he basics
The challenge runs from January to December. During this time you choose a book to read from each of the following categories (examples of books you could choose are in brackets):
- A word including ‘ing’ in it (The Time Of Singing, Dancing To The Flute, Lex Trent Fighting With Fire) My examples are verbs but you can of course use other words. Claiming Her Billion-Dollar Birthright by Maureen Child.
- A colour (The Red Queen, White Truffles In Winter, On Gold Mountain): Violet Shadows by Melanie Rose.
- A familial relation (Daughter Of Smoke And Bone, Dombey And Son, My Cousin Rachel) By all means include in-laws, step, and halves.Inheriting His Secret Christmas Baby by Heidi Betts
- A body of water (The River Of No Return, Black Lake, Beside The Sea) Dead Sea Games: Adrift by J. Whitworth Hazzard
- A city (Barcelona Shadows, Shanghai Girls, Under The Tripoli Sky) The Mystery of Jamestown: First Permanent English Colony in America! by Carole Marsh
- An animal (Black Swan Rising, The Leopard Unleashed, The Horse And His Boy): Tailing a Tabby by Laurie Cass
Remember the titles I’ve given here are only examples, you can by all means use them if you want to but it’s not necessary. There are plenty of other books that will fit the categories and you may have some in mind already or even some on your shelves you can read.
Extra information
- Books can be any format (print, audio, ebook).
- It’s preferred that the books don’t overlap with other challenges, but not a requirement at all.
- Books cannot overlap categories (for instance my example of Black Swan Rising for ‘an animal’ could be used for the ‘colour’ category or ‘animal’ category, but not both).
- Creativity for matching the categories is not only allowed, it’s encouraged!
- You don’t have to make your list of books beforehand, you can choose them as you go.
- You don’t have to read your chosen books in any particular order.
Everything else
On January 1 I’ll publish 7 posts, one for each category and one for your wrap-up post. These posts will be published as WordPress pages and linked to from one main, ‘gateway’, post on the blog. You will be able to post your links to your reviews or leave comments, depending on whether you’re a blogging reader or a non-blogger reader. If you are a blogger, please leave one review per category. You’ll be able to find the gateway post through a link I’ll be adding to the navigation section of my sidebar. Alternatively, for ease, you might want to subscribe to this blog via
Feedly or
email so that the gateway post will be immediately available to you without you having to search the site. The non-Feedly feed link and also a Bloglovin’ link are on the sidebar.
If you have trouble finding a book for a category, have a look at the corresponding page for it here – readers who’ve already completed the category will have linked to their reviews and added titles that you can look through.
To join the challenge, sign up using the Mr Linky if you’re a blogger, and if you’re not a blogger simply leave a comment below (please note that if you’ve not commented on this blog before your comment will not show up straight away as per my site moderation but I will see it so do come back if you’ve asked a question). If at any time you have difficulties adding your link, email me at the address on
my contact page with your information, and I’ll add it myself.
How to use Mr Linky: put your name and/or your blog’s name in the top box and the URL (web address) of your blog in the second box. If you have a Tumblr or use a Facebook page instead of a blog, use the web address to that instead.
How you link is up to you, but it’s suggested that you include both your name and blog name in the first box.
If you have any suggestions for this year’s challenge, let me know in the comments (again, if you’ve not commented here before the comment will show up after I’ve approved it as part of my site spam moderation).
And remