After I finally managed to finish the Toronto Public Library’s reading challenge last year, after so many years of leaving it half-done, some of you asked if I was planning to do the new challenge.
Not likely, I said. But then the 2025 challenge was in the form of a Bingo card. Which I found irresistible. Almost immediately, “not likely” transformed into “maybe”.
So, then I thought, well, I’ll just complete a column or a line: that will be fun.
And, since then, I’ve read 12 books… none of which connect to form a column or line. (Honestly, what are the odds? I’m not math-y.)
Some I’ve written about here already, and I’ve included their National identity (as they, themselves, have defined it, whenever possible) in brackets, because I’m choosing Indigenous, First Nations, and/or Inuit writers.
3. A Book Written By a Neurodivergent Author:
i heard a crow before I was born by jules delorme (2024) [Kanien’kehá:ka]
9. A Book about Nature:
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2024) [Citizen Potawatomi Nation]
18. A Book by an Author Who Has Written More than 25 Books:
Black Ice by Thomas King (2024) [Cherokee/German-Greek]
19. A Book with Ghosts:
Exposure by Ramona Emerson (2024) [Diné]
20. A Book Likely to Become a Classic:
Don’t Take Your Love to Town by Ruby Langford (1988) [Bundjalung, Aboriginal]
But I’ve read seven books that fit seven other categories too, so I’ll share more about those next time. (Sneak peek in the accompanying image!)
Which categories would you find the easiest, and which the most challenging? Is there one that is neither the hardest or easiest but which strikes you as exceptionally interesting?
And, if you were going to choose a theme, to add another layer of challenge to your reading, what would you choose?
Good luck with the new Toronto Public Library’s reading challenge! I’m doing a couple of challenges that are prompting me to declutter my shelf.
Now that’s an interesting way to approach a challenge…as an incentive to make new/different spaces on your shelves! Because simply saying “I must read from this shelf” doesn’t always work. lol
Like Stephanie I got a message ‘403 Forbidden’ when I attempted the link, and also when I attempted to access TPL directly.
For the categories you’ve chosen above, 18 is easy, a Simenon (400 novels), The Widow Couderc. For 19 the closest I get is Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World in which bodiless spirits predominate. I read classics all the time, but the last new book I read likely to become a classic was, well Praiseworthy was a classic from the moment it was published, but let’s say The House of Rust, (2021) by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber,
Oooooh, okay, so it seems like an anywhere-outside-Canada-Thing then. Thank you: I will find a way to include the list here, and I’ll remember that for the next post for this challenge.
Your choices for Destined to be a Classic are perfect, but I enjoyed reading all of your possibilites. Dang that Maigret though, he keeps popping up. heheh
Sadly the internet forbids me to view the bingo card link. It sounds like a fund challenge though and you are doing well by the sound of it! I asked my mystery reading mom is she had heard of Thomas King and she hadn’t and then she told he doesn’t write the sorts of books she is interested in. Oh well.
It wouldn’t connect to the page itself even, just with the list of categories, or it wouldn’t let you download the PDF? That’s so weird! Is your internet provider blocking all Canadian sites until we’re the 51st state? (i.e. never)
That made me laugh because I read it as you asking her, and her saying she hadn’t heard of him and he doesn’t write the kind of books she likes, all in one breath, like that’s just how disinterested she was. But, quite possibly, there was plenty of time for her to go investigate further in between there!
I’ve never managed to even start, much less complete, the TPL challenge. I keep thinking of these days I should try. And looking over the list now, I see that I would have completed a few categories.
Book with an athlete would be the challenging one for me!
Tread carefully…that’s just how it happened with me…realising I’d already completed some categories, by the by…and now, look what’s happened.
A few years ago, there was a hockey book on the Toronto Book Awards’ list and…I really liked it? Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse would have been great; I hope I can find another like it.
I’d struggle with a book set in space, though I could just do Douglas Adams again I suppose! Have fun!
I might have to ask for some suggestions on BlueSky for a couple of the categories, if I actually decide to finish (and not just get a colume/row)!
I definitely don’t need more reading challenges but I think this is a great idea! I’ll look forward to hearing how you get on with it.
Beautiful challenge! Wonderful books you’ve read! Loved Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. Will add this new one to my list now. Thanks for sharing
Nice to see you here, Vishy! Thank you for coming over to visit. /passes tray of tea and treats
This is a very short book; I think the whole text is available here, or very close to it, and if you follow the “Emergence” podcast you can hear it rather than read it.
Does anyone, I wonder? heheh There are definitely a couple of categories I’m concerned about, but I wasn’t expecting the “Space” one to be solved so neatly (by two books, actually, one after the next, neither one expected to fit), so we’ll see…