The Reading Rush 2020

The Start

The 2020 Reading Rush starts next week (20th-26th July) and so I decided to write a post of my plans for it. I have chosen a different book for all seven challenges, but I highly doubt I will read seven books so take this with a pinch of salt and don’t be surprised if I’ve combined some of the challenges in next week’s post.

Challenge 1: Read a book where the cover matches your birthstone.

• Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
• My birthstone is garnet for January, which can be several different colours, including red or orange so I picked Exciting Times for this one as it’s one I’ve wanted to read for a while.

Challenge 2: Read a book that starts with the word ‘The’.

• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet
• It turns out I have surprisingly few books starting with ‘the’ on my bookcase, fortunately this was a recent purchase that I’ve been looking forward to.

Challenge 3: Read a book that inspired a movie you’ve already seen.

• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
• This might have been the hardest challenge to find a book for. If I know a film is based on a book I usually try to read the book first but after a quick google search I settled for Crazy Rich Asians, a fun film that will hopefully be a fairly easy read.

Challenge 4: Read the first book you touch.

• Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay
• After picking several unread books off my shelf I closed my eyes and my hand landed on this collection of short stories.

Challenge 5: Read a book completely outside your house.

• Almost Love by Louise O’Neill
• Louise O’Neill is one of my favourite authors so I knew that if I could include this then I would and I had a gap for this challenge.

Challenge 6: Read a genre you don’t normally read.

• The War of Worlds by HG Wells
• I’m not generally a fan of SciFi but my girlfriend has left her copy of this book with me and it’s a really lovely copy so I thought I’d give it a go.

Challenge 7: Read a book that takes place on a different continent.

• Before the Coffee gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• A book I recently bought on a whim that happens to fit this challenge perfectly.

So that’s my impossibly ambitious selection of books, keep an eye out for my post-Reading Rush update to find out how many I get through and what I thought of the ones I actually manage to read. And if you’re interested in taking part in the Reading Rush then simply visit their website to find out more about it.