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2026-2027 Upperclassmen (10th-12th) Summer Reading Info

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2026-2027 Upperclassmen (10th-12th) Summer Reading Info

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To be announced/posted later

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There are all kinds of suggestions in here!

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There are all kinds of suggestions in here!

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Sign in with your TCHS email and TCHS password!

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Fill this Form out and get personalized book recommendations!

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Home " Your Next Great Read

Your Next Great Read

Looking for your next great read? Let us help! Simply click on and fill out the form below and a librarian will send you personalized recommendations based on your reading preferences and interests. The more information you provide in the form, the better your recommendations will be!
Find Your Next Great Read Today!
For more information, contact readersadvisory@lafayettepubliclibrary.org or call the Main Library at 261-5787.

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Looking for your next great read? Let us help! Simply click on and fill out the form below and a librarian will send you personalized recommendations based on your reading preferences and interests. The more information you provide in the...

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Libby is sadly gone, but Cloud Library is free!

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Libby is sadly gone, but Cloud Library is free!

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accessing cloudLibrary digital library collection has never been easier

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accessing cloudLibrary digital library collection has never been easier, find your library, choose your apps, access digital content - learn how it works on mobile, desktop, amazon, windows, android ios, mac, chrome,

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Free Audio Books! Books Should be Free. Best Online Audiobook Downloads for Android, iPhone & mp3. Listen to Audible & Talking Books on Tape. eBooks in English, French, Spanish, Tamil, Portuguese, German & more.

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CurriConnects leveled book lists provide independent and small group reading options related to major curriculum topics for elementary, middle, and high school, especially for science and social studies topics.

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TogetheRead is a series of recommended books, questions, and activities designed around two important facts:

Reading is a critical skill for a successful future.

Kids always want to have FUN!

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A Penny, A Dollar

Does money really make the world go round? See the impact of money on children and people of all ages with this month's books. See how money works both for and against its owners.

TogetheRead is a series of recommended books, questions, and activities designed around two important facts:

Reading is a critical skill for a successful future.

Kids always want to have FUN!

TogetheRead's monthly themes give you ideas for having fun together as you build stronger readers.

If you have children of different ages, you'll find books for each child, all on the same theme.

We've included suggested questions for you to talk about before, during, and after reading. Also, you'll find ideas for free or low-cost family activities for everyone. Grandparents or extended family members can easily participate as well.

Effective readers think about certain things before, during, and after reading. We've interwoven these "reading strategies" into the TogetheRead questions and activities, so you will be building good reading skills as you talk and have fun together! You don't have to worry about whether you are "doing it right."
Just read, talk, and enjoy!

Make each TogetheREAD a celebration for your family. Learn how to make it a good experience for each family member.

As your child approaches his or her birthday, offer to have a birthday party based on his or her favorite book (preferably something fairly short). Send the invitations early, suggesting that children read the book before they come. Collect materials for party guests to make hats decorated as the characters and spend time with the birthday child planning a game for guests to answer questions about the book. As a prize, give a copy to the child with the LOWEST score so he/she can read it, too! Other games: act out a scene, read a character's dialog aloud, tell the story in thirty seconds. Try to plan party food that fits the book, as well. This makes reading a gift to all your child's friends.

Schools parent organizations can get involved with each month's TogetheREAD theme.

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Does money really make the world go round? See the impact of money on children and people of all ages with this month's books. See how money works both for and against its owners. TogetheRead is a series of recommended books, questions, and activities designed around two important facts: Reading is a critical skill for a successful future.

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An audiobook is a recording of a text read aloud, either word for word or abridged. They are a convenient alternative to traditional books and an important media for the visually impaired. Audiobooks have come a long way since the 1930s when the first full length recordings appeared for people with disabilities. They were made available to the general public in the 1950s, but it wasn't until the 1970s with the release of cassette tapes that popularity began to rise, especially among commuters while driving. Today, we no longer use bulky recording formats to listen to audiobooks. New digital devices with space for thousands of files allow you to carry a library around, and download or stream audio directly online. Popular audio formats like mp3 files play on the majority of digital devices. Platforms such as Google Books and Amazon, provide access to huge libraries of books, while smaller non-profit organizations, such as Librivox, allow public domain access to free audiobooks read by volunteers.

eBooks

An eBook (or Electronic Book) is a version of a printed book in digital format. They are cheaper and quicker to publish and therefore provide a more convenient way to circulate literature. During the 1970s the Internet provided a huge step forward for sharing digital texts and making them available on screen and ready to download. By the end of the 1990s, publishers started to provide digital versions alongside their printed counterparts. EBooks are typically read using an e-reader, such as the popular Kindle, although most digital devices can read EPUBs, the most common format used today. Some devices even allow you to listen to the spoken word and read at the same time. There are plenty of free eBooks available in the public domain, from sites such as Gutenberg and although not likely to replace printed books in the near future, eBooks and audiobooks are changing the way we consume literature. Digitalbook.io aims to facilitate this by bringing together the best digital books from all the top online sources.

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Digitalbook.io | Free audiobooks & eBooks

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Find the best free audiobooks and eBooks. Read and listen to digital books online or download to your mobile phone, desktop, and eReader.

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100 Days of Reading Summer Challenge 2025: Reading Brings Us Together (Lafayette Public Library)

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100 Days of Reading Summer Challenge 2025: Reading Brings Us Together (Lafayette Public Library)

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Library Digital Services

As a service to you, the Lafayette Public Library subscribes to a wide variety of online databases. We have everything you need to support access to online learning, magazines & newspapers, eBooks & eAudiobooks, and so much more. You can find the full list under Free Stuff for Our Patrons, but here are a few we'd like to put a spotlight on.

We hope that you and your family will take advantage of the following library services: Read the full story "

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Library Digital Services As a service to you, the Lafayette Public Library subscribes to a wide variety of online databases. We have everything you need to support access to online learning, magazines & newspapers, eBooks & eAudiobooks, and so much more.

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Your Next Great Read: Fill out this Google form to get personalized summer (or anytime) reading suggestions

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Your Next Great Read: Fill out this Google form to get personalized summer (or anytime) reading suggestions

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Easily create surveys and polls to collect customer feedback, measure employee satisfaction, and organize team events.

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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What book should I read? - What is your real personality?

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What book should I read? - Do you know yourself? Check it by taking these numerous tests and quizzes

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How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1

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CSLP firmly stands against all racist practices, violence and continued oppression of our African American community as well as Indigenous and People of Color. We stand in solidarity with those advocating justice and equal opportunity for everyone. We support those protesting against systemic racism and government corruption. CSLP is committed to empower libraries to foster community free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity, or any other status. We do not condone hate, racism and intolerance of any kind.

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CSLP firmly stands against all racist practices, violence and continued oppression of our African American community as well as Indigenous and People of Color. We stand in solidarity with those advocating justice and equal opportunity for everyone. We support those protesting against systemic racism and government corruption.

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Discover Crime Fiction, Mystery Novels | AbeBooks

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Browse & Buy: Welcome to AbeBooks' collections of crime fiction and mystery novels, a seedy underworld of thrillers and murder mysteries where detectives, sleuths and private eyes are on the case. Here you'll find hard-boiled and suspenseful crime fiction, as well as mystery novels from some of literature's best detective writers, such as Agatha Christie.

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The end of summer is traditional coming of age time. Your new best friend is going home. Your new boyfriend starts pretending not to know you. Your parents discover your secret hiding place and turn it into a mudroom. You move to a new town. Your dog dies. You pushed your best friend out of a tree and he broke his leg and now you're dealing with the guilt. When you're young, you don't measure time in calendar years-you measure it in school years. So, as we embark on a new one, the Literary Hub office put their heads together to consider some of the greatest coming-of-age novels ever written, for discussing in the halls and reading under the covers.

First: what exactly is a coming-of-age novel? Of course, it's a novel in which someone becomes an adult, literally or metaphorically. But does a coming of age novel require demonstrable maturity in the end? Does said coming of age need to be the primary focus-in plot, in emotional weight-of the novel? Does the main character have to be a literal adolescent in the beginning? Under 21, maybe? The answer to all of these, I decided, was "usually, but not always." Like you-know-what, we all know coming of age when we see it. Or at least we know it once we're on the other side.

