I really love reading challenges because of the way it stretches your reading comfort zone, but I've always sucked at actually completing them.
In 2015, over at Goodreads, we kicked off our most outrageous challenge ever, borrowing The Beatles Reading Challenge from another group I was a part of, which had turned their songs into reading tasks. And 2016, we whipped up The REM Reading Challenge. (I really sucked at this one. I couldn't even complete one album, but man was it fun trying!). And then to honor David Bowie's passing, in 2017, we pulled together the Bowie Reading Challenge! In 2018 I decided to take a break from our music theme and challenged everyone to read whatever the fuck they wanted in our RWTFYW challenge. The only rule was that there were no rules : ) In 2019 I spread my love of Guster around, and 2020 was all about Ani DiFranco.
I decided to stick with kickass females for 2021 and am thrilled to annouce that we're hosting a PJ Harvey Reading Challenge!
Similar to my history with Ani DiFranco, I fell hard and fast for PJ Harvey in the mid nineties. Her debut album Rid of Me still holds some of my favorite songs of hers!
Whether you know and love PJ Harvey, or this is the first time you are hearing of her, what I think is most cool about these kinds of reading challenges... is that you don't even have to be a fan of the musicians to participate. You just have to be a fan of READING!!
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The PJ Harvey (2021) Reading Challenge
So here's how this works:
*The goal is to cross off as many of PJ Harvey's songs as you can throughout the course of 2021.
You can challenge yourself to complete one entire album, focus on completing one decades-worth of albums, or build your own challenge by hitting your favorite song titles... it's totally up to you!
*You cross off the songs by reading a book that meets the criteria listed after each song title.
If the book meets multiple reading tasks, cool! You can apply it to multiple song titles, OR you can make the reading challenge more challenging by limiting yourself to one song title per book.
*There may be built in redundancy with some of the tasks.
They are repetitive on purpose, to give you an opportunity to read more than one type of book and still get credit for completing a task. (Sneaky, I know!)
*Please copy and paste the entire list, or your customized challenge list, into your own thread in this goodreads folder and strike through the song titles as you complete them, OR, you can simply copy and paste each song title and its criteria from the master list here as you complete it. (obviously put your name in the thread title so we know whose challenge it is).
*Do not add your list directly to Rule and List thread.
*YOU MUST LIST THE BOOK TITLE AND AUTHOR that coincides with the song as you complete it for the challenge so we know what you read!
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An example of a completed song title task in your Challenge thread would look like this:
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Rid Of Me (1993)
“Rid Of Me”- Finally give in and read that one book that keeps popping up in your feed
“Missed” – Read a book you didn’t get to read in the year it released
“Legs” – Read a book with a body part on the cover
“Rub 'Til It Bleeds” – Read a book that contains a lot of blood
“Hook” – Read a book that features fish or fishing
“Highway '61 Revisited” – Read a book that takes place on the open road
“50Ft Queenie” – Read a gender bending book
“Yuri-G” – Read a book where the main character has a unique or uncommon name
“Man-Size” – Pick up some feminist fiction and read the fuck out of it
“Dry” – If you read a book that left you unsatisfied, take credit for it here
“Me-Jane” – Read some fantasy or a fairy tale retelling
“Snake” – Read a book with an animal on the cover
“Ecstasy” – Read a book that you immediately fall in love with
To Bring You My Love (1995)
“To Bring You My Love” – Read a sprawling, epic novel that covers a lot of time or distance
“Meet Ze Monsta” – Read some good old fashioned horror
“Working For The Man” – Read a book where the protagonist is a pencil pusher / works a hum-drum job
“C'Mon Billy” – Read a book with a person’s name in the title
“Teclo” – Read a book that features a made-up language or strange slang
“Long Snake Moan” – Read a book with witchcraft, voodoo, or weird ass weirdness going on
“Down By The Water” – Read a book that takes place on, in, or near water
“I Think I'm A Mother” – Read a book about parenthood of any kind, in any form
“Send His Love To Me” – Read a book that has letters, emails, or texts in it
“The Dancer” – Read a book that features music or dancing
Dance Hall at Louse Point (1996)
“Girl” – Read some YA
“Rope Bridge Crossing” – Read a book with some action and adventure
“City Of No Sun” – Read something that’s really dark
“That Was My Veil” – Read a book to escape the world and take credit for it here
“Urn With Dead Flowers In A Drained Pool” – Read a post apocalyptic book
“Civil War Correspondent” – Read historical fiction or a book that is based on an historical event
“Taut” – Read a collection of flash fiction
“Un Cercle Autour Du Soleil” – Read a book that was translated
“Heela” – Read a book in which one of the characters is “saved”
“Is That All There Is?” – Read a book that left you feeling like WTF
“Dance Hall At Louse Point” – instrumental freebie, read anything and take credit for it here
“Lost Fun Zone” – Read a book that others might consider a guilty pleasure
Is this Desire (1998)
“The Sky Lit Up” – Read a book with end of the world / alien invasion type shit
