why we scrawl on the pages. That’s why we read analyses, reviews, and commentaries. That’s why we listen to and read interviews with authors. That’s why we interview the authors ourselves, whether they’re alive or dead!
Bring books to life by forcing a copy of something great into a loved one’s hands.
All bonds are strengthened by shared experience, fierce debate, and overcoming hardship together – all three things take place when you are both immersed in the same fictional world.
You’ll know no great literary pleasure than the one of enjoying your own private book club.
8 – Become A Serial Reader
The art of waiting is a lost one. Patience is the most severely forgotten virtue. Netflix heralded in the selfish age, the age of immediate consumption and disposal.
We simply don’t value that which we didn’t have to wait for! It’s too easy to become discordant these days. It used to be that you had to wait a week until your favourite TV show aired, and during that time you’d talk about it fervently with friends and family. Waiting created community.
So, with this challenge, let’s return to the waiting age of fiction and read some great works the way they were designed to be consumed – serially!
You can look up the publication dates of each chapter or instalment of works from Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Tom Wolfe, then mimic them in your own reading.
No peaking. No skipping ahead. Read the way the authors intended you to.
Any more book challenges?
Let me know how you challenge yourself with your reading.