My friend Margit recently passed along a reading challenge. Four months into the year and I’m halfway home!

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Reading, it is said, broadens your horizons. But what if you find yourself stuck reading the same type of books year after year?

My friend and Brilliant Reader Margit recently loaned me a young adult novel from her native Hungary. Inside she had slipped a note and a piece of paper that had the look and feel of an old library card. Instead it was a Reading Challenge 2026 list from Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton, MT, near where she visits a family home.

As Margit suspected, I immediately thought 1) I really want to do this and 2) I need to share it with others. The internet is full of these types of annual lists, designed to get you out of a reading rut. But I thought the Chapter One version had some great categories. Plus a friend and Brilliant Reader suggested it (adding my name to the back of the card), so this was a no brainer!

Let’s kick it off here.

I’ve listed the ten challenge items in their original order. When I’ve read a book that fits, I’ve linked to my review on MTC. Every so often I’ll return and catch up, with the goal of reaching all ten by December 31st.

Won’t you join me? Feel free to update your results in the comments.

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CHAPTER ONE READING CHALLENGE 2026

Challenge books read and reviewed as of April 2026:

1 – A book you’ve picked based on the cover

2 – A book with a screen adaptation

• A Great Deliverance (published in 1988) by Elizabeth George (adapted for the BBC’s Inspector Lynley series)

3 – A book that makes you think, “WTF?”

• Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life (published in 2020) by Lulu Miller

4 – A book about a skill/trade/craft

5 – Wild card/unusual pick

6 – A work in translation

• The Late Monsieur Gallet (published in French in 1931) by Georges Simenon
• Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books (published in 2025 for the first English translation) by Hwang Bo-Reum

7 – A collection of poetry

• Water, Water: Poems (published in 2024) by Billy Collins
• Above Ground: Poems (published in 2023) by Clint Smith

8 – A book published in the year you were born

9 – An essay collection

• Our Fragile Freedoms: Essays (published in 2025) by Eric Foner 
• Ways of Walking: Essays (published in 2022) edited by Ann de Forest

10 – A book recommended by a friend/buddy

• The Correspondent: A Novel (published in 2025) by Virginia Evans
• Clear (published in 2024) by Carys Davies
• The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (published in 1974; new 250th anniversary edition published in 2026) by Bernard Bailyn
• Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life (published in 2020) by Lulu Miller
• A Great Deliverance (published in 1988) by Elizabeth George

Having completed six out of ten challenges without even knowing I was in the game, I have four left (although I think I should probably find a second, better example for #3 than the one I’ve included).

• Numbers 1 and 5 will be easy. I suspect I have both in hand.
• Numbers 3 (a second choice) and 4 will take some thought.

And then there’s Number 8. A little internet research shows I have lots of options for books published in 1955:

• A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor. This is sitting downstairs in my bookcase.
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Hmmm . . . not sure MORE TO COME is ready for that review, even though I probably should read the book at some point.
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene, which is actually an early favorite in this list. I’ve never read it but respect the views of friends who have recommended it.
• The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
• Hickory Dickory Dock (Hercule Poirot, #34) by Agatha Christie, which would provide me with another dip into the detective fiction pool.
• Beezus and Ramona (Ramona, #1) by Beverly Cleary which very well may be in Candice’s bookcase.

After I drafted this post Candice said she wanted to go to Politics & Prose to get a book for our upcoming trip. I’m incapable of going into a bookshop with such a rich selection of offerings and not buying something . . . so I picked up The Quiet American and then Candice came out of the children’s section with Beezus and Ramona (which we had discussed in the car on the drive over). Now I have two books to meet #8 in the challenge and, as a bonus, I have books to highlight alongside P&P for my 2026 quest to visit all the DC-area independent bookstores.

Well, time’s a wastin’. Let’s get to it!

More to come . . .

DJB

Photos of books and reader from Unsplash.