However, I do have some rules for this list. I decided to discount anything written for children or young adults, which eliminates a few classics like The Outsiders, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, among others (but does not eliminate, say, The Catcher in the Rye, which Salinger wrote for adults). I rejected short story collections (even linked ones like Melissa Bank's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing) and stuck to one novel per writer (though sometimes I can't help myself from throwing in an extra mention). I also skewed towards "great" rather than "coming of age"-that is, if a novel was a perfect example of a genre, but just not that good, I might have eliminated it for one that was brilliant but less platonically correct.

Finally, even though the headline declares these 50 coming-of-age novels The Greatest, please remember that this is really only the compiled opinions of a few well-read editors. As such, feel free to disagree, amend, or (the best choice) add on to this list in the comments section.

Torres' slim, elegant, intense 2011 bildungsroman carries us deftly from the mania of childhood and brotherhood to the alienation of young adulthood and the self-knowledge that comes with it-or inspires it, as it were. This is a novel with a poetic soul; I'll never forget the opening passage of this book, which should give you some idea of the whole:

We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped our spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats; we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.

If you read this space, you'll know that I'm a fan of Call Me By Your Name, a perfect, deeply interior novel, steeped in desire, about a young man who falls in love with an older visitor, and discovers quite a bit about himself-and love, and family-in the process. Which sounds a little trite, as I look at it. But this book is not-it's too intensely felt for that.

A coming of age story that is also a coming of self story, as Callie becomes Cal, and the world becomes modern. See also: The Virgin Suicides, which rivals this one fiercely in my heart and is also in some ways a purer bildungsroman, though for a faceless chorus of boys instead of a single one.

So much more than a coming of age novel, of course, and not usually designated as such-and yet still it fits, as Olympia tells the monstrous story of her childhood (while endeavoring to protect her own daughter from the woman who would "normalize" her). Plus, honestly, for many, reading this book is a coming-of-age experience-it's shocking, to look so directly at raw human experience, ambition, and pain, even in an inhuman package.

While Mitchell is still best known for Cloud Atlas, readers should not sleep on his semi-autobiographical 2006 novel, which covers a year-well, thirteen months, to be precise, each recounted in a single chapter-in the life of a thirteen year old boy with a stammer. This is a quiet book, especially as compared to the rest of Mitchell's oeuvre, but it captures a very specific, ever-changing moment in life with clarity and empathy-and not a small interest in the language that makes it all fit together.

Duras' originally conceived of her classic autobiographical novel as an annotated book of photographs; though it has no images, it retains that feel, jumping from moment to indelible, distilled moment. It is, as you probably know, about a young white girl and her older Chinese lover in 1920s French Indochina, but it is about much more than that: class, race, mental health, money, family, beauty, rage, growing older. It is not salacious. It's barely sexy. Instead it is a strange and humid ode to self-discovery.

Carson's novel in verse features an unlikely subject for coming-of-age: Geryon, the giant monster of Greek mythology (metaphorically, at least) who, tormented by an abusive brother and a mother too weak to protect him, falls in doomed love with a dashing young man named Herakles. But despite the strange form, obscure translations, and magical thinking of this book, few coming of age tales are more affecting.

Not only does this novel feature the best opening paragraph of all time (or at least one of them; see the entry for We The Animals on this very list), but it also features a very compelling young protagonist coming to terms with what I'll gingerly describe as a . . . unique family situation.

With Catcher in the Rye, probably the first title that comes to mind (at least for Americans) when someone mentions "coming-of-age" novels. After all, what's not to love: knightly father, tomboy daughter, mysterious neighbor, personal growth! A classic among classics.

A beloved coming of age and coming out novel about a young evangelical girl (her name is Jeanette) who dreams of being a missionary-until she falls in love with another girl.

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The end of summer is traditional coming of age time. Your new best friend is going home. Your new boyfriend starts pretending not to know you. Your parents discover your secret hiding place and turn it into a mudroom. You move to a new town. Your dog dies.

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Shop Art, Books & Collectibles - Curated Collections | AbeBooks

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Browse & Buy: Browse and shop books and collectibles ranging from vintage paperbacks and signed first editions to antique maps and art and photography.

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The Best Female Authors of All Timeby Jessica Doyle

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The Best Female Authors of All Timeby Jessica Doyle

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Since its inaugural year in 1948, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded to a woman 18 times. America's National Book Award, launched in 1950, shares the same number, while the Man Booker, beginning in 1969, boasts 16. As of February 2018, that makes the number of times one of these prestigious literary awards has been awarded to a woman just one in four (or, a whopping 26.9% of awards granted, to be exact).

Something I noticed while tallying the winners is that, for the most part, the share of female winners is densely packed into the last 20 years. While that could be seen as a sign of promise, the imbalance is still glaringly obvious which strikes me as odd considering the wealth of literary talent among women. I set out to create a list of 50 essential female authors, and upon hitting 50 in under five minutes I decided to shoot for 100. It wasn't a hard list to fill - what was hard was choosing just 100. I cringe to think of the names that were omitted (please, tell us in the comment section).

How do we change this? We start with the obvious - we read women. In 2014 writer Joanna Walsh launched The Year of Reading Women (#readwomen2014). What started as a nudge encouraging friends to read female authors became a powerful movement to raise awareness in the book industry and encourage publishers, distributors, and promoters to pull women writers into the spotlight so readers like you and I could better discover them. If step one is to read women, then step two is to talk about them - to review them, to critique them, to press their books into the hands of our book-loving friends.

Whatever stage you're at in the endeavor to read more women, here are 100 talented female authors to get you started or keep you going. We suspect the list will grow longer in the comments section, so please do give those a read and leave your own suggestions!

Which outstanding female authors did we miss?
Book shelf illustration by Jane Mount of Ideal Bookshelf.

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Since its inaugural year in 1948, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded to a woman 18 times. America's National Book Award, launched in 1950, shares the same number, while the Man Booker, beginning in 1969, boasts 16.

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Discover Horror Stories, Gothic Literature | AbeBooks

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Browse & Buy: If you're looking for great horror stories to read, you'll enjoy browsing AbeBooks' collections of horror books. Here you'll find lots of gothic literature and scary books filled with the macabre and supernatural, including ghosts, vampires and werewolves. Authors in the selection include Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker and Stephen King.

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Reading list: 23 female TED speakers tell us about the books that shaped them

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Reading list: 23 female TED speakers tell us about the books that shaped them

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Here are the books that profoundly influenced women from our speaker community, and they're just as wonderfully diverse as TED itself.

When I read this book for the first time as a deeply odd fifth-grader (or, as Jane says, "poor, plain, and little"), it felt like grasping onto a life raft that had been flung to me through the folds of time. Feeling such a kinship with Jane and with Charlotte Brontë herself made me feel, quite suddenly, less alone. I still re-read this book every couple of years, and it still speaks to something primal and yearning in me - the outsider woman who is finally seen, finds love, but also has the strength and self-possession to reject that love until she is able to accept it from a place of her own power and dignity. If you haven't read it, do so immediately; if you read it a long time ago, it is well worth reading again; and if you, like me, can't get enough of it, may I also recommend Wide Sargasso Sea, which is a prequel by Jean Rhys centered on the story of the mad wife in the attic.

- Naomi McDougall Jones (TED Talk: What it's like to be a woman in Hollywood)

I read this collection of poems at a time of life when I was extremely outwardly successful yet, as I later came to learn, mired in self-loathing. Clifton's poems on blackness, femaleness, mothering and the body were the catalyst of my journey to self-love. Reading Clifton, I felt, "If these words are possible, if she is possible, maybe I am possible."

The book that shaped me was a biography of Marie Curie, written by her daughter Eve Curie. I read it when I was a pre-teenager, and it motivated me to become a scientist. I was inspired by how she felt that scientific research was a deeply worthwhile, even noble, calling and that she also had a family (two daughters) and was a devoted parent as well as an iconic researcher.

- Elizabeth Blackburn (TED Talk: The science of cells that never get old)

Nichiren Daishonin was a Japanese philosopher (1222-82) who wrote at a time when women were dismissed and faced a life and future of woe. In this book, he encourages men and especially women to make possible the impossible. He addresses women with powerful phrases like, "Even if one were to meet a person who could cross the ocean carrying Mount Sumeru on his head, one could never find a woman like you. Even though one might find a person who could steam sand and make boiled rice of it, one could never meet a woman like you." This kind of courage really shaped me in showing me the infinite value and dignity of life.

