Here we go again. Memorial Day is upon us, and that means it’s once again time for the Summer Reading List Challenge. Take a look at the original post to see how all this started. Yes, it was written 10 years ago.
As always, this challenge is self-imposed, and the rules are those I created to push myself in the direction I wanted to go. You don’t have to follow them to the letter, but I’d hope you follow the spirit.
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The goal is to read 3 new (to you) books between Memorial Day (May 25) and Labor Day (September 7) in the US, the traditional "unofficial" bounds of summer. Southern Hemisphere readers get a winter challenge, probably a better idea because of the long nights.
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A "book", for the purposes of the challenge, is anything non-periodical, so no comics, serialized graphic novels, or manga. Anything else works, including standalone graphic novels and light novels. If you’re not sure, just use common sense. Also, audiobooks are acceptable as long as they’re books, not something like a podcast.
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One of the books should be of a genre you don’t normally read. For example, I’m big on fantasy and sci-fi, so I might read a romance, or a thriller, or something like that. Nonfiction, by the way, also works as a "new" genre, unless you do read it all the time.
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You can’t count books you wrote, because they obviously wouldn’t be new to you. Even if they’re still being edited. Before you ask, this rule exists solely to keep me from just rereading my books.
It seems like I always have an extra degree of difficulty each time I do this thing. This year, it’s the fact that I’m engaged. The wedding will be about a month after Labor Day, but we’ll be deep in the planning for the whole summer. Between that and looking for a place for us to live, I don’t know how much reading time I’ll have. But we’ll see.
For the rest of you, feel free to post your own reading conquests using the hashtag #SummerReadingList2026 on your favorite platform. But remember that this isn’t assigned reading. This is for fun. So have fun with it.
As always, keep reading!
