Time to strike out for new reading frontiers! Are you in?

BookRiot, the website for keen readers, has unveiled its 2018 Reader Harder Challenge: 24 tasks to broaden our reading horizons! As BR says, it's "24 tasks that will invite new genres, new authors, and new worlds, both real and imaginary, into your reading life."

It's a worthy list, even for the well-read: as the old saying has it, there's so many books, and so little time. Here's the list:

A book published posthumously
A book of true crime
A classic of genre fiction (i.e. mystery, sci fi/fantasy, romance)
A comic written and illustrated by the same person
A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa)
A book about nature
A western
A comic written or illustrated by a person of color
A book of colonial or postcolonial literature
A romance novel by or about a person of color
A children’s classic published before 1980
A celebrity memoir
An Oprah Book Club selection
A book of social science
A one-sitting book
The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series
A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author
A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image
A book of genre fiction in translation
A book with a cover you hate
A mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author
An essay anthology
A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60
An assigned book you hated (or never finished)

We're going to give it a try here at Henry Bemis, LGBookT, (taking all 24 tasks from an LGBT bookshelf), the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, and the Rare Book Cafe, and invite our friends to take part on your own!

Here's the 24 tasks, in a handy, editable PDF you can also use to enter BookRiot's contest 52 weeks from now.

Every two weeks, Henry will remind you what task comes next. If you take it on, all we ask is that you send us a note: what title did you pick, and what did you think of it? 

And remember: here at LGBookT, all 24 tasks must involve an LGBT-themed work. Make of that limitation what you will- we believe it contains the Universe.

We'll report the results as we go, and with a big summary at year's end! Perhaps- just maybe- there will also be prizes! Since each page may have its own twists on the project the possibilities are infinite. So start thinking, and set up your tally sheet- the game is afoot starting January 1, 2018!