Every year Book Riot, a site promoting diverse reading, issues a challenge—actually 24 challenges—called "Read Harder" to encourage you to shake up your reading habits and get out of your reading comfort zone. The 2020 edition of Read Harder asks you to read something from 24 categories, ranging from sci-fi novellas to debut LGBTQ works to mysteries where the victim isn't female (more niche than you might think!).

Book Riot has offered recommendations in many of their challenge categories and we wanted to join in with even more.  So, go forth and read harder this year!

1. Read a YA Non-Fiction Book

Obviously: Stories from my Timeline by Akilah Hughes
Comedian and activist Akilah Hughes shares everything about her journey from a childhood in the south to the big screen while dispensing invaluable big-sister-style advice to a generation of future YouTubers.

Blood, Bullets, and Bones : The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA by Bridget Heos
A history of modern forensic science from the first test for arsenic poisoning in the 1700s to criminal profiling, fingerprinting, blood splatter analysis, DNA evidence, and all the milestones in between.

Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard by Alex Bertie
A brave first-hand account of online personality Alex Bertie's life, struggles, and victories as a transgender teen, as well as a groundbreaking guide for transitioning teen.

2. Read a retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, or myth by an author of color

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. 

Even in Paradise by Elizabeth Nunez
A modern-day King Lear, a novel of greed, resentment, jealousy, betrayal, and romance set in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados.

The Cake House by Latifah Salom
After her father commits suicide and her mother remarries, Rosaura Douglas lives with her mother and stepfather in the house where her father died, but she begins to see her father's ghost, who appears to be warning her about family secrets from the past.

3. Read a mystery where the victim(s) is not a woman

City of Saviors by Rachel Howzell Hall
LAPD homicide detective Elouise "Lou" Norton looks deeper into the death of a seventy-three-year-old man who was a congregant of a megachurch that may be protecting a murderer.

Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara
LA gardener Mas Arai returns to Hiroshima to bring his best friend's ashes to a relative on the tiny offshore island of Ino, only to become embroiled in the mysterious death of a teenage boy.

Reputation by Sara Shepard
Told in multiple points of view, a story of intrigue, sabotage and secrets follows a tight-knit college community as it is rocked to its core when a hacker dumps 40,000 people’s emails onto an easily searchable database, which results in murder.

4. Read a graphic memoir

King of King Court: A Memoir by Travis Dandro
King of King Court spans from Travis’s early childhood through his teen years, focusing not only on the obviously abusive actions but also on the daily slights and snubs that further strain relations between him and his parents

RX: A Graphic Memoir by Rachel Lindsay
A graphic memoir about the treatment of mental illness, treating mental illness as a commodity, and the often unavoidable choice between sanity and happiness.

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
A beautiful and eye-opening graphic memoir about American identity, interracial families, and the realities that divide us.

5. Read a book about a natural disaster

The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman
Traces a year of dramatic global change in the aftermath of a massive early nineteenth-century Indonesian volcanic eruption that disrupted weather patterns and triggered food shortages, religious revivals, migrations, and a typhus epidemic.

Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima by Hideo Furukawa
A multifaceted literary response to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that devastated northeast Japan on March 11, 2011. Hideo Furukawa travels back to his childhood home near Fukushima after 3/11 to reconnect with a place that is now doubly alien. 

The Living by Matt de la Peña (fiction)
After an earthquake destroys California and a tsunami wrecks the luxury cruise ship where he is a summer employee, high schooler Shy confronts another deadly surprise.

6. Read a play by an author of color and/or queer author

Sugar in our Wounds by Donja R. Love
This lyrical and lushly realized play is part of poet, filmmaker and playwright Donja R. Love's exploration of queer love at pivotal moments in Black history.

Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Follows Pharus, a choir member at a prep school, as he deals with the animosity and homophobia of his classmates.

Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee
When Ed and his three adult sons come together to celebrate Christmas, they enjoy cheerful trash-talking, pranks, and takeout Chinese. Then they confront a problem that even being a happy family can't solve: When identity matters, and privilege is problematic, what is the value of being a straight white man?

7. Read a historical fiction novel not set in WWII

Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer
A stunning, powerfully evocative novel based on true events depicting a young woman who baffles the medical community of early 18th-century England when she begins giving birth to dead rabbits.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Two half-sisters, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana and experience profoundly different lives and legacies throughout subsequent generations marked by wealth, slavery, war, coal mining, the Great Migration and the realities of 20th-century Harlem.

