In early 2025, someone posted about an “alphabet reading challenge” – that is, read one book with a title that starts with “A”, “B,” etc. Of course, I can’t do anything by halves, so I also decided to try to read one book by an author whose last name starts with “A,” “B,” etc. But I didn’t make it an intentional challenge – meaning I didn’t track throughout the year to see which letters I was still missing. In fact, I’d forgotten about the project during the second half of the year and only completed filling in the challenge pages this week.
I managed to come pretty close to success even so!
THE BOOK TITLE CHALLENGE
As you may be able to see in the photo, I managed 21 out of 25 letters. I did not read any books whose titles started with K, Q, R, X or Z. Yes, I was inconsistent with whether I counted words like “A” and “The” as the letter the title starts with.
The books I listed, for those who maybe can’t view the photos because of visual issues, were:
Amplitudes (edited by Lee Mandelo)
Black Fire Concerto (by Mike Allen)
Calladita No More (by Hady Mendez)
Don’t Sleep With the Dead (by Nghi Vo)
Everything Is Tuberculosis (by John Green)
Front Seat Passenger, The (by Pascal Garnier)
Girl in the Creek (by Wendy N. Wagner)
I Love The Bones of You (by Christopher Eccleston)
Jaws (by Peter Benchley)
Lies I Tell Myself: Stories (by Jeffrey Ricker)
My Time to Stand (by Gypsy Rose Blanchard)
Natalie Wood: The Complete Biography (by Susan Finstad)
Our Share of Night (by Mariana Enriquez)
Prelude to Mayhem (by Edward C. Aubrey)
Sterling City (by Stephen Graham Jones)
The Art Thief (by Michael Finker)
Upon the Midnight Queer (by ‘Nathan Burgoine)
Vagabond (by Tim Curry)
Wild Spaces (by S.L. Coney)
Yours Cruelly, Elvira (by Cassandra Peterson)
THE AUTHOR CHALLENGE
As you may be able to see in the photo, I managed 22 authors, missing only the letters I, Q, U, and X. Again, for those who may not be able to view the list in the photo, I read books by:
Allen, Mike (Black Fire Concerto and Trail of Shadows)
Beard, Jim (Sgt. Janus and The House That Loved Death and Jack of All Comics!)
Coney, S.L. (Wild Spaces)
Drake, Jerry C. (Hazel Was A Good Girl)
Enriquez, Mariana (Our Share of Night)
Fry, Stephen (Odyssey)
Grant, Mira (Overgrowth)
Hawke, Lydia (Web of Obsidian)
Jones, Stephen Graham (Sterling City and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter)
Kushner, Ellen (The Golden Dreidel)
Landay, William (Defending Jacob)
Miller, Lulu (Why Fish Don’t Exist)
Neill, Sam (Did I Ever Tell You This?)
Obama, Barack (Dreams From My Father)
Perrin, Kristin (How To Solve Your Own Murder and How To Seal Your Own Fate)
Ricker, Jeffrey (Lies I Tell Myself: Stories)
Sullivan, Archer (The Witch’s Orchard)
Trejo, Danny (Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood)
Vo, Nghi (Don’t Sleep With The Dead)
Winkler, Henry (Being Henry)
Yang, Gene Luen, and others (New Super-Man Volume 2)
Zelazny, Roger (A Night in the Lonesome October)
I’m doing this again in 2026 just for the heck of it. Again, I am not planning to put any pressure on myself.