Accomplished

I think we all know that I like to set myself reading challenges. Read the complete works of Jane Austen? Sure. Finally finish War and Peace? You betcha. So I jumped at the opportunity the Book Riot Read Harder challenge presented. And great day in the morning, people! Today, I completed the challenge by finishing Faithful by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King (added bonus: It's been on my to-read shelf since 2005!).

And to make myself even more super-gloaty, I'm ahead of my regular "read X number of books" challenge (I set it to 63, and as of today, I've read 66 books and you know I've got lots of reading left in me before the end of the year).

Here's my complete challenge list:
A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25:
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65:
MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood
A collection of short stories: The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro
A book published by an indie press: Once I Was Cool, Megan Stielstra (Thanks, Duff!)
A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ:
The Daylight Gate, Jeanette Winterson
A book by a person whose gender is different from your own:
Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walters
A book that takes place in Asia: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
A book by an author from Africa: Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
A microhistory: Faithful: Two diehard Boston Red Sox fans chronicle the historic 2004 season, Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan
A YA novel: We Were Liars, E. Lockhart
A sci-fi novel: The Martian, Andy Weir
A romance novel: Never Judge a Lady by her Cover, Sarah MacLean
A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
A book that is a retelling of a classic story: Beauty, Robin McKinley
An audiobook: Jennifer Government, Max Barry
A collection of poetry: Local Visitations, Stephen Dunn
A book that someone else has recommended to you:
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
A book that was originally published in another language: Blindness, by José Saramago
A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind:
Sandman, Vol. 1, by Neil Gaiman
A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure: Now You See Him, Anne Stuart
A book published before 1850: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
A book published this year: The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy, by Julia Quinn
A self-improvement book: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, Michelle Tullier  

Reading Faithful has been so much fun, because who doesn't want to relive one of the greatest moments in Red Sox history? (I went back and forth over whether or not it was a true microhistory, but since the layman's definition of it seems to be so broad and vague, I went with it.) Other things I learned? I do not like audiobooks. And I'm not big on the self-improvement genre, but other than that, these were all books I might have read on my own anyway.