- Wanda Diaz-Merced (TED Talk: How a blind astronomer found a way to hear the stars)

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

I read this book, a linked collection of short stories about dreams Einstein had, when I was a teenager, and it helped me see the world through different eyes. The scenarios that the author describes in succinct and beautiful prose are imaginary - in one, time is a circle, endlessly repeating itself - but reading them increased my awareness of how extremely narrow a framework of time and space we live in.

- Karen Lloyd (TED Talk: This deep-sea mystery is changing our understanding of life)
Any Pippi Longstocking book by Astrid Lindgren
Lately, in the context of the #metoo movement, I found myself reflecting upon the outsized influence that the children's book character Pippi Longstocking has had on me. Growing up in the Netherlands, I was not surrounded by traditional stories created by Disney. The one character that was, was Pippi. A girl my age, Pippi was extraordinarily strong - strong enough to toss policemen off her veranda (hence my work today to hold the police around the world accountable for human-rights violations?). She was independent and lived in a big house by herself with a monkey and a horse (this was refreshingly different from dominant-gender narratives that involved futures created by princes and proposals), loyal, principled (she espoused sticking with your values over obeying rules), and anti-authority (she defied all formal structures of authority, from parents to educators - a key quality that I look for in leading a group of human-rights defenders). Last but not least, she was economically self-sufficient - she had a treasure trove of gold coins hidden in a tree trunk and taught me early on to be fiscally independent.

- Yvette Alberdingk-Thijm (TED Talk: The power of citizen video to create undeniable truths)

This book had an immense impact on me as I was developing the Runway of Dreams Foundation. It explores what it means to successfully create "blue oceans," untapped market spaces ripe for growth and innovation. My middle son, Oliver, was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, which makes it hard for him to find fashionable and functional clothing. Through my experiences with him, I realized that millions of people around the globe were also struggling to access stylish clothing and that the fashion industry was not addressing their needs. Mainstream adaptive clothing was a wide-open "blue ocean" of opportunity, and the book gave me the tools and framework I needed to take action.

Ah, how this book has impacted me! First and foremost, it was the first non-schoolbook which I read fully from end to end. While I've started reading many books, I never finished any. Many people say reading is for some people, not for all, but reading this book gave me another perspective - we just need the right book for us to fall in love with reading! This book is what got me into reading, and what a blessing that has been. Second, for those who love running, who are training for their next marathon, or who feel freed when they run, this book is a gem in allowing us to connect with the belief that humans were born to run, and most important, to consider that we were born to run barefoot. This book made me appreciate living barefoot. It has made me remind myself to take off my shoes and let my feet live freely whenever I can.

- Lana Mazahreh (TED Talk: 3 thoughtful ways to conserve water)

I read this memoir when I was in my 20s, and to this day it remains one of the most powerful human survival stories I have read. The author endured a harrowing childhood and adolescence in Dublin and, later, a violent marriage. As an adult, she traveled to Vietnam, where she turned her attention to helping the impoverished and vulnerable street children in Ho Chi Minh City. She went on to establish her own foundation, which now has programs in Vietnam and Mongolia. Her ability to survive and succeed has always stayed with me. I realized that self-determination and courage are innate qualities that no one can take from you and should never be underestimated. The book isn't easy to read; I cried a lot but I could not put it down. If you like to read about strong, real women, this book is a must.

- Michelle Knox (TED Talk: Talk about your death while you're still healthy)

I adored this novel from its first sentence. It is a portrait of a marriage seen through the eyes of an unnamed woman. It explores desire and its loss, the fears and hopes of birth and parenthood, and the terrors of things falling apart - all things that resonated deeply with me. I am also in awe of the apparently effortless way Offill weaves philosophy and history into her fictional narrative, rightly linking the intimate and domestic - traditionally seen as feminine spheres - to fundamental questions about the nature of knowledge and existence. This is a slender book (and as a mother of very young children, that is certainly a plus for me!), but each time I re-read it, I experience the kind of emotional connection with its protagonist that leaves me feeling listened to - which is what I value most in reading.

Roy's novel remains one of my favorites of all time. Her complex tale of an Indian family in Kerala unfolds masterfully through a series of flashbacks and side stories, and her writing is nothing short of stunning. It is an incredibly intricate work of fiction that touches on a myriad of sensitive themes in Indian culture and society, ranging from forbidden love to politics and the complexities of the caste system. The book came out in 1997, when I was in law school in Boston, and I was transported to another time and place while reading it. I was raised in the United States as a first-generation Indian, and this was one of the first times I read a story set in a backdrop that was culturally familiar to me, even though the story itself was completely unfamiliar. The critical and commercial global success of The God of Small Things made me realize that culturally diverse stories mattered, and it planted the seed in my mind that perhaps there was room for my story among those voices.

- Anjali Kumar (TED Talk: My failed mission to find God - and what I found instead)

This nonfiction book opened my eyes to the power that multinational corporations have over our food systems and the dangers and risks this poses to human health as well as livestock health. It puts into perspective how destructive consumerism is, and it made me question the power of marketing. It will make you think about the future of all food through a milky lens.

Just Kids reads like a poem, as Smith's wordcraft transports you to the bohemian New York of the late 1960s and '70s. While her memoir recounts the relationship she nurtured with her lover and friend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, what resonated with me was the way it depicts the insatiable drive that the two artists had to express and refine their art and creations. I was struck by their commitment to and faith in their inner artistic voice, a message that inspired me to be more creatively courageous, both in my scientific work and in my personal life.

This manifesto is as close to a come-to-Jesus moment as I'll ever get. Thomashauer, who goes by the name Mama Gena (think: sexy, hilarious, take-no-prisoners, feminist, Jewish mother - the one who all your friends want to hang out with), has been working with women for 20 years to flip the script on our patriarchal culture. As women, we've ingested so much about sacrifice, suffering, working harder, working smarter, enduring, and sucking it up. She's teaching us to stand for our pleasure and to stand for one another. Here's what she says: when a woman is in her full pleasure, or - in Pussy parlance - "turned on," everyone is taken care of. The first thing a turned-on woman does is turn to her sisters to bring them higher; her bright light illuminates her family and her community. She brings pleasure to her own life and to the world around her. Who doesn't want that?

My family immigrated to America when I was 11, and this book was the first real literature that I read after I learned English. It helped me understand that life is meant to have a villain or two, that failure often leads to the climax, and that people, like characters, develop, so even the most unlikely hero can save the day. And even though every great story must come to an end, there's always a sequel - all you have to do is to get out of your Hobbit hole and embrace your curiosity to go on an adventure.

In her 1974 essay, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, The Creativity of Black Women in the South," which is part of this collection, Walker challenges us to imagine the experiences of our creative female ancestors and calls upon Black women to define their own identity as Black women artists throughout history: "How was the creativity of the Black woman kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years Black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a Black person to read or write? And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist. Consider, if you can bear to imagine it, what might have been the result if singing, too, had been forbidden by law." When I first read these words, I wanted to explore the possibilities of these experiences and reinvest in the work of other Black female artists as a way of locating my own identity as an artist. Ever since I was a child, art has played a large part in my life. I am fascinated by the work of 19th-century artists and equally intrigued by the photographic images in my family album of the women that came before me.

- Deborah Willis (TED Talk, given with her son Hank Willis Thomas: A mother and son united by love and art)

It was important to me that I give my mother the best possible experience in the very difficult and precious time when she was dying. But I had no idea how; I had no experience. I researched this topic as much as I researched cancer itself and how to fight it, and this book was the most helpful I read. Halifax is truly a gift to our world. She is the ultimate role model of how to be with someone who is going through the dying process. In understanding how to be present to the letting go of life, we can learn how to live more presently.

- Alyssa Monks (TED Talk: How loss helped one artist find beauty in imperfection)

Mothers and Others by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

This nonfiction book is an eye-opening exploration into how children are raised around the world and how child-rearing can inform the understanding of human nature more broadly. I relied heavily on it when writing my own book, which explores the brain mechanisms that enable us to care about other people's welfare. As it turns out, the same brain networks that support caring for children also support care more broadly, an idea that builds on the author's most essential point: one of the things which makes humans special as a species is that we don't limit care to our own children. We can expand our circles of care and compassion outward to encompass nearly anyone, and it's all because of the way our brains were set up to parent.

