I searched for blog challenges and came across Shelf Reflection’s book reading prompts. We take a prompt and find a book that fits the prompt. Or the other way around.

I have included my post links in the titles of the books I have read and reviewed here in this blog or elsewhere. As you can see, I still have my TBR pile.

I had been reading authors with surnames and first names from A to Z, in order to write blog posts for April’s A to Z Challenge 2026. You can read about this at the link.

Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge:

1. A book with a city on the cover: Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen
2. A book with a character who has a pet that’s not a cat or dog: The Cat by Georges Simenon; Marguerite has a pet parrot.
3. A book with a serial killer: (If you have a hard time with these kinds of books, read a book with more than one death)
4. A book by your auto-read-author:
5. A book you saw recommended on a social media platform: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. (unfinished)
6. A book with a main character who works a blue collar job: Animal Farm by George Orwell. Mr Jones is a farmer.
7. A book about resilience: The Wax Child by Olga Ravn. Christenze was resilient unto death and even beyond. She also didn’t give up trying to help Elizabeth, who had betrayed her.
8. A book with ‘first’ in the title:
9. A book with ‘last’ in the title:
10. A book with a medical professional:
11. Two books by the same author (1): The Book Of Lives by Margaret Atwood
12. Two books by the same author (2): The Handmaid’s Tale by M Atwood.
13. A book you had to wait for its release: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai, released in September 2025.
14. A book your 12-year-old self would have hated:
15. A book with a title you would want on your gravestone:
16. A book with a title you would NOT want on your gravestone:
17. A book about a historical event that’s not from WWII: Flashlight by Susan Choi. (unfiniished)
18. A memoir by a person you’ve seen as a villain:
19. A book with sacrificial love: Bye Bye Big Kiss by Claire-Louise Bennett (TBR)
    
20. A book recommended by an author (that’s not their own): Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, recommended by Margaret Atwood.
21. A book that takes place in 3+ countries:
22. A book with a title that would make a good excuse for being late:
23. A book with a character with a unique nickname: Dune (TBR)
24. A book with a storm: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (still reading)
25. A book without swearing:
26. A book with a door on the cover: The Shining by Stephen King.
27. A book authored by a celebrity you’ve seen in a movie:
28. A book with a cover you’d blow up and hang on your wall:
29. A book featuring a character pretending to be someone else:
30. A book that takes place in the Middle East:
31. A book with food on the cover: Ayam Buah Keluak and the Art of Writing by Josephine Chia.
32. A book about memory/memories: Non-fiction
33. A nonfiction book about something that means a lot to you: The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.
34. A book with a sports term in the title:
35. A book reviewed on Shelf Reflection:
36. A book with a workplace romance: On Beauty by Zadie Smith; the affairs of Howard Belsey with his female colleague and his male competitor colleague’s daughter.
37. A book with a character with a compound name: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi; her mom was nicknamed The Black Mamba.
38. A book with a clock on the cover:
39. A locked room mystery:
40. A book with a character named Jack or Lucy:
41. A book by an author using three names: Womb Song by Esther Vincent Xueming. (poetry)
42. A book that takes place on a boat:
43. A book that’s less than 150 pages: Ice Palace (TBR)
44. A book you picked by browsing library shelves: Burning Questions by Margaret Atwood.
45. A book with a direction in the title:

I hope readers will join me in this reading challenge. If you have any challenge, please leave your post url in a comment below.

Related posts:

This reading challenge by prompts, was written by Shelf Reflection. The post link is there. Thank you to Shelf Reflection for this challenge.

• Go there to fill up form on this reading Challenge https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/27c08092-d546-47da-a781-d84a60163e51

• https://booksreviewsandmore.com/a-z-challenge-2026-theme-reveal-book-reviews-miscellaneous/