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In this post, we are talking about some great reading challenges that you can complete this year. Then, I give four tips on how to make sure that you complete the reading challenges and create a life-giving habit of reading.

The Benefits of Reading Challenges

One of my main goals every year is to read widely and deeply. Reading has so many benefits. It opens doors to new worlds. It broadens our perspective on life. It deepens our understanding of a variety of topics. It stretches us. It encourages us.

We want to fight against the shallow thinking that social media and the internet create. One of the best ways to do this is by reading.

Reading is such a positive in my life, but sometimes, I go days without cracking open a book. With two young kids, it can be easy to let reading get shoved to the back of the shelf as I clean the house, cook meals, and work on other projects. I know I should read, and I even want to read. But, it’s hard to make reading a priority when I have so many other things to do.

Do you feel the same way? When was the last time you opened up a book?

If you feel like you’ve been struggling with motivation or prioritizing reading, you should try a reading challenge! A reading challenge is just writing down a specific goal for reading that you want to complete this year. At the end of the challenge, you can reward yourself with your feeling of accomplishment and maybe even a prize (mine is always being allowed to buy more books).

This post gives you several examples of reading challenges. Pick one that you love, cozy up with a book, and start reading!

Christian Reading Challenges

Finding Joy in Your Home Reading Challenges

One podcaster I love to listen to is Jami Balmet, who hosts the Finding Joy in Your Home podcast. She is an avid reader herself (generally averaging between 80 and 100 books a year) and has a reading challenge she posts every year on her blog.

Her reading challenge focuses on different topics surrounding the Christian walk. They have great recommendations of classic Christian authors and new modern scholarship, along with practical books on homemaking, parenting, and marriage. I appreciate the well-roundedness of their recommendations and how they provide so many options within each topic.

You can find the 2023 version of their challenge here, along with links to their previous versions. Here is their 2024 podcast episode on their new challenges.

Scholé Sister’s 5×5 Reading Challenge

The Schole Sister’s podcast is another favorite of mine. The podcasts exists to a community of women who ‘think deeply, read widely, and apply faithfully.’ Just listening to the podcast will give you lots of great recommendations of classics from across the ages, and it will motivate you to be like these women who read outside the ‘Christian women self-help’ box that so many of us put ourselves in.

The 5×5 reading challenge gets you to read both widely and deeply at the same time. The challenge involves picking 5 topics that you would like to read more about this year. Then, you pick 5 books on this topic to read throughout the year. This helps you to read a little bit more out of your comfort zone, as you intentionally pick books that will help you to grow throughout the year.

Tim Challies’ Reading Challenges

Tim Challies also has a reading challenge that gives specific ideas for books that you could read throughout the year. He has a list for light readers, avid readers, and committed readers. Some of the ideas on his lists include a book by a Puritan, a book you’ve started but never finished, and a mystery.

The wide variety of topics is great for keeping your reading interesting and fresh.

Flawed and Faithful Reading Challenges

Lilly, the author of the Flawed and Faithful Reading Challenge, hosts a book club where you can vote on topics for Christian books and they read them together. Each month has a new topic like womanhood and discipleship.

A More Beautiful Life Collective Reading Challenge

For this reading challenge, I’ll be picking books by different authors and genres that expand your perspective and inspire you to live well. Some of these books I’ve read; some I haven’t. I don’t agree with everything in these books, but the point of reading widely is to learn more about what you agree and don’t agree with. You can only refine your ideas if you have to figure out why you believe them in the first place.

For each, you can pick the most interesting out of the list to read, read them all, or even find surrounding this topic not on the list. One next step would be to read the books mentioned in each of these to understand the topic more fully.

My goal will be to pick 2 books for each topic to add to my reading list. I normally read over 52 books a year, but by intentionally choosing books based on these topics, I will grow more deeply in these areas. I’d love for you to read some of these books along with me!

You can download our reading tracker when you subscribe to the blog to keep up with all of the fantastic books you will read this year!

