The 52 Book Club’s annual reading challenge is made up of 52 unique prompts. The goal is to match one book to each prompt, for a total of fifty-two books over the course of the year. Prompts are related to everything from specific titles, to cover designs, authors, genres, settings, themes, characters, etc. (Think of it like a giant bookish scavenger hunt!) We encourage participants to try books outside of their regular reading comfort zones and push themselves to read more, read differently, and get creative with it!
Visit The 52 Book Club to find out more and join the challenge!
Below is the 52 Book Club’s list of prompts for 2024. These prompts are linked to Goodreads Lists of books that fit each prompt. I copy and pasted them from here, for easy access, and so I can link to each prompt with the books I finish.
The 2024 Goodreads Lists:
1. Locked-room mystery – Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
2. Bibliosmia: A smelly book – The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister
3. More than 40 chapters – Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley
4. Lowercase letters on the spine – The Way Forward by Yung Pueblo
5. Magical realism – You Like It Darker by Stephen King
6. Women in STEM – Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky
7. At least four different POVs – Light Bringer by Pierce Brown
8. Features the ocean – Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
9. A character-driven novel – Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
10. Told in non-chronological order – Holly by Stephen King
11. Title starting with the letter “K” – Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey
12. Title starting with the letter “L” – Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
13. An academic thriller – If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
14. A grieving character – The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin
15. Part of a duology – A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross
16. An omniscient narrator – The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz
17. Nominated for The Booker Prize – Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
18. An apostrophe in the title – Don’t Call It A Cult by Sarah Berman
19. A buddy read – Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
20. A revenge story – The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
21. Written by a ghostwriter – I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
22. A plot similar to another book – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
23. The other book with the similar plot – David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24. A cover without people on it – Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
25. An author “everyone” has read except you – Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent
26. Hybrid genre – Slewfoot by Brom
27. Be a neurodivergent author – Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
28. A yellow spine – The Bodyguard by Katherine Center
29. Published in a Year of the Dragon – The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
30. Picked without reading the blurb – The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan
31. Includes a personal phobia – The September House by Carissa Orlando
32. Time frame spans a week or less – The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
33. An abrupt ending – The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
34. Set in a landlocked country – The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
35. Title matches lyrics from a song – Hello Stranger by Katherine Center
36. Has futuristic technology – All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries 1)
37. Palindrome on the cover – The Women by Kristin Hannah
38. Published by Hachette – Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday
39. Non-fiction recommended by a friend – The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
40. Set during a holiday you don’t celebrate – The Improbable Meet-Cute series by various authors
41. A sticker on the cover – Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
42. Author debut in the second half of 2024 – Four Weekends and a Funeral by Ellie Palmer
43. About finding identity – Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
44. Includes a wedding – The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
45. Chapter headings have dates – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
46. Featuring Indigenous culture – Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
47. Self-insert by an author – Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
48. The word “secret” in the title – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
49. Set in a city starting with the letter “M” – The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
50. A musical instrument on the cover – The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
51. Related to the word “Wild” – Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
52. Published in 2024 – Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham
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