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Unexpectedly chosen to be a family manservant, an eleven-year-old Barbados sugar-plantation slave is initiated into a world of scientific inquiry and dignity before a devastating betrayal propels him throughout the world in search of his true self.

8. Read an audiobook of poetry

Tropic of Squalor by Mary Karr
Long before she earned accolades for her genre-defining memoirs, Mary Karr was winning poetry prizes. Now the beloved author returns with a collection of bracing poems as visceral and deeply felt and hilarious as her memoirs.

Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill
Through her gorgeous reimagining of fairytale classics and spellbinding original tales, Nikita Gill dismantles the old-fashioned fairytale tropes that have been ingrained in our minds. 

Light Filters In: Poems by Caroline Kaufman
Caroline Kaufman writes about giving up too much of yourself to someone else, not fitting in, endlessly Googling "how to be happy," and ultimately figuring out who you are.

9. Read the LAST book in a series

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
Combining adventure, humor, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination that is at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is a moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.

The Midnight Star by Marie Lu
A conclusion to the best-selling series finds a victorious but increasingly dark Adelina confronting past demons in the wake of a new threat that endangers every Elite, an adversary that forces the Roses to join the Daggers on a perilous quest.

Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
The villainous Hannibal Lecter returns in a chilling novel that describes the cannibalistic serial killer's early life in Eastern Europe, from the ages of six to twenty, following the loss of his entire family during World War II. 

10. Read a book that takes place in a rural setting

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
An evocative story of friendship set against the backdrop of a 19th century China in which women suffered from foot binding, isolation, and illiteracy follows an elderly woman and her companion as they communicate their hopes, dreams, joys, and tragedies through a unique secret language

Strangers in their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild
The renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country—a stronghold of the conservative right. 

The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia
Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable.

11. Read a debut novel by a queer author

Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg
A scholar who discovers a long-lost manuscript becomes obsessed with the story it reveals of notorious thief Jack Sheppard and his life in the eighteenth-century London underworld.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
A letter from a son to a mother who cannot read reveals the impact of the Vietnam War on their family history and provides a view into parts of the son's life that his mother has never known.

Mostly Dead  Things by Kristen Arnett
Taking over her family's failing taxidermy shop in the wake of her father's suicide, a grief-stricken woman pursues less-than-legal ways of generating income while struggling to figure out her place among her eccentric loved ones.

12. Read a memoir by someone from a religious tradition (or lack of religious tradition) that is not your own

13. Read a food book about a cuisine you’ve never tried before

The Gaijin Cookbook: Japanese Recipes from a Chef, Father, Eater, and Lifelong Outsider by Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying
Ivan Orkin is a self-described gaijin (guy-jin), a Japanese term that means "outsider." He has been hopelessly in love with the food of Japan since he was a teenager on Long Island. In The Gaijin Cookbook, he condenses his experiences into approachable recipes for every occasion. 

Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee
American food is the story of mash-ups. Immigrants arrive, cultures collide, and out of the push-pull come exciting new dishes and flavors. Edward Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the country.

7000 Islands: A Food Portrait of the Philippines by Yasmin Newman
Despite the Philippines' location right in the middle of South East Asia, most people know very little about the country, and even less about the cuisine. 7000 Islands offers a flavor-filled account of this wonderful country and its cuisine—a land full of people whose love of eating is as big as their hearts.

14. Read a romance starring a single parent

Single Mom's Bodyguard by Lisa Childs
A pretend relationship between a bodyguard and single mom turns all too real in the latest Bachelor Bodyguards romance

Sweet Dreams by Kristen Ashley
Lauren Grahame needs a whole new life. After leaving her cheating husband, she moves to Carnal, Colorado, takes a job as a waitress, and realizes she might have finally found the hometown she'd been searching for. Except things are about to get a lot more complicated…

Single Mom, Billionaire Boss by Sheri Whitefeather
Meagan Quinn has paid her debt to society; now she's out on parole and must provide for her daughter. It's weird enough that the man she betrayed is offering her a job—and a chance at redemption. Why does she have to find him irresistible, too? 

15. Read a book about climate change

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh
 Ghosh examines our inability—at the level of literature, history, and politics—to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer
Foer explores the central global dilemma of our time in a surprising, deeply personal, and urgent new way. Only collective action will save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat—and don’t eat—for breakfast.

Clade by James Bradley (fiction)
Describes the story of Adam and Ellie and their efforts to create a family in a changing world, where horror and tragedy mingle with the mundane.