- Abigail Marsh (TED Talk: Why some people are more altruistic than others)

Just a few pages into this book, I realized Anne Shirley was a kindred spirit. An orphaned girl with no material advantages but a richness of soul, imagination and ambition, Anne was wonderfully imperfect and extraordinarily real. I met her in sixth grade: She taught me that different doesn't mean bad, smart beats pretty, and tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it - yet. Her courage to try and her willingness to hope inspired some of my own leaps and softened the thuds too. When you've got a friend who doesn't just see a lake but the Lake of Shining Waters, you can find the silver lining in just about anything.

- Kate Adams (TED Talk: 4 larger-than-life lessons from soap operas)

This great feminist novel, which is set in the Caribbean, blew me away at 18. Hypnotic and mesmerizing and sensuous, with the weight of the tropics, sin and loneliness, it was exhilarating because of the author's psychological bravery and insight. I hope people are still reading her - she changed the lives of all the young women I knew.

- Anne Lamott (TED Talk: 12 truths I learned from life and writing)

This seminal work changed my life in more ways than one. It distills ancient and profound Tibetan wisdom in a manner that is comprehensible to the Western mind. The two parts of the book - Life and Death - are naturally related to each other. While I am not an assiduous meditator, some of the advice and techniques explained in the Life section have stayed with me after just one reading. I learned how to calm the mind, even in situations that would otherwise cause a panic attack. But I found the section on dying even more powerful and useful. In Western societies we fear death and don't talk about it much. Here, we learn how to prepare for our own end and how to help others transition. This was of immense value at a time when so many young people, friends and contemporaries were decimated by AIDS in the 1990s. Later on, as I grew older, so did my aunts, uncles and father. Facing up to their departures in ways practiced by advanced spiritual leaders takes away some of the pain, fear and sadness - theirs and ours. Unreligious and truly transformational, this book continues to inspire and provide endless wisdom on the great mysteries and challenges of our human existence.

- Philippa Neave (TED Talk: The unexpected challenges of a country's first election)

For the past couple of years, I've had this collection of poems at my bedside. It's brutal and love-filled at the same time, and I always find something that speaks to what I am feeling at the moment. Today, it's this one ...
knowing your power is what creates Humility. not knowing your power is what creates Insecurity. -ego
- Sayu Bhojwani (TED Talk: Immigrant voices make democracy stronger)

This novel really influenced my thinking. The writing is so visual - gritty and sublime at the same time. It allows you to engage with vastness and wonder and the itchy curious experience of having your feet in mud. I also like the back story of the author, Jeanette Winterson. She is a difficult character to peg, one who is courageous, compassionate, intelligent, violent, proud, and argumentative, a fighter with a flair for love stories. She has definitely influenced my connection with multifaceted ideas of "female," "queer" and "independent."

- Emily Parsons-Lord (TED Talk: Art made of the air we breathe)

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23 unmissable books recommended by female TED speakers

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When I read this book for the first time as a deeply odd fifth-grader (or, as Jane says, "poor, plain, and little"), it felt like grasping onto a life raft that had been flung to me through the folds of time. Feeling such a kinship with Jane and with Charlotte Brontë herself made me feel, quite suddenly, less alone.

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From Asimov to Bradbury - discover AbeBooks' list of 50 must-read science fiction books

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Sneak peeks at great reads, behind-the-scenes insights from authors, lively and provocative reader's guides and fabulous free books.

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How to inspire every child to be a lifelong reader

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How to inspire every child to be a lifelong reader

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Alvin Irby: How to inspire every child to be a lifelong reader

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According to the US Department of Education, more than 85 percent of black fourth-grade boys aren't proficient in reading. What kind of reading experiences should we be creating to ensure that all children read well?

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50 Essential Non-Fiction Books (You'll Actually Read)

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50 Essential Non-Fiction Books (You'll Actually Read)

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50 Essential Non-Fiction Books You'll Actually Read

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This is by no means a complete list, but our selection of 50 essential non-fiction books you'll actually read.

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Several years ago, I was given as a gift a remote session with a bibliotherapist at the London headquarters of the School of Life, which offers innovative courses to help people deal with the daily emotional challenges of existence. I have to admit that at first I didn't really like the idea of being given a reading "prescription." I've generally preferred to mimic Virginia Woolf's passionate commitment to serendipity in my personal reading discoveries, delighting not only in the books themselves but in the randomly meaningful nature of how I came upon them (on the bus after a breakup, in a backpackers' hostel in Damascus, or in the dark library stacks at graduate school, while browsing instead of studying). I've long been wary of the peculiar evangelism of certain readers: You must read this, they say, thrusting a book into your hands with a beatific gleam in their eyes, with no allowance for the fact that books mean different things to people-or different things to the same person-at various points in our lives. I loved John Updike's stories about the Maples in my twenties, for example, and hate them in my thirties, and I'm not even exactly sure why.

But the session was a gift, and I found myself unexpectedly enjoying the initial questionnaire about my reading habits that the bibliotherapist, Ella Berthoud, sent me. Nobody had ever asked me these questions before, even though reading fiction is and always has been essential to my life. I love to gorge on books over long breaks-I'll pack more books than clothes, I told Berthoud. I confided my dirty little secret, which is that I don't like buying or owning books, and always prefer to get them from the library (which, as I am a writer, does not bring me very good book-sales karma). In response to the question "What is preoccupying you at the moment?," I was surprised by what I wanted to confess: I am worried about having no spiritual resources to shore myself up against the inevitable future grief of losing somebody I love, I wrote. I'm not religious, and I don't particularly want to be, but I'd like to read more about other people's reflections on coming to some sort of early, weird form of faith in a "higher being" as an emotional survival tactic. Simply answering the questions made me feel better, lighter.

We had some satisfying back-and-forths over e-mail, with Berthoud digging deeper, asking about my family's history and my fear of grief, and when she sent the final reading prescription it was filled with gems, none of which I'd previously read. Among the recommendations was "The Guide," by R. K. Narayan. Berthoud wrote that it was "a lovely story about a man who starts his working life as a tourist guide at a train station in Malgudi, India, but then goes through many other occupations before finding his unexpected destiny as a spiritual guide." She had picked it because she hoped it might leave me feeling "strangely enlightened." Another was "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ," by José Saramago: "Saramago doesn't reveal his own spiritual stance here but portrays a vivid and compelling version of the story we know so well." "Henderson the Rain King," by Saul Bellow, and "Siddhartha," by Hermann Hesse, were among other prescribed works of fiction, and she included some nonfiction, too, such as "The Case for God," by Karen Armstrong, and "Sum," by the neuroscientist David Eagleman, a "short and wonderful book about possible afterlives."

I worked my way through the books on the list over the next couple of years, at my own pace-interspersed with my own "discoveries"-and while I am fortunate enough to have my ability to withstand terrible grief untested, thus far, some of the insights I gleaned from these books helped me through something entirely different, when, over several months, I endured acute physical pain. The insights themselves are still nebulous, as learning gained through reading fiction often is-but therein lies its power. In a secular age, I suspect that reading fiction is one of the few remaining paths to transcendence, that elusive state in which the distance between the self and the universe shrinks. Reading fiction makes me lose all sense of self, but at the same time makes me feel most uniquely myself. As Woolf, the most fervent of readers, wrote, a book "splits us into two parts as we read," for "the state of reading consists in the complete elimination of the ego," while promising "perpetual union" with another mind.

Bibliotherapy is a very broad term for the ancient practice of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect. The first use of the term is usually dated to a jaunty 1916 article in The Atlantic Monthly, "A Literary Clinic." In it, the author describes stumbling upon a "bibliopathic institute" run by an acquaintance, Bagster, in the basement of his church, from where he dispenses reading recommendations with healing value. "Bibliotherapy is...a new science," Bagster explains. "A book may be a stimulant or a sedative or an irritant or a soporific. The point is that it must do something to you, and you ought to know what it is. A book may be of the nature of a soothing syrup or it may be of the nature of a mustard plaster." To a middle-aged client with "opinions partially ossified," Bagster gives the following prescription: "You must read more novels. Not pleasant stories that make you forget yourself. They must be searching, drastic, stinging, relentless novels." (George Bernard Shaw is at the top of the list.) Bagster is finally called away to deal with a patient who has "taken an overdose of war literature," leaving the author to think about the books that "put new life into us and then set the life pulse strong but slow."

Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia. Sometimes it can simply mean one-on-one or group sessions for "lapsed" readers who want to find their way back to an enjoyment of books. Berthoud and her longtime friend and fellow bibliotherapist Susan Elderkin mostly practice "affective" bibliotherapy, advocating the restorative power of reading fiction. The two met at Cambridge University as undergraduates, more than twenty years ago, and bonded immediately over the shared contents of their bookshelves, in particular Italo Calvino's novel "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller," which is itself about the nature of reading. As their friendship developed, they began prescribing novels to cure each other's ailments, such as a broken heart or career uncertainty. "When Suse was having a crisis about her profession-she wanted to be a writer, but was wondering if she could cope with the inevitable rejection-I gave her Don Marquis's 'Archy and Mehitabel' poems," Berthoud told me. "If Archy the cockroach could be so dedicated to his art as to jump on the typewriter keys in order to write his free-verse poems every night in the New York offices of the Evening Sun, then surely she should be prepared to suffer for her art, too." Years later, Elderkin gave Berthoud,who wanted to figure out how to balance being a painter and a mother, Patrick Gale's novel "Notes from an Exhibition," about a successful but troubled female artist.

They kept recommending novels to each other, and to friends and family, for many years, and, in 2007, when the philosopher Alain de Botton, a fellow Cambridge classmate, was thinking about starting the School of Life, they pitched to him the idea of running a bibliotherapy clinic. "As far as we knew, nobody was doing it in that form at the time," Berthoud said. "Bibliotherapy, if it existed at all, tended to be based within a more medical context, with an emphasis on self-help books. But we were dedicated to fiction as the ultimate cure because it gives readers a transformational experience."

Berthoud and Elderkin trace the method of bibliotherapy all the way back to the Ancient Greeks, "who inscribed above the entrance to a library in Thebes that this was a 'healing place for the soul.' " The practice came into its own at the end of the nineteenth century, when Sigmund Freud began using literature during psychoanalysis sessions. After the First World War, traumatized soldiers returning home from the front were often prescribed a course of reading. "Librarians in the States were given training on how to give books to WWI vets, and there's a nice story about Jane Austen's novels being used for bibliotherapeutic purposes at the same time in the U.K.," Elderkin says. Later in the century, bibliotherapy was used in varying ways in hospitals and libraries, and has more recently been taken up by psychologists, social and aged-care workers, and doctors as a viable mode of therapy.

There is now a network of bibliotherapists selected and trained by Berthoud and Elderkin, and affiliated with the School of Life, working around the world, from New York to Melbourne. The most common ailments people tend to bring to them are the life-juncture transitions, Berthoud says: being stuck in a rut in your career, feeling depressed in your relationship, or suffering bereavement. The bibliotherapists see a lot of retirees, too, who know that they have twenty years of reading ahead of them but perhaps have only previously read crime thrillers, and want to find something new to sustain them. Many seek help adjusting to becoming a parent. "I had a client in New York, a man who was having his first child, and was worried about being responsible for another tiny being," Berthoud says. "I recommended 'Room Temperature,' by Nicholson Baker, which is about a man feeding his baby a bottle and having these meditative thoughts about being a father. And of course 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' because Atticus Finch is the ideal father in literature."

Berthoud and Elderkin are also the authors of "The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies," which is written in the style of a medical dictionary and matches ailments ("failure, feeling like a") with suggested reading cures ("The History of Mr. Polly," by H. G. Wells). First released in the U.K. in 2013, it is now being published in eighteen countries, and, in an interesting twist, the contract allows for a local editor and reading specialist to adapt up to twenty-five per cent of the ailments and reading recommendations to fit each particular country's readership and include more native writers. The new, adapted ailments are culturally revealing. In the Dutch edition, one of the adapted ailments is "having too high an opinion of your own child"; in the Indian edition, "public urination" and "cricket, obsession with" are included; the Italians introduced "impotence," "fear of motorways," and "desire to embalm"; and the Germans added "hating the world" and "hating parties." Berthoud and Elderkin are now working on a children's-literature version, "A Spoonful of Stories," due out in 2016.

For all avid readers who have been self-medicating with great books their entire lives, it comes as no surprise that reading books can be good for your mental health and your relationships with others, but exactly why and how is now becoming clearer, thanks to new research on reading's effects on the brain. Since the discovery, in the mid-nineties, of "mirror neurons"-neurons that fire in our brains both when we perform an action ourselves and when we see an action performed by someone else-the neuroscience of empathy has become clearer. A 2011 study published in the Annual Review of Psychology, based on analysis of fMRI brain scans of participants, showed that, when people read about an experience, they display stimulation within the same neurological regions as when they go through that experience themselves. We draw on the same brain networks when we're reading stories and when we're trying to guess at another person's feelings.

Other studies published in 2006 and 2009 showed something similar-that people who read a lot of fiction tend to be better at empathizing with others (even after the researchers had accounted for the potential bias that people with greater empathetic tendencies may prefer to read novels). And, in 2013, an influential study published in Science found that reading literary fiction (rather than popular fiction or literary nonfiction) improved participants' results on tests that measured social perception and empathy, which are crucial to "theory of mind": the ability to guess with accuracy what another human being might be thinking or feeling, a skill humans only start to develop around the age of four.

Keith Oatley, a novelist and emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, has for many years run a research group interested in the psychology of fiction. "We have started to show how identification with fictional characters occurs, how literary art can improve social abilities, how it can move us emotionally, and can prompt changes of selfhood," he wrote in his 2011 book, "Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction." "Fiction is a kind of simulation, one that runs not on computers but on minds: a simulation of selves in their interactions with others in the social world...based in experience, and involving being able to think of possible futures." This idea echoes a long-held belief among both writers and readers that books are the best kinds of friends; they give us a chance to rehearse for interactions with others in the world, without doing any lasting damage. In his 1905 essay "On Reading," Marcel Proust puts it nicely: "With books there is no forced sociability. If we pass the evening with those friends-books-it's because we really want to. When we leave them, we do so with regret and, when we have left them, there are none of those thoughts that spoil friendship: 'What did they think of us?'-'Did we make a mistake and say something tactless?'-'Did they like us?'-nor is there the anxiety of being forgotten because of displacement by someone else."

George Eliot, who is rumored to have overcome her grief at losing her life partner through a program of guided reading with a young man who went on to become her husband, believed that "art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot." But not everybody agrees with this characterization of fiction reading as having the ability to make us behave better in real life. In her 2007 book, "Empathy and the Novel," Suzanne Keen takes issue with this "empathy-altruism hypothesis," and is skeptical about whether empathetic connections made while reading fiction really translate into altruistic, prosocial behavior in the world. She also points out how hard it is to really prove such a hypothesis. "Books can't make change by themselves-and not everyone feels certain that they ought to," Keen writes. "As any bookworm knows, readers can also seem antisocial and indolent. Novel reading is not a team sport." Instead, she urges, we should enjoy what fiction does give us, which is a release from the moral obligation to feel something for invented characters-as you would for a real, live human being in pain or suffering-which paradoxically means readers sometimes "respond with greater empathy to an unreal situation and characters because of the protective fictionality." And she wholeheartedly supports the personal health benefits of an immersive experience like reading, which "allows a refreshing escape from ordinary, everyday pressures."

So even if you don't agree that reading fiction makes us treat others better, it is a way of treating ourselves better. Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers. "Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines," the author Jeanette Winterson has written. "What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination."

One of Berthoud's clients described to me how the group and individual sessions she has had with Berthoud have helped her cope with the fallout from a series of calamities, including losing her husband, the end of a five-year engagement, and a heart attack. "I felt my life was without purpose," she says. "I felt a failure as a woman." Among the books Berthoud initially prescribed was John Irving's novel "The Hotel New Hampshire." "He was a favorite writer of my husband, [whom] I had felt unable to attempt for sentimental reasons." She was "astounded and very moved" to see it on the list, and though she had avoided reading her husband's books up until then, she found reading it to be "a very rewarding emotional experience, both in the literature itself and ridding myself of demons." She also greatly appreciated Berthoud guiding her to Tom Robbins's novel "Jitterbug Perfume," which was "a real learning curve for me about prejudice and experimentation."

