By Sydney Smith

Rowan Public Library

SALISBURY — Every year, people enter January with hopes, goals and dreams for a fresh start. With the new year is a new opportunity for change and self-improvement. A great way to improve yourself throughout the new year is to commit yourself to a reading challenge — and Rowan Public Library offers tons of great titles to help you meet that reading goal.

If you’re hoping to simply read more during the new year, you can commit yourself to the ever-popular GoodReads reading challenge. GoodReads.com, a free website dedicated to helping folks keep track of the books they read while also discovering new ones, allows readers to set their own personal number of books they want to read during the year. As you read books, you can add them to your “completed” list on GoodReads, leave reviews and interact with other readers who are also reading the same titles.

If you are hoping to challenge yourself in 2022 by reading a more diverse selection of books, look no further than the Read Harder Challenge. Hosted by the popular bookish website BookRiot.com, the annual challenge seeks to encourage people to choose books based on a diverse set of parameters. For example, some highlights from the Read Harder Challenge 2022 list includes selecting a poetry collection, a nonfiction young adult graphic novel, a title written by a trans or nonbinary author and a title written by a disabled author, to name a few. The challenge seeks to help readers grow their reading material selections by taking them outside of their comfort zones to experience perspectives and genres that may be different from their usual selections.

For the ambitious reader, The 52 Book Club is another popular online challenge to ensure your new year is full of great books. Found at the52book.club, this challenge pushes participants to read 52 books in 52 weeks, beginning Jan. 1. Each of the 52 weeks in the 2022 edition of the challenge has a unique prompt for choosing the book you’ll read, including choosing a book written from a villain’s perspective and a book that’s recommended by one of your favorite authors.

No matter how you choose to challenge yourself this year, any amount of reading you’re able to do is time well spent. To find a wide variety of books to suit any reading challenge you decide to accept, you can browse the stacks at any RPL location or view the online catalog at www.rowanpubliclibrary.org.

Sydney Smith is young adult librarian at the Rowan Public Library.