Read Harder Challenge: Southern Asia

Last year some library staff participated in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. This is a fun way to get yourself to read books out of your comfort zone! It's also a fun challenge to participate in with friends - you can plan to read the same books, or compare the books you chose to read. But no pressure! The folks at Book Riot, who have been featuring this challenge for the past couple of years, want to reassure you that

We encourage you to push yourself, to take advantage of this challenge as a way to explore topics or formats or genres that you otherwise wouldn’t try. But this isn’t a test. No one is keeping score and there are no points to post. We like books because they allow us to see the world from a new perspective, and sometimes we all need help to even know which perspectives to try out. That’s what this is – a perspective shift – but one for which you’ll only be accountable to yourself.

There are 24 "tasks" for the year, but you can use one book to fulfill a couple of tasks or aim to read 24 books total. Tasks for 2017 include "Read a book about sports," "read a travel memoir," and "read a book you've read before." The task list for 2016 included "Read a book that is by an author from Southeast Asia," and in the spirit of better late than never, we'd like to suggest a few titles of note. Check out these books set in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and by members of the Southern Asia diaspora which were suggested by Book Riot - they will even work for a couple tasks from this year's challenge!

Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia [YA]

Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy 

The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad 

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam 

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders: Connected Stories by Daniyal Mueenuddin 

Odysseus Abroad by by Amit Chaudhuri 

The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran 

This Divided Island: Life, Death, and the Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian  

The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota 

She Weeps Each Time You're Born by Quan Barry

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Sarong Party Girls by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng 


Here's staff member Alysa's 2016 challenge form - completed!

Download the PDF of this year's challenge from Book Riot! Take it to the next level - join the Read Harder group on Goodreads! Share your challenge on social media with the the hashtag #ReadHarder! Are you going to try to read harder in 2017? Let us know in the comments!