What reading challenge should you set for 2027?

What makes a reading challenge worth doing?

A challenge is a goal with a theme. The best ones change something: the time you give to reading, the range of what you read, or the books you keep meaning to finish. The worst ones are just a bigger number than last year, set on the first of January and abandoned by spring.

Before you choose, find last year's real total in your tracker, or count what you remember. Size the challenge from that, not from hope. The reading goals lesson covers why.

Challenges for habit builders

1. Read ten minutes a day, every day you can, with one rest day a week.
2. Read one page before your phone each morning.
3. Fifty reading sessions in the first quarter.
4. Read at the same moment on 200 days of the year.
5. Swap one evening of scrolling a week for a book.

Time-based challenges suit timer apps: Bookly and Basmo record sessions. The reading habit guide explains why small, regular sessions work.

Challenges for explorers

6. A book from each continent.
7. One book in translation a month.
8. A book from every decade of the last century.
9. Twelve genres in twelve months.
10. Three books from a small press.
11. A book recommended by each of five friends.
12. One non-fiction book for every two novels.

The StoryGraph charts genres and moods, which makes variety challenges easy to watch.

Challenges for series readers

13. Finish one series you abandoned.
14. Read a whole series in order, with a one-line note after each book.
15. Start no new series until you finish two.
16. Re-read book one before the next book in a series comes out.

The printable series tracker holds the reading order and your spoiler-free notes. If you are coming back to a series after a long gap, a recap that stops at your place helps; Magic Bookmark gives one for supported titles.

Challenges for listeners and format switchers

17. One audiobook a month alongside print.
18. Listen to a book you already read in print.
19. Read one book across three formats.
20. A set number of listening hours; The StoryGraph has a separate listening goal.

Challenges for club and social readers

21. Join or start a buddy read each quarter.
22. Read every book your club picks, including the ones you would not choose.
23. Write one short review a month.
24. Read a book a friend loves and you expect to dislike.

Challenges for slow and busy readers

25. Twelve books in twelve months.
26. Finish every book you start this year, or decide to stop within 50 pages.
27. One long book, read in stages.
28. Read your own shelves: no buying until you read five books you own.
29. A pages goal instead of a book count, so long books count fairly.
30. No challenge at all for three months, then set one from what you actually read.

How do you size a challenge?

These are starting points, not rules. The pace calculator turns your pace into books a year.

How do you track a challenge?

• A count: Goodreads runs the yearly Reading Challenge, and since March 2026 did-not-finish books with a read date count toward it. The StoryGraph sets reading, page and listening goals. Fable Plus adds multiple goals and weekly and monthly goals.
• A theme: most trackers let you tag or shelve books, so make a shelf or tag for the challenge.
• On paper: the printable reading log works for any challenge.

How do you combine challenges without overloading the year?

Pick one main challenge and at most two small ones. A main challenge shapes the year: twelve books in translation, one classic a month, or a series finished. Small ones fit inside it without extra books: one audiobook a quarter, one book recommended by a friend, one book from the library's new shelf.

Write them on one card. The reading challenge card has room for one main challenge and a monthly line. If a small challenge starts to compete with the main one for your time, drop the small one.

How do you share a challenge without turning it into a race?

Share the challenge, not the totals. A shared prompt such as "a book set somewhere none of us has been" gives a club or a group of friends something to talk about without anyone comparing numbers. Meet once a quarter to swap what you read for it.

If you use a social tracker, keep your challenge private if public progress makes you rush. Goodreads lets you set a yearly Reading Challenge number and change it during the year, and The StoryGraph has reading challenges you can join.

What makes a challenge worth repeating next year?

Ask one question in December: did it change what you read or how you read? If it only made you read more of what you already read, try a different kind next year. If it introduced you to an author, a genre or a format you kept going back to, it did its job; consider a harder version.

Which apps track which kind of challenge?

On the pages we read:

Prompt-based challenges, such as "a book in translation", rarely fit an app's goal screen. Keep the prompts on paper or in a note, and let the app count the books.

What is a good first challenge?

One that is easy to explain in a sentence and hard to fail completely. "One book a month from a genre I never read" works; "100 books" usually does not. If you have never set a challenge before, choose a prompt challenge rather than a number, so a slow month does not end it.

Write the challenge where you will see it in March, not just in January: on the first page of your reading journal, as a pinned note, or on the card inside your current book. Most challenges are forgotten rather than failed.

What if you fall behind?

Change the challenge, not your opinion of yourself. Lower the count, switch from books to pages or minutes, or swap to a theme challenge for the rest of the year. A challenge you adjust in June is still a challenge you are doing.