Hello everyone !!

This is the announcement post for our 2025-2026 fall-winter reading challenge that will begin on the 22**^(th)** of September ; and end on the 20**^(th)** of March.

For those who are new here (or simply didn’t know there was a reading challenge), first of all welcome !! 🥳 Our reading challenges are held twice a year, one through autumn/winter and the other through spring/summer. They're there to be a fun way to foster community and explore new books. The last one was our 2025 spring-summer reading challenge and ended on 31th of August. This is our third reading challenge ! We're still finding our feet in this though, so please feel free to let us know what you think, what you like or not, or what you'd rather had us do differently.

Principle of the challenge

For those who participated in the last challenge (or even the one before that!), this iteration will be a bit different.

The idea is still to have an adaptable challenge.

The main challenge is the “A-Side” challenge : a 12-squares challenge, where the idea is to read one book for each square. If you want more books, the extended version of the challenge has a second 12-squares challenge, “B-Side”, where every square is a bit of an alternate version or answers its “A-Side” companion. You can also mix and match between the two Faces and have a composite version just for you.

Why this system ?

The idea is to have a easy/no-pressure challenge, and something more for people who want a bigger challenge !

A-Side

🌿 Title : Nature Theme : Read a book with a “Nature” theme in the title : names of plants, animals, natural elements or just evocative of nature.

🔲 Bicolor cover : Read a book with a bi-colored cover

🐾 Folk Horror : Read a book from the “Folk Horror” horror subgenre.

🐐 Animal on cover : Read a book with an animal on the cover. Insects count as animals.

🅰️ Author’s name begins with A : Read a book whose author’s surname begins with A.

🩸 Blood or Bone Magic: Read a book featuring blood or bone magic.

🕵️ Murder mystery : Read a book with a murder mystery.

👭 wlw relationship : Read a book featuring a wlw (women-loving-women) relationship.

📖 Translated Work : Read a book that’s been translated to the language you’re reading it in.

🧛 Vampires : Read a book featuring vampires.

🌏 East Asian Author : Read a book from an East-Asian author. East-Asia includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, and two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau.

🚀 Afro-futurism : Read a book from the “Afro-Futurism” sci-fi subgenre.

B-Side

💀Title : Death Theme : Read a book with a “Death” theme in the title : mention of bones or corpses, way of dying, or just evocative of death.

🔷 Monochrome Cover : Read a book with only one color / variations on one color. Black & White counts.

🏚️ Gothic Horror : Read a book from the “Gothic Horror” horror subgenre.

🌾 Plants on cover : Read a book with a plant on the cover. Mushrooms count as plants in this context please don’t come for me biologists.

🅱️ Author’s name begins with B : Read a book whose author’s surname begins with B.

⚗️ Poison or Alchemy: Read a book featuring poison or alchemy.

☕ Cozy fantasy : Read a book for the “Cozy Fantasy” fantasy subgenre.

👬 mlm relationship: Read a book featuring a mlm (men-loving-men) relationship.

🏡 Local author : Read a book from an author local to you. This can mean someone from your country, your state/region, or even closer !

🐺 Shapeshifters : Read a book featuring characters that can/must transform into animals or creatures. Werewolves count.

🌎 South American Author : Read a book from a South-American Author. South-America includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, two dependent territories : Falklan Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and one internal territory : French Guiana.

🌠 Space Opera : Read a book from the “Space Opera” sci-fi subgenre.

Rules / FAQ :

• Substitutions/Composite : If you are doing the A-Side challenge, you may substitute any square with the corresponding one from the B-Side. 
• Free Space : There is a “free” Free Square that you can use anywhere on your card. Use it wisely (or don’t use it at all !)
• Special mode : Woman Power : You can do “woman power” mode and only choose books written by women.
• Series, repeating authors… : It’s up to you ! If you want to only read books by different authors you can add that rule for yourself, but we don’t want to “discourage” reading series or such, so it's not an official rule.
• Interpretation : In the same idea as the previous point, the prompts are flexible. If you decide that “South America" should include Panama, or that a herbalist character counts for Alchemy, you can do that !
• Genre : Please keep it SFF (sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction) !
• Female Gaze ?: There is no hard rule on that, especially since what's "female gaze-y" or not is very subjective. We trust our members to recommend books that fit this space, but please read what you will !
• Will the challenge system change every time ??: No ! It’s still being adjusted until it feels right, but the goal is to have something stable.
• Why did the system change between the 2025 spring-summer challenge and this one ? : The last challenge went very well but it didn’t feel completely right yet. Notably, the idea to have something adaptable seemed to be well-received, however a lot of people were still trying for the full 25-squares card (as 9 squares could feel a bit small for 6 months) ; and the idea to have the full challenge be a “bingo” to alleviate the feeling of frustration that could arise when one didn’t complete the 25 squares didn’t seem to really work. This new system is inspired by how some people in other reading challenges would do a card several times over (with sometimes themings and such) ; but here with a little bit of added variety, and the hope that doing the main 12-squares challenge would feel better if the extended version is “just” alternative prompts. The goal was trying to find a better balance for every reader profiles. Obviously if it turns out after this challenge that people preferred the previous one, we can rollback to the previous system. Nothing is set in stone ! (i really do think this version is nice though)

Posts planning : 

There will be a general rec thread right at the beginning (one week from now), followed by a focused thread once a week, alternating between A-Side and B-Side squares. You will also be able to share your advancement and the books you've read in our Current Reads weekly posts.

Ressources :

• Canva Template Card

Feel free to use these however you want : change the pictures, the colors, anything, make it yours !

For those who are unfamiliar with Canva, it’s a (mostly) free graphic design web tool. The template link creates a copy of our Reading Challenge template when you click on it. To use it, you just have to copy pictures of the books your read to the template, and drag and drop them in the spaces inside the squares.

You can move the “free space” square by clicking it and moving it to the square you’re replacing with it.

If you want to have the other side’s alternate version, it becomes a little bit more complicated but basically you have to delete the elements of the square you’re replacing (the prompt name, the stars, the image space and the square background), and the alternate square will be hidden just behind all this ! (Impressive right ??).

I didn’t see anyone use the non-stars non-prompt canva version so I’m not doing it this time, and also I’m reusing that link since Canva decided to put template links creation behind a paywall now 😢

• General Rec Thread
• Focus Threads :

  • A-Side :

    • Title : Nature Theme (TBA)
    • Bicolor cover (TBA)
    • Folk Horror (TBA)
    • Animal on cover (TBA)
    • Author’s name begins with A (TBA)
    • Blood or Bone Magic (TBA)
    • Murder mystery (TBA)
    • wlw relationship (TBA)
    • Translated Work (TBA)
    • Vampires (TBA)
    • East Asian Author (TBA)
    • Afro-futurism (TBA)

  • B-Side :

    • Title : Death Theme (TBA)
    • Monochrome Cover (TBA)
    • Gothic Horror (TBA)
    • Plants on cover (TBA)
    • Author’s name begins with B (TBA)
    • Poison or Alchemy (TBA)
    • Cozy fantasy (TBA)
    • mlm relationship (TBA)
    • Local Author (TBA)
    • Shapeshifters (TBA)
    • South American Author (TBA)
    • Space Opera (TBA)

A-Side Presentation image

B-Side Presentation image