One of the ailments listed in "The Novel Cure" is "overwhelmed by the number of books in the world," and it's one I suffer from frequently. Elderkin says this is one of the most common woes of modern readers, and that it remains a major motivation for her and Berthoud's work as bibliotherapists. "We feel that though more books are being published than ever before, people are in fact selecting from a smaller and smaller pool. Look at the reading lists of most book clubs, and you'll see all the same books, the ones that have been shouted about in the press. If you actually calculate how many books you read in a year-and how many that means you're likely to read before you die-you'll start to realize that you need to be highly selective in order to make the most of your reading time." And the best way to do that? See a bibliotherapist, as soon as you can, and take them up on their invitation, to borrow some lines from Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus": "Come, and take choice of all my library/And so beguile thy sorrow..."

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Ceridwen Dovey on how bibliotherapists Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin prescribe fiction for healing and self-exploration.

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The Great American Read is made possible by the Anne Ray Foundation and public television viewers. Additional engagement funding for The Great American Read is made possible by CPB.

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Villains and Monsters | The Great American Read | PBS

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Villains and Monsters | The Great American Read | PBS

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How do novels featuring our favorite villains and monsters help us understand why people behave badly? We examine the evil characters in our favorite novels, to find out why we go to the dark side. We also meet authors who have created some of our best-loved villains.

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Find out what kind of reader you are and the books you should check out now.

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Oliver Sacks on Libraries In praise of intellectual freedom, community, and the ecstasy of serendipitous discovery.

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Oliver Sacks on Libraries In praise of intellectual freedom, community, and the ecstasy of serendipitous discovery.

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"Knowledge sets us free, art sets us free. A great library is freedom," Ursula K. Le Guin wrote as she celebrated the sacredness of public libraries. "A library is a rainbow in the clouds," Maya Angelou exulted in reflecting on how a library saved her life. It was thanks to the library that James Baldwin read his way from Harlem to the literary pantheon. "You never know what troubled little girl needs a book," Nikki Giovanni wrote in one of her lovely poems celebrating libraries and librarians.

Among the titans of mind and spirit shaped and saved by libraries was the great neurologist, author, and voracious reader Oliver Sacks (July 9, 1933-August 30, 2015).

In a short essay titled "Libraries," found in the bittersweet posthumous collection Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales (public library), Sacks recalls his childhood in England with the unsentimental sweetness that makes his autobiographical writings so delicious:

The oak-paneled library was the quietest and most beautiful room in the house, to my eyes, and it vied with my little chemistry lab as my favorite place to be. I would curl up in a chair and become so absorbed in what I was reading that all sense of time would be lost. Whenever I was late for lunch or dinner I could be found, completely enthralled by a book, in the library. I learned to read early, at three or four, and books, and our library, are among my first memories.

But the ur-library, for me, was our local public library, the Willesden library. There I spent many of the happiest hours of my growing-up years - our house was a five-minute walk from the library - and it was there I received my real education.

Like many of us, Sacks found his natural curiosity unstimulated, blunted even, by the industrial model of education into which he was thrust. At the library, where he was master of his own time and mind, he found the antidote - the living substance of learning without the ill-fitting structure of schooling:

On the whole, I disliked school, sitting in class, receiving instruction; information seemed to go in one ear and out the other. I could not be passive - I had to be active, learn for myself, learn what I wanted, and in the way that suited me best. I was not a good pupil, but I was a good learner, and in the Willesden library - and all the libraries that came later - I roamed the shelves and stacks, had the freedom to select whatever I wanted, to follow paths that fascinated me, to become myself. At the library I felt free - free to look at the thousands, tens of thousands, of books; free to roam and to enjoy the special atmosphere and the quiet companionship of other readers, all, like myself, on quests of their own.

But it was at the majestic Oxford libraries that his belonging in place and time came fully abloom in the landscape of literature:

It was in the vaults of the Queen's College that I really gained a sense of history, and of my own language.

While Sacks found at the library a locus of liberation via self-directed learning, he also found the seeming opposite - a surprising sense of community, which became a lovely complement to his newfound intellectual autonomy:

Though the library was quiet, whispered conversations might start in the stacks - two of you, perhaps, were searching for the same old book, the same bound volumes of Brain from 1890 - and conversations could lead to friendships. All of us in the library were reading our own books, absorbed in our own worlds, and yet there was a sense of community, even intimacy. The physicality of books - along with their places and their neighbors on the bookshelves - was part of this camaraderie: handling books, sharing them, passing them to one another, even seeing the names of previous readers and the dates they took books out.

When Sacks moved to New York City in 1965 and began working on his first book - the epoch-making , which not only revolutionized our understanding of one of the mind's most mystifying frontiers but ushered in a whole new aesthetic of lyrical writing about medicine - the library became his escape from the notorious oppressions and privations of a young person's first New York shoebox:

At that time I had a horrid, poky little apartment in which there were almost no surfaces to read or write on. I was just able, holding an elbow awkwardly aloft, to write some of Migraine on the top of the refrigerator. I longed for spaciousness. Fortunately, the library at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where I worked, had this in abundance. I would sit at a large table to read or write for a while, and then wander around the shelves and stacks. I never knew what my eyes might alight upon, but I would sometimes discover unexpected treasures, lucky finds, and bring these back to my seat.

I have often wondered and worried about what rapturous rewards of such serendipitous discovery we relinquish when we surrender to search, that double-edged glory of the Internet. We may have a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips, but they are still appendages of our consciously informed intent - we reach for what we know to reach for. It is an odd question I live with daily, suspended and often sundered between these two strands of knowledge: Brain Pickings exists in the world of the Internet, but draws on the world of "unexpected treasures" found on bookshelves, unlooked for. My experience of it - of how I read what I read and how I write about it - is largely one of serendipitous discovery. It mirrors my childhood experience of pulling an encyclopedia off the shelf of my grandmother's formidable library in Bulgaria, opening to a random page, learning about something I did not know to wonder about until I discovered it, then telling my parents about it with ecstatic enthusiasm. Sacks experienced this intimately - it was amid the stacks the library that he discovered Edward Liveing's obscure 1873 book Megrim, which inspired him to write Migraine. Perhaps he never used a computer, not even as he continued to write prolifically into the twenty-first century, not out of some time-stilted Luddism but because he resisted, passionately and to the hilt, the relinquishing of this ecstasy of discovery.

Everything in Its Place is a wondrous read in its entirety, irradiating Sacks's kaleidoscopic curiosity across subjects as varied as the joy of swimming, the pains of first love, the glories of the gingko tree, the surreal turns the mind takes under various rare neurological conditions, and the relationship between gardens and creativity. Complement this particular portion with an illustrated love letter to books by some of the greatest minds of our time, benefiting the public library system, then revisit Sacks on the building blocks of identity, the three essential elements of creativity, his formative reading list of 121 favorite books, the remarkable story of how he saved his own life by reciting poetry, and his stunning memoir of a life fully lived.

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"Knowledge sets us free, art sets us free. A great library is freedom," Ursula K. Le Guin wrote as she celebrated the sacredness of public libraries. "A library is a rainbow in the clouds," Maya Angelou exulted in reflecting on how a library saved her life.

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Discover books from a variety of themes! Watch the Penguin School and Library team book talk their favorite books for poetry month, summer reading, rom-coms, and more!

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Whichbook | A new way of choosing what book to read next

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Personality tests -» What book should I read?

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Reading personality quiz: What should you read this summer?

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Need some help building your summer reading list? Take our quiz to find out which books would most suit your personality.

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10th-12th Grade Annotation Guide for Summer Reading book (also linked in above paperwork)

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10th-12th Grade Annotation Guide for Summer Reading book (also linked in above paperwork)

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UPDATED 01/06/2019 with even MORE challenges! There may be another update with a few challenges that I may have missed and to introduce the 2019 reading challenges tracker.

