The 6th Annual Academic Reading Challenge starts on Jan 1, 2020

Hello again, reading friends and reading strangers, and welcome to the academic reading challenge for 2020. I hope you'll join us for this fun experiment in resisting the push to over-specialization and give yourself permission to read academic books that aren't immediately obviously instrumental for your next project.  Those books you bought at a book exhibit two years ago? time to open them up and start reading! That book your colleague wrote that you bought but didn't get around to yet? It's category #1. 

Who and What the Academic Reading Challenge is for:

This is a challenge for academics who feel that their reading has become over-specialized and possibly joyless, who want to read more literature for pleasure, who want to broaden the way they approach their own research and teaching, who like to talk about reading with each other, who are interested in interdisciplinary reading, and who want to support their friends and colleagues by reading their books. You don’t have to be a professor to do the challenge. Maybe you graduated from school but you miss reading academic books. The challenge runs for a year and emphasizes reading across academic disciplines. If you are a professional academic or public intellectual outside the university, this challenge is meant to give you a structure for reading outside your area of specialization - including reading literature - and to provide a space to talk with others about the experience. If you are a general reader who likes reading serious works of non-fiction, this challenge is also for you. It's a structure that you can use to read works of the type that you might not have encountered since you were a student.


We have a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/160467571369051/

There is also an academic article about this challenge here: https://www.academia.edu/38104347/Read_Another_Book_Repeat_When_Necessary

Rules

The challenge starts on January 1, 2020 at midnight and goes till Dec. 31, 2020. There are a total of 15 regular categories in the challenge with three “extra credit” categories for over-achievers. 

The academic books must be at least 175 pages long

Novels must be at least 200 pages long

Books of poetry or special issues of journals must be at least 100 pp. long

One book can be a children's or YA book.

To decide whether a book is academic, look for something published by a university press, or check the acknowledgments for references to scholarly mentors and anonymous readers. 

Any book on the list, except where specified otherwise, can be a novel or a complete journal issue as long as it fits the general category

Books can only count for one category, but you can switch them from one category to the other before you’re done if you like.  (In other words, you can't count a book by your friend who wrote about an ocean voyage for both the ocean voyage and "by a friend" categories.)

Only one book can be something you’ve read before

Audiobooks are fine as long as they are unabridged and the print edition is at least 200 pages long.

Books must be started no earlier than midnight 1/1/20 and finished no later midnight 12/31/2020

Points: This isn't a competition, but if you're counting…

Total possible points for 1-15 without "double-point bonuses" 200. Points for all extra-credit and double-point bonuses: 250 

And Now .... The Categories!

1. Book by a friend or colleague 10 points 

2. Book about a coup, counter-revolutionary movement and/ or revolution  10 points, double points if within 21st century 
3. Book about social movements not focused on presidential elections  20 points
4. Book about something considered “low culture”  10 points
5. Book about magic or the supernatural   10 points - double points for an academic study
6. Book about politics outside the U.S.      20 points
7. Book about the ocean or an ocean voyage (academic, popular science, journalism or fiction)  10 points
8. Modern adaptation of Shakespeare or other classic literature from any country  20 points
9. Book about legal history or courts  10 points
10. Book about a religion that you have never before studied or practiced (can be key texts / scriptures of that religion or a book about that religion).  10 points
11. Book about responding to climate change    20 points
12. Book about science for general readers       10 points
13. Academic book someone recommended to you, but you still haven't read  20 points
14. Academic book published in 2019 or 2020     10 points
15. Book about youth or youth culture, with a protagonist under 30, or written by someone under 30 - 10 points 

Extra Credit
16. 2nd book by an author who you have read 1 book by. Can be academic, literary, or genre fiction 10 points
17. Extra-Extra Credit: Historical Fiction set after WWII 10 points
18. Super-Duper Extra-Credit: Book you stumbled across in the library stacks or browsing in a book store 10 points

And if you're new, please comment below and say what brought you to this blog post. I don't use this space that often, but It's fun to see who's reading.