16. Read a doorstopper (over 500 pages) published after 1950, written by a woman

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (834 pages)
Arriving in New Zealand in 1866 to seek his fortune in the goldfields, Walter Moody finds himself drawn into a series of unsolved crimes and complex mysteries.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (514 pages)
Having moved from one academic outpost to another throughout her childhood, Blue van Meer attends the elite St. Gallway School in her senior year, where the deaths of a teacher and student awaken her analytical instincts.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (588 pages)
Young and in love when they depart miitary-ruled Nigeria for the West, fifteen years later, Ifemelu and Obinze reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland. 

17. Read a sci-fi/fantasy novella (under 120 pages)

Final Girls by Mira Grant
When journalist Esther Hoffman investigates Dr. Jennifer Webb's virtual reality technology purported to heal psychological wounds, she's determined to unearth the truth, but real-world threats force them to work together to survive.

"Story of Your Life" in Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
A grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her new knowledge of an alien language and its nonlinear structure.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Binti is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

18. Read a picture book with a human main character from a marginalized community

The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family by Ibtihaj Muhammad with S. K. Ali; illustrated by Hatem Aly
A story about two sisters who endure criticism and bullying when they begin school on the first day the elder wears her beautiful blue hijab. 

Susan Laughs by Jeanne Willis; illustrated by Tony Ross
Rhyming couplets describe a wide range of common emotions and activities experienced by a little girl who uses a wheelchair.

Missing Daddy by Mariame Kaba; illustrated by Bria Royal
A father and daughter's love cannot be broken even when prison bars separate them.

19. Read a book by or about a refugee

Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph by Yusra Mardini
The inspiring story of how one woman saved fellow refugees from drowning—and how she went on to become an Olympic swimmer.

The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives by Viet Thanh Nguyen
An essay collection by prominent international refugees that reveal moments of uncertainty, resilience in the face of trauma, and a reimagining of identity, forming a compelling look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge. 

Homes: A Refugee Story by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah with Winnie Yeung
The remarkable true story of how a young boy emerged from a war zone—and found safety in Canada—with a passion for sharing his story and telling the world what is truly happening in Syria. 

20. Read a middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the U.S. or the UK

Dumpling Days by Grace Lin
Pacy's family is going to Taiwan to visit family and prepare for their grandmother's 60th birthday celebration. Everything about the trip is harder than she thought it would be. At least the dumplings are delicious…

The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney
After her village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, flees to a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the encouragement of a wise elder.

The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan
A fictionalized biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who grew up a painfully shy child, ridiculed by his overbearing father, but who became one of the most widely-read poets in the world. 

21. Read a book with a main character or protagonist with a disability (fiction or non)

Good Kings Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum
The residents at a facility for disabled young people in Chicago build trust and make friends in an effort to fight against their living conditions and mistreatment.

The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver
Lincoln Rhyme was once a brilliant criminologist, a genius in the field of forensics—until an accident left him physically and emotionally shattered. But now a diabolical killer is challenging Rhyme to a terrifying and ingenious duel of wits. 

An Accidental Woman by Barbara Delinsky
When a close friend is charged with a fifteen-year-old murder, wheelchair-bound Poppy Blake at first refuses to believe the charges but then wonders if her friend may have changed her identity in order to survive.

22. Read a horror book published by an indie press

Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Michael Morrow wishes for a normal life apart from his creepy, secluded Appalachian family, who have first-hand knowledge of what happens to the numerous girls who go missing from off the side of the highway. 

Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson
In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception.

Palaces by Simon Jacobs
As the city erupts in a full-scale riot, a young couple find themselves the only passengers on a commuter train, exiting at the final stop to discover the area entirely devoid of people.

23. Read an edition of a literary magazine (digital or physical)

Ploughshares  Available onsite at NYPL and from home with a valid library card

The Kenyon Review Available onsite at NYPL and from home with a valid library card

New England Review Available onsite at NYPL and from home with a valid library card

24. Read a book in any genre by a Native, First Nations, or Indigenous author

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.  

An American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo
Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of her homeland and confronts the site where her people, and other indigenous families, essentially disappeared.

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
After losing his entire family, Saul Indian Horse, alone in the world and placed in a horrific boarding school, turns to hockey to escape from the indignities, taunts, racism and hatred in a world that will never welcome him.

Book summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more. 

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse toolfor more recommendations!