“The Wind” – Read a book that heavily features one of the four elements (earth, air, water, fire)
“My Beautiful Leah” – Read a book about a main character who is sad or suffers from mental illness
“A Perfect Day Elise” – Get some fresh air and go read outside
“Catherine” – Finally read that book you’ve jealously watched others read and love
“Electric Light” – Read a digital book
“The Garden” – Read a book that mostly takes place outdoors
“Joy” – Read a book with a one word title or that has an emotion in the title
“The River” – Read a book about transformation
“No Girl So Sweet” – Read a book that makes you swoon
“Is This Desire?” – Read a book that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre
Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000)
“Big Exit” – if you DNF a book, take credit here
“Good Fortune”- Read a book you picked up at a book sale or bought for crazy cheap
“A Place Called Home” – Read a book that takes place in your hometown/state
“One Line” – Read a book of poetry
“Beautiful Feeling” – Read a book that gives you all the feels
“The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore” – Read a book that features sex and/or drugs
“This Mess We're In” – Read a book that’s a hot hot mess
“You Said Something” - Read a book that takes place in a big city
“Kamikaze” – Read a book that features flying or outer space
“This Is Love” – Read a book by a favorite author
“Horses In My Dreams” – Read a book that prominently features an animal (bonus points if the author isn’t a dickhead and animal doesn’t die)
“We Float” – Read whatever the fuck you want and take credit for it here
Uh Huh Her (2004)
“The Life And Death Of Mr. Badmouth” – Read a book by an author who is no longer living
“Shame” – Read a book you would not want someone to catch you reading
“Who The Fuck?” – Read a book by a new-to-you author
“The Pocket Knife” – Read a coming-of-age story
“The Letter” – Read a book about writing
“The Slow Drug” – Read a book that takes you a while to warm up to
“No Child Of Mine” – Read a book that features a child protagonist
“Cat On The Wall” – Read a book with an animal on the cover
“You Come Through” – Read a book a buddy recommends for you
“It's You” – Read a book told in second person or a book that breaks the fourth wall
“The End” – Read the last book of a series or published by an author
“The Desperate Kingdom Of Love” – Read a book you desperately wanted to love but didn’t
“The Darker Days Of Me And Him” – Read a book about a break up
“The Devil” – Read a book about angels, devils, demons, or religion
“Dear Darkness” – Read a book that takes place primarily at night
“Grow Grow Grow” – Read a book has repetitive words in the title
“When Under Ether” – Read some science fiction
“White Chalk” – Read a book with a white cover
“Broken Harp” – Read a book that disappointed you
“Silence” – Read a book when no one else is around
“To Talk To You” – Listen to an audio book
“The Piano” – Read a ghost story or a story about murder
“Before Departure” – Read a book while you’re on a trip / travelling
“The Mountain” – Read a book that’s been sitting in your TBR pile for a long time
A Woman A Man Walked By (2009)
“Black Hearted Love” – Read a Halloween themed book
“Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen” – Read a book with a number(s) in the title
“Leaving California” – Read a book set in a state you used to live in, or written by an author who lives there
“The Chair” – Read a book in your most comfy reading spot
“April” – Read a book with a month in the title
“A Woman A Man Walked By / The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go”- Read a book with a ridiculously long title
“The Soldier” – Read a book about war, or in which a war is taking place / in the background
“Pig Will Not” – Read a book set on a farm or featuring farm animals
“Passionless, Pointless” – read a book that literally went nowhere / made no sense
“Cracks In The Canvas” – Read a banged up, used book
Let England Shake (2011)
“Let England Shake” – Read a book set in a different country
“The Last Living Rose” – Read a book with flowers on the cover
“The Glorious Land” – Read a book where setting and place is very much its own character
“The Words That Maketh Murder” – Read some murder mystery / noir
“All And Everyone” – Read a book that features a large cast of main characters
“On Battleship Hill” – Read a book in which nature takes over / cli fi
“England” – Read a book written by an author from another country
“In The Dark Places” – Read a book that’s dark and twisted
“Bitter Branches” – Read a book that takes place mostly outdoors / in the woods
“Hanging In The Wire” – Do a buddy read and then chat with your buddy about it online
“Written On The Forehead” – Read a book that makes you frequently furrow your brow
“The Colour Of The Earth” – Read a book with earth tones on the cover
The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)
“The Community Of Hope” – Read a book that could be considered a sell out
“The Ministry Of Defence” – Read a dystopian novel
“A Line In The Sand’ – Give a genre you didn’t like a second chance
“Chain Of Keys” – Read a book you’ve been hesitant to pick up
“River Anacostia” – Read a book that features religion
“Near The Memorials To Vietnam And Lincoln” – read a book that’s an homage to something/someone
“The Orange Monkey” – Read a book that’s a bit bizarre
“Medicinals” – Read a book that deals with drug use or addiction
“The Ministry Of Social Affairs” – Read a book that addresses social injustice in some way
“The Wheel” – Read a book with an inanimate object in the title
“Dollar, Dollar” – Go ahead and buy yourself a book, then read it as soon as you bring it home
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