Shelf Reflection’s 2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
By: Shelf Reflection

Hello 2023!

It’s always a good feeling to start a fresh year!

I’m excited to get started on my TBR list for the year and I hope you are too.

I’ve done Popsugar’s Reading Challenge several years, but since I started my own book review blog I thought it would be fun to create my own reading challenges now.

This challenge has 40 prompts. I’ve included the books I plan to read for each one and will link my book reviews as I read them.

I would love if you joined me in this challenge and shared it with your friends.

I’m also going to be posting another Goodreads Choice Awards Challenge based on the nominees/winners of 2022. If you would like to do that challenge too (or instead), click HERE.

Whether you do reading challenges or not, the goal is to encourage reading and broaden your horizons by reading books you maybe wouldn’t normally read.

My goal in my website is to help other readers find books and remind people how fun and rewarding reading can be.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your new year of books gets off to a great start!

It would be awesome if you could comment on this post with whatever category/book you plan to read so that other readers can get more ideas for each category!

If you’re struggling to find a book for each category, try searching around on Goodreads.com or shoot me a message and I can see if I can offer some other suggestions.

Shelf Reflection’s 2023 Reading Challenge:

1. A book written in the 90s:
   The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva

2. A book with a journalist or therapist:
   The Therapist by B.A. Paris

3. A book with the ‘thing’ in the title:
   The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

4. A Christmas book:
   Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger

5. A debut book:
   Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

6. A book over 500 pages:
   The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

7. A book about a president:
   The Complete Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, Mate Editorial (Editor)

8. A book with a map:
   Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds by Ian Wright

9. A book from Reese’s Book Club:
   Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

10. A book about food:
    Broken Bread: How to Stop Using Food and Fear to Fill Spiritual Hunger by Tilly Dillehay

11. A book with lawyers:
    The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham
    Feared by Lisa Scottaline

12. A book with fewer than 2023 Goodreads reviews:
    Broker of Lies by Steven James

13. A book with a cover you don’t like:
    A Change of Affection: A Gay Man's Incredible Story of Redemption by Becket Cook

14. A book with ‘lost’ in the title:
    The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

15. A memoir by a celebrity:
    I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

16. A memoir by a non-celebrity:
    Excuse Me While I Disappear by Laurie Notaro

17. A book about nature:
    Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton

18. A book with a school:
    The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
    Educated by Tara Westover

19. A classic:
    Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

20. A book with chapter titles:
    The Happy Rant by Ted Kluck

    A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

21. A book with snow:

    The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen

22. A book by an author with alliterated initials:
    A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari
    Judas 62 (Box 88 #2) by Charles Cumming

23. A book with a cover that has someone running away:
    A Killer’s Game by Isabella Maldonado

24. A book with a castle:
    This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi

25. A nonfiction book with a 2 syllable title:
    Heaven by Randy Alcorn

26. A book with a missing person or disappearance:
    The Zero Night (Jonathan Stride #11) by Brian Freeman

27. A book with supernatural elements:
    The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

28. A book written by more than one author:
    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
    The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer

29. A book that takes place in a place you’ve been:
    The September Society by Charles Finch

30. A book with a title that is a question:
    What Have We Done by Alex Finlay
    Is Easter Unbelievable?: Four Questions Everyone Should Ask about the Resurrection Story by Rebecca McLaughlin

31. A book by an author you’ve already read:
    Funeral for a Friend by Brian Freeman

32. A book with a number in the title:
    Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age by Rosaria Butterfield

33. A controversial book:
    The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers
    Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter
    Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing by Ryan T. Anderson

34. A fiction book by a black author:
    Behind Her Lives by Briana Cole

35. A true crime book:
    I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
    American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

36. A nonfiction book about grief:
    Held: 31 Biblical Reflections on God's Comfort and Care in the Sorrow of Miscarriage by Abbey Wedgeworth

37. A book related to the royal family:
    Spare by Prince Harry

38. A book with pirates:
    Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune by Keith Thomson

39. The first book in a series you’ve never read:
    Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1) by Louise Penny

40. A book by an author who uses initials:
    Gallant by V.E. Schwab

Bonus: (I always add this for the previous challenges I never finished… unfortunately it keeps adding up!)
A book you never got to from the last reading challenge:

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Color, Communism, and Common Sense by Manning Johnson
The Underground River by Martha Conway
Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell

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