12 Reading Challenge Ideas for 2027 (That Aren't Just "Read More Books")

"Read 50 books this year" is a perfectly fine goal. It's also not a very interesting one — it doesn't change what you actually pick up, just how fast you get through it. A better reading challenge nudges you toward books you wouldn't otherwise have chosen. Here are twelve worth considering, one for each month if you'd like to structure it that way, or just a list to dip into whenever the mood strikes.

1. Read a book from twelve different countries. One a month is an easy pace, and it's a genuinely reliable way to end up reading things you'd never have found browsing your usual shelf.
2. Read a book published the year you were born. Slightly strange, oddly personal, and a good excuse to look up what was actually being written the year you showed up.
3. Read an entire author's backlist. Pick someone whose one book you loved, then go back and read everything else they've written, in order.
4. Read one book over 600 pages. The kind you've been quietly avoiding because of the size alone. Just the one — you don't need to make a habit of it.
5. Give a school-assigned book a second chance. Whatever you were forced to read at sixteen and resented — try it again as an adult who chose it. Being made to read something and choosing to read it are genuinely different experiences.
6. Read something in translation. A huge amount of the world's best writing never gets read in English at all outside of translation — this is the whole point of seeking it out deliberately.
7. Let a friend pick one for you, no questions asked. Not you asking "any recommendations?" — let them decide and you commit to it, sight unseen.
8. Read a debut novel. A writer's first book carries a different kind of energy than their tenth — worth noticing on its own terms.
9. Read nonfiction about something you know nothing about. Pick a subject you couldn't currently hold a two-minute conversation about, and fix that.
10. Read the book before watching the adaptation. Everyone means to do this and almost nobody actually manages it in the right order.
11. Read something that's been banned or challenged somewhere. Worth knowing what, specifically, someone felt strongly enough about to try to keep off a shelf.
12. Re-read a childhood favorite as an adult. It will not be the same book. That's exactly why it's worth doing.

Actually tracking it is the part that usually falls apart

The honest reason most reading challenges quietly die by March isn't lack of interest — it's losing track of what's actually been read against what was planned. FolioStory's Reading Challenges let you set a genuine target (an annual book count, a monthly pace, a genre-variety goal) and watch it update automatically as you log books, with a proper "goal complete" moment when you actually hit it rather than a spreadsheet nobody's opened since January.