The Springfield-Greene County Library Winter 2021 Reading Challenge

So this week, I stopped at the Library Center, which apparently is my home library now that my wanderings and errandings take me into Springfield instead of Republic, just to pick up the form for the Winter Reading Challenge for adults. I mean, I can totally crush it, ainna? I read 126 or so books last year, and I was on the cusp of completing a couple shorter works.

But, it turns out, the reading challenge is to read five books from amongst fifteen categories. The categories include:

Well, not too woke; only a couple of identity group choices of the fifteen. Some critics have alleged, according to the introduction of Wuthering Heights, that Emily Brontë might have been gay. At the very least, it was set in another country. But….

The reading challenge runs from January 2, 2021, through February 28, 2021. I started Wuthering Heights last year, so I don’t feel right counting it. Or the half-completed collection of poetry I started before then. And I can’t count Savings, which I finished in December. Too bad–that’s a collection of poetry by a native American author. I could have picked it!

So, gentle reader, for the next month or so, my reading will be guided by hitting at least five books that fit one of these categories. You can probably guess which ones I will hit–crime, poetry, one-word title, books about books, and in a different country come to mind, with translated and historical on the outside–although I will have to be careful with the latter to make sure that, if I read a piece of classical literature, that I properly identify it as historical if it took place in the past of its writing/publication (and so many do–Wuthering Heights and Barnaby Rudge both were historical novels before they became classics from history).

So bear with me here as I try to earn a coffee cup, which I need since I only have thirty or forty cups to choose from–and only five of them at 12 ounce mugs, so really, only five.