The Master List of 2019 Reading Challenges

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+ 52 Books in 52 Weeks. The goal is to read 52 books. In the graphic (free printable) there are 52 different book categories - find a book that meets the criteria and check it off! The goal is to stretch ourselves to beyond our regular reading.
+ Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks. The goal is to read 52 books this year. How you get there is up to you, but there are a variety of challenges including a new 52 Books Bingo as well as A to Z, Chunky, Dusty and Feed Your Muse to assist us in our reading adventures.

+ 52 Ways to #KillYourTBR. A fun way to get through all the unread books you have on your shelf (or eReader) - go through this list with 52 themes.

+ All About the Trope. Basically pick a trope...and read it as much as you can.

+ Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge. Fill your bowls with one book for each letter of the Alphabet.

+ Alphabet Soup - Author Edition Reading Challenge. The challenge is to read one book that has an author whose first name or last name starts with every letter of the alphabet.

+ The Audiobook Challenge. The goal is to find a new love for audios or to outdo yourself by listening to more audios this year.

+ Audio Books Reading Challenge. Listen to as many audiobooks as you can.

+ Aussie Author Challenge. Your challenge is to read and review books written by Australian authors. Choose from three different levels: Wallaby, Wallaroo, or Kangaroo.

+ The Australian Women Writers Challenge. The AWW challenge was set up to help overcome gender bias in the reviewing of books by Australian women. The challenge encourages avid readers and book bloggers, male and female, living in or outside Australia, to read and review books by Australian women throughout the year.

+ #Ampersand2019 Reading Challenge. There are There are 52 reading prompts in total (one for each week) but you don't need to read every single book on the list to feel like you've "won"; just read what you like, when you like. If it happens to fit into a prompt, it's a bonus.

+ Aussies Rule Challenge. Readat least one book for each prompt.

+ Austen Challenge. A low key challenge to read Jane Austen books throughout the year. You choose which ones and how many you want to read.

+ Backlist Reader Challenge. Read books that have been published before 2017 AND are already on your TBR list or pile.

+ Bad Boys of Romance Reading Challenge. Read books that feature a bad boy hero: Rock stars, MC members, street fighters, assassins, mafia, loners, geeks, etc. Only romance series are accepted.

+ Beat the Backlist. This challenge is focused on knocking off titles that have been on your TBR for a while, or even ones that get pushed aside for new releases.

+ Birth Year Reading Challenge. What books were published the year you were born? This challenge encourages you to find out, and then read some of them.

+ Blog All About It. There's a word each month and any time during the month you can blog about that word. In any way you want. Review, recipe, photos, stories, etc.

+ Blogger Shame. This is a way to cheekily catch up on review request copies that have been languishing on your review pile for at least 6 months and are way past due to the author or publisher.

+ Bloom Where You're Planted Reading Challenge. Check out the graphic and select a title to read for each category.

+ A Book A Week with the Pingel Sisters. There are 52 categories for you to select from. To make it more manageable, there will be monthly reading challenges and a book club!

+ Book Blog Discussion Challenge. To encourage our fellow book bloggers to not only read more (since there are already lots of challenges for that), but talk more too.

+ Book to Movie Challenge. Read books being made into movies or tv series. Choose from the list on the site or add you're own if it's not there yet.

+ Book to Screen Challenge. This isn't just a reading challenge but a watching challenge as well. Read the books and watch the movie or tv show - in whichever order you prefer.

+ Books 'N' Tunes. This challenge is just a fun way to match music to books and share what you have with other readers.

+ Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. There are 24 tasks that will invite new genres, new authors, and new worlds, both real and imaginary, into your reading life.

+ #Bookiary2019. Read and review up to 52 books, so one book per week or ca. four books per month. But there will be monthly goals to reach, and a little prize is waiting for you if you finish all tasks!

+ Bookish Resolutions Challenge. This challenge is about setting New Year's Resolutions for books, book blogging and writing.

+ Brit Trip Adventure. Follow the Roman Road through England with the intent of reading a book from each of the 45 counties.

+ British Crime Classics Challenge. Read stories that were written in the late 1800s to mid-1900s, and, as a participant of this challenge, you are expected to make at least two posts per month.

+ By the 100th Page Book Challenge 2019. There are 12 challenge prompts for you to find books for.

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+ Calendar of Crime Challenge. Read 12 mystery books, each from of the categories in the month on the Calendar of Crime.

+ Charity Reading Challenge. Read for a good cause! Buy books at a charity shop, or, even a friends of the library book sale, or, donate a certain percentage of money for each book you read for the challenge. You can choose your own goal of how many books to read, what charity you'll be donating money towards, how much money, etc.

+ Clean Out Your E-Reader Challenge. Read Your E-Reads! Every book you read MUST be in an electronic format, meaning E-Book or Audiobook. And the books must be FREE or NEARLY FREE!

+ Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge. Read any book that is from the mystery, suspense, thriller, or crime genre.

+ Cloud of Witnesses. Read Christian Non Fiction material by authors who are "the cloud of witnesses" i.e. that authors have passed away.

+ Color Coded Reading Challenge. Choose books where the color may either be named in the title or it may appear as the dominant color for the cover of the book in the categories / colors provided.

+ Connect 5 Books Reading Challenge. Look for connections between books you read. When you have five that connect in whatever way you are able to group them then link up.

+ Contemporary Romance Reading Challenge. The goal is to read as many Contemporary Romance books as you'd like.

+ Continental Reading Challenge. Read at least one book for each of the seven continents.

+ Craving For Cozies. Read cozy mystery books

+ Creativity Reading Challenge. This challenge is about reading books on creativity, art, crafts, writing, film making, photography and any other topic that helps you live a more creative life.

+ Cruisin' Thru The Cozies. Read only cozy mysteries of your choice or read through the different sub-genres of cozy mysteries .

+ Diversify Your Reading Challenge. Each month, pick a book to read from the genre listed. 12 genres - 12 books.

+ Diversity Reading Challenge. Challenge yourself to read more diversely!

+ Diversity Reading Challenge. Read as many diverse books as you can, and also complete a read for the monthly theme.

+ Dread & Read Challenge. This challenge sweetens the deal for list readers who have books they'd rather not read-but have to finish to accomplish their goal of reading all the books on their list. Face your dread! Name the book(s) you're going to knock off this year and what kind of treat you'd like when you're finished.

+ Dystopia Reading Challenge. Read and review dystopian books.

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+ eBooks Reading Challenge. Complete as many eBooks as you can. Either list them in advance or as you go.

+ Epistolary Reading Challenge. The challenge is to read books written in the form of letters, diaries, blogs, e-mails and such, either completely or partially written this way.

+ European Reading Challenge. Tour Europe through books. The idea is to read books by European authors or books set in European countries (no matter where the author comes from).

+ Fanfiction Reading Challenge. As the name implies, this challenge is all about reading fanfiction.

+ Finishing the Series. This challenge is focused on finally finishing those series that you've started but not yet completed.

+ For The Love Of Ebooks. Read all those unread ebooks you own!

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+ Georgian Reading Challenge. Read a minimum of 4 books set in the Georgian Era.

+ The Grand World of Books Bingo. Complete a BINGO by reading from the categories on the board provided.

+ The Good Rule Reading Challenge. Set your reading goals and make sure to include a balance of reading new and old books (that's the inspiration for this challenge after all).

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+ Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Read historical fiction books from sub-genres like 20th Century, Victorian Reader, Renaissance Reader, Medieval, Ancient History and Prehistoric fiction.

+ The HSL 2019 Reading Challenge. If you, too, are looking for a way to organize your (endless) reading lists for 2019, consider this reading challenge bingo.

+ Humor Reading Challenge. Read books that you consider funny or humorous.

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+ I Spy Reading Challenge. This reading challenge is all about discovering books to read which match I SPY clues. There are 50 categories. Participation can be via blog, tweeting, Pinterest, or the I SPY Goodreads group.

+ The Island Reader Reading Challenge. Read books from the 14 categories on the list, e.g. a debut novel from a romance author, novel by a Caribbean author.
+ Indie Reading Challenge. Complete the Bingo challenge with books published by independent publishers or self-published. You can also just pledge to buy more independently published books than you currently.

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+ Just the Facts, Ma'am (Vintage Mystery Challenge). The objective is to answer all the important questions of Who, What, When, Where, How and Why to complete cases in either the Golden or Silver Mystery Eras (or for the more adventurous, both) using the Detective Notebooks.