Download the AMBL Reading Challenge

General Reading Challenges

If you are looking for a general reading challenge, you could do one of the following:

Complete an A-Z list like one found here. You just pick a book with a title that starts with A, and so on. You can bounce around. The benefits of this reading challenge is that it makes you read books you might have not because you are trying to complete more uncommon letters.
Number of Books Reading Challenge. This is the most common reading challenge. You just state the number of books you would like to read in a year, like 25 or 52. Then, you pace your reading accordingly. Goodreads is a great app to download if you want to read this way. You can follow me there if you decide to participate in this challenge.
Read every book in a series or every book by an author. If you have been enjoying someone’s writing recently, reading more books by them is a great way to complete your reading challenge and enjoy it at the same time. I’ve recently been reading a biography on Elisabeth Elliot, and I would love to read more of her books this year.
Read around the world. You could pick a book that is set in each continent, a several different countries (every country is probably too ambitious), or every state. This will broaden your horizons and help you to learn about the world in a very profound way.
Read more classics. You can find a list of classics here. Though you might not agree with every perspective that these books espouse, reading more classics will help you understand the world and culture. Even if you don’t try to read all of them now, reading a few from this list is definitely worthwhile.
The “Shop Your Shelf” Reading Challenge. Okay, I just made this one up, but I have so many unread books around my house. This year, my goal is to read all – or as many as possible – of my unread books.

Looking for other Reading Challenges? You can find a big overview here.

Reading Challenges for Kids

Want to inspire more reading in your kids? You could have them complete one of the following reading challenges by Growing Book by Book. There are lots of options to choose from here and each has its own special theme.

You could also do a more basic reading challenge. I’ve heard of people keeping a prize box so that by every 5 or 10 books completed, their children could pull something out of the bin. They could also get an ‘experience prize’ like a fun outing or special homemade treat. Other parents have given monetary prizes for books read. If you homeschool, your whole family could participate in the reading challenge.

You don’t want to put too much emphasis on the prize as that often actually demotivates kids rather than motivates them.

One of the most important steps you can take toward inspiring the love of reading in your children is to give them the opportunity to read often. This means that you fill your home with lots of books everywhere, read aloud and use audiobooks, make reading time equal to family time, and give time in the day for independent reading. Some homeschool families make one hour during the afternoon a designated time for reading. This will create that habit of reading in your children more than any prize would.

Tips for Completing Your Reading Challenges

1. You don’t have to buy all the books. Borrow them! (Including Audiobooks)

Reading is definitely worth it, but sometimes the price tag of the latest and greatest books is not. You definitely don’t need to buy all the books that you read. As you can tell, I like to read widely and I’m a big fan of fiction books. But, most of these books, I’ll never reread.

After I decided to stay home from teaching, I had so many books that I needed to get rid of. I had read most of them, but I knew that I would never read them again. After my third or fourth donation trip, I decided that I would only buy books that I would use as a reference. If it’s a ‘just for fun’ book, I would borrow it from a friend or get it from the library.

2. Always carry a book with you. Everywhere.

You should always have books close by if you want to be sure to complete your reading challenges. If you are always on the go, keep a book in your car or purse. If you tend to spend a lot of time outside, keep a book in your outside bag. Keep a book by you on your nightstand and close by your couch, with your quiet time basket, and even by your bathtub. If you have a book nearby, it will make it that much easier to choose it over your phone. That makes a big difference in how many pages you can read!

3. Reading a couple of pages every day is more effective than reading one book at a time every six months.

Don’t underestimate the power of reading just a few pages daily. If that’s all that you can do, but you are still consistently reading, you will read much more than if you just read one book when you had the time on vacation. I never try to sit down and read a full chapter at a time. I pick up a book whenever I have the time and just try to read a couple of paragraphs. Doing this keeps me in the habit of reading so that I choose reading later on.

Recently, I’ve started reading 3 pages (front and back) in a theology book and a homeschool book in addition to my bible reading during my quiet time. This totals about 7 pages every day. This means I will read close to 50 pages in a week, and I’ll finish 300 pages in 6 weeks. I could read close to 8 books just by reading about 5 minutes or so every morning! Little habits add up to some big gains.

4. Don’t keep reading the same book if it’s sending you into a reading slump.

If you keep putting off reading a book because you don’t like it, abandon it. The habit of reading is way more important than any individual book. Abandon the ones you don’t enjoy and pick ones that you do. In doing this, you’ll be much more likely to finish your reading challenges.

You can check out some more tips in my post here about cultivating the reading life.

Which reading challenge are you going to do this year? What are some books you want to read? Comment below and let me know!

Don’t forget to download our free reading tracker by subscribing to the blog.

Until next time, keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

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A More Beautiful Life Collective

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