Calling all readers, it is a day of rejoicing because the Summer Reading Challenge 2019 is here! If you can believe it, this is the fourth summer of the challenge.
Like a kid pouring over the toy catalog in days gone by, I’ve chatted with family members, dreamed about books, and looked for ways to expand the reading challenge. Today, I am excited today to reveal this summer’s reading challenge!
It will start on June 1 and run through August 16, 2010. To enter, read seven books from 24 categories. Along the way, I’ll touch base and have several book giveaways planned.
What is different?
- For fun, I scrapped the previous reading challenge and created a fresh one for us.
- Many categories will be similar because reading is reading. But you will notice a few new gems —an audiobook, a book with a verb in the title, a book under 100 pages. People, I love this challenge so much I almost added more book as I wrote this paragraph. I need help!
- This year if you do not read your “penalty” book, you will subtract two books from your total (last year we were only docked one book).
What is the same?
- Counting a book of more than 700 pages as two books.
- Choosing a penalty book within the first week of the year. A penalty book or category you will read or be penalized. Last year I picked The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism, as my penalty book at it worked! I finally read a book I had planned for at least three years to read. My intention is strong and will weak. And I am all the richer for reading it. I even blogged about Ten Takeaways from The Bully Pulpit.
- More fun categories than ever!
What’s in it for you?
- All who comment on August 16-19th with the names of the books they read will be entered to win one of ten $10 Amazon gift cards.
Drumroll . . . here are the categories!
- A Biography
- A book I already own
- A book a friend recommended
- A Young Adult book (YA)
- A book with a great cover
- A book of poetry
- A memoir or autobiography
- A graphic Novel
- A book you might disagree with
- A book for professional development (loosely defined)
- A book longer than 700 pages (counts as two books)
- A book with a verb in the title
- A play
- A book about a country or culture you have never visited
- A book about history
- A book that won an award
- A classic
- A novel by an author you have never read before
- An audiobook
- A book related to a skill
- A book recommended by someone you know
- A book with an animal
- A book less than 100 pages
- A book You want to discuss with others
My penalty book is: Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Download the 2019 SUMMER READING CHALLENGE, print it off, and track your progress. But most of all, have fun and read books you might not read in other times of the year!
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In short: Read seven books from June 1 to August 16, 2019.
Are you in? What books are you looking forward to reading during the challenge?
Photo by Leah Kelley from Pexels
by Peter Drucker. A must read for every organization.
by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon takes place in Afghanistan and, as the title says, shows women entrepreneurs (actually they started as teens!).
by Joan Bauer is a delightful book that is not your normal angsty YA novel. Add this to your “to read” list
by Gareth Hinds . . . this is the way to read The Odyssey.
by Retta. I’m a fan of the TV show Parks and Rec, so I enjoyed hearing more about Retta’s job. But the language, people. I’m not around folks who that use that much profanity and for that reason, I can’t recommend it. Maybe it would be different to read it than to listen to it, I don’t know. She is funny! And I still love Parks and Rec.
Richard Rohr. I first read this soon after I turned 40 and was living in Beijing, now at age 50 and after many changes, I think I got even more out of it than I did the first time.
by 
by Doris Kearns Goodwin. By far my crowning jewel book of the summer! I will forever associate this book with the summer of 2018 and reading with you. I’m going to write a separate post about this book. I’m so grateful I read it.
by Fredrik Backman took a while to get into, but so worth it! Brilliant writing and translating into English. I’m blogging through it right now at 
by Christopher L. Heuertz. If you are new to the Enneagram, don’t start with this book, but if you are looking to take the next step in understanding harmony triads and (as the subtitle suggests) ways to grow as a Christian and enhance your prayer life, this is the book for you.
by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. Sheryl’s husband dropped dead on the basketball court, dropping her into Option B for her life. Interested in learning about fostering resilience? This book is for you.
by Patrick Lencioni. A must read. One of the best reads of the summer. Life is messy and hard, yes. But that doesn’t mean we are helpless. Highly skilled people are not the primary advantage, organizational health is. Again, a must read for your family, team, church, non-profit, or job.
by Susan David. If you find yourself stuck in a pattern of thinking or behaving that isn’t helping you? This books will help.
by M. T. Anderson. From Amazon: “This is the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the power—and layered meaning—of music in beleaguered lives. Symphony for the City of the Dead is a masterwork thrillingly told and impeccably researched by National Book Award–winning author M. T. Anderson.” Longest siege in recorded history (872 days) and more people died in this siege than all of American and British deaths. Fascinating and disturbing.
by Jill Ker Conway. Okay, so half read in May, half after the challenge began. My friend (and also an author) Kay Bruner recommended this memoir for the Velvet Ashes book club. From Amazon, “Conway spent her first 11 years in the windswept grasslands of Australia, where her father owned 30,000 acres of arid land. Though his ability to understand the land was extensive, an eight-year drought finally defeated him, and he comitted suicide. A few years later, Conway’s oldest brother died in an automobile accident. The two deaths plunged her mother into depression. Out of this tale of hard work, drought, and sorrow, Conway emerges with character and personal strength.”
by Gene Luen Yang. From Amazon: “Jin Wang starts at a new school where he’s the only Chinese-American student. When a boy from Taiwan joins his class, Jin doesn’t want to be associated with an FOB like him. Jin just wants to be an all-American boy, because he’s in love with an all-American girl. Danny is an all-American boy: great at basketball, popular with the girls. But his obnoxious Chinese cousin Chin-Kee’s annual visit is such a disaster that it ruins Danny’s reputation at school, leaving him with no choice but to transfer somewhere he can start all over again.”
by J.D. Vance. Wow. I had to keep reminding myself that J.D. is YOUNGER than me. I was not reading the life of someone from a different era. He writes beautifully honest about the hillbilly culture he was able to escape. One takeaway? Do not underestimate the power of one person (his grandma) to change a life.
by William Styron. If someone you know and love has experienced or experiences depression and you don’t, this memoir is for you. Styron is able to verbalize his experience in such a way that you will go, “Oh, wow, it’s like that?” A short, but powerful read.
by Omar Saif Ghobash. I discovered this book in the library trying to find a book by or about the Dalai Lama. Ghobash is interesting because he is half-Russian, half-UAE, studied in London, and is now the ambassador to Russia from the UAE. These letters were written to his sons. He seems more of a moderate muslim. It wasn’t a bad read, but didn’t really help me understand a perspective that different from a western educated person.
by Rachel Joyce. It won the UK National Book Award for New Writer of the Year 2012.“You have to love Harold Fry, a man who set out one morning to mail a letter and then just kept going. . . . Like Christian in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Harold becomes Everyman in the eyes of those who encounter him. . . . Harold’s journey, which parallels Christian’s nicely but not overly neatly, takes him to the edge of death and back again. It will stick with you, this story of faith, fidelity and redemption.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune. I’m a fan of Harold! If you liked 
, this is your kind of book.
by Honoree Corder. 
by Ed Cyzewski. I loved this book. Though I didn’t come out of the Catholic tradition, I found Ed to be a fellow companion in seeking to add contemplative practices to his life.
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