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+ Lets Read Indie Reading Challenge. Read as many Indie authors as you'd like, i.e. books by self-published authors or published by small indie publishers.

+ Library Love. The goal is to read at least 12 books from the library.

+ Linz 2019 Reading Challenge. There are different levels, and different categories in each level. There are a lot of options but this reading challenge will also help challenge you to come out of your comfort zone. Get reading!

+ Literary Escapes Challenge. Try to read 1 book set in each of the 50 states + the District of Columbia.

+ Literary Loners Reading Challenge 2017. Read books featuring a character identified as a loner, outcast, recluse, wallflower, or introvert AND / OR read works written by writers known to have been lonersor recluses.
+ Literary Pickers Reading Challenge. How keen of an observer are you? This challenge is just a fun way to see if you can find a list of items as you read no matter what romance style you pick up.

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+ Memoir Reading Challenge. Read a minimum of five memoirs from any of the categories listed. One book can only count for one category.

+ Mental Health Reading Challenge. Read any book related to mental health - fiction or non-fiction.

+ Middle Grade Reading Challenge. Read a minimum of 6 MG books. Read any books you like, or focus on one author, or select a category from the checklist provided.
+ Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge. Choose between different checklists: Reading for Growth and Reading for Fun.

+ Moody Reader Reading Challenge. For this challenge - target backlisted books, sort them into genres that I will focus on during the year.

+ Monthly Keyword Challenge. Your task is to read one book each month whose title includes one or more of the keywords for that month.
+ Monthly Motif Reading Challenge. Read a book that corresponds to a different theme or motif each month. This challenge is hosted here at Girlxoxo!

+ Mount TBR Reading Challenge. Knock out some of those books you OWN that have been waiting in the wings for weeks ... months ... even years.

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+ The NJM Book Challenge. There are 25 items to tick off by year's end, and with some books likely to satisfy more than one category, it shouldn't be too difficult for most readers to accomplish.

+ Newbery Reading Challenge. Challenge yourself to read more Newbery and Caldecott Award Winning books.

+ Netgalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge. Tackle your review books, stumble upon new ones, and get your Netgalley percentage to the desired 80%!

+ New Releases Challenge. Read books released in 2019.

+ Nonfiction Reading Challenge. Set yourself a goal to read non-fiction books. Plus, every quarter, all challenge participants will be invited to vote on a group read.

+ Non-Fiction Book Bingo Challenge. Challenge yourself to get a BINGO or complete the entire board, with non-fiction reads.

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+ Outdo Yourself Challenge. The goal is to outdo yourself by reading more in 2019 than you did in 2018.

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+ Pages Read Reading Challenge. This challenge isn't about how many books you read but rather how many pages.

+ Pick-a-Theme Reading Challenge. Choose a theme each month and read books that fit that theme.

+ Picture Book Reading Challenge. Read 6 picture books of your choice, or select from the checklist of categories provided.

+ Polywogg Reading Challenge. A bingo style reading challenge.

+ Popsugar Reading Challenge. There are 50 book prompts. These include the standard 40 book challenge prompts plus 10 "advanced" prompts for those overachievers out there who are looking for even more ways to push their reading boundaries.

+ Print Only 2019 Reading Challenge. Read your printed hardcovers and paperback books on your shelves.

+ The Purrfect Reading Challenge. Read mysteries that have cats as main characters.

+ Putting Wings on Words Reading Challenge. There is a graphic with 30 reading prompts total - 5 lists with 5 prompts each and a bonus prompt list. Use #pwowreadingchallenge19 to follow along on social media.

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+ Rad Reading Challenge. Read books for the 10 categories.

+ Ragdoll Reading Challenge. Read a book in each of the 24 categories provided - or go for the light challenge (12 books) ... or the serious book-dragon edition.

+ Read it Again, Sam Sign-ups. Re-read your favorite books.

+ Read My Name Reading Challenge. Read books with your first, middle or last name as an author name, character name, place name or is about someone of that name. You choose your goal # of books.

+ Reading Assignment Challenge. You'll be registering for classes that fit your reading goals - only registering for a semester at a time! The spring semester is January - May 2019. Join Professor AuthorLuv and pick a favorite author and commit to reading a certain number of books by that author each month. Or Professor Genre who is all about choosing a genre/theme ... OR Professor Mix-It-Up where you'll commit to reading a certain number of books from a list that you create in the first month of the course.

+ Reading Challenge 2019. There are 27 themes to choose a book to read from. #readingwithsavoredgrace or #savoredgracebookclub.

+ Reading Challenge Throwback. Find old blog posts, lists, Twitter promises, etc. in which you said "hey, I will totally do that reading challenge". Compile those books into one list and start reading!As you read, cross off those books on the old reading challenge.

+ Reading Women Challenge. The goal is to complete as many challenges as you can from the list provided. All the books must be written by women.

+ Resist Reading Challenge. The Resist Reading Challenge is a year long challenge that encourages you to read books about history, politics, activism, and social change. You can also participate by doing the Resist Reading Bingo Card and using the suggested reading list.

+ Retellings Reading Challenge. Check out the Retellings Bingo and choose books to read based on the category.

+ Review Writing. Set a goal of how many reviews you want to write in 2019.

+ Royal Reading Challenge. Read books that have a Royal theme. It can be the main character or even a little inconsequential side plot, it all counts.

+ Series That Never Ends Reading Challenge. Read books from those long series everyone raves about, but you've fallen behind on.

+ Share-a-Tea reading challenge. Love drinking tea? Love reading books? Love reading a book while drinking tea? Then this is the reading challenge for you.

+ SpaceTime Reading Challenge. Choose your book, from any part of the science fiction genre universe - hard scifi, military, scifi romance, space opera, first contact, time travel, etc.

+ Strictly Print Reading Challenge. Join in this challenge to whittle down your reading list one book at a time.

+ The Sweet Southern Reading Challenge. The overall goal of the reading challenge is to read written works of fiction primarily set in the southern United States (aka the American South or the South).

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+ The Official TBR Pile Challenge. The goal is to finally read 12 books from your "to be read" pile (within 12 months). Each of these 12 books must have been on your bookshelf or "To Be Read" list for AT LEAST one full year.

+ TBR (To Be Read) Challenge. Pull out long neglected books from your "to be read" list, following the theme of the month - and read.

+ VIRTUAL Mount TBR Reading Challenge (sister site to Mount TBR) for all those folks with mile-long "wish-list" of TBRs who would like a chance to climb as well.

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+ What An Animal Reading Challenge. Read books where animals play a major role.

+ What's in a Name. Read a book for each of the categories listed.

+ When Are You Reading Challenge. The complete challenge will include 12 books from different eras.

+ Where Are You Reading. Read a book set in a location for each letter of the alphabet. This one counts cities, counties, and fictional locations too.

+ Where in Canada are You Reading? Read books featuring a location in Canada.

+ While I Was Reading Challenge. There are 12 categories - read a book from each.

+ Whodunit Bookology. It's time to get out your magnifying glasses and prepare to look for clues as we follow in the footsteps of detectives, sleuths, and private eyes. Our spelling challenge this year is all about the characters and how they perceive the world and solve the riddles and mysteries of the crooked and crafty.

+ World At War Reading Challenge. Get at least 1 Bingo from the Bingo Card which focuses on books set during a certain time period or about certain Wars.

+ The Write Tribe Reading Challenge. A 3-part challenge - read a minimum of 24 books in 2019 + read a minimum of 12 books based on the prompts given + review one book a month.

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+ A Year in Anthologies. Pick one or two maybe 6 anthologies that you want to read this year and get them read and reviewed.

+ The Year of Reading Women Writers. Read books written by women writers corresponding to the categories on the list.

+ The Yellow Book Road Reading Challenge. Read a book a month from one of the twelve categories until you've read them all.

+ You Read How Many Books? You'll have all year to read your books so go ahead and stretch yourself. Select a level but remember, you can move up to a more challenging level, but not down.

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The Master List of 2019 Reading Challenges

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UPDATED 01/06/2019 with even MORE challenges! There may be another update with a few challenges that I may have missed and to introduce the 2019 reading challenges tracker. # + 52 Books in 52 Weeks. The goal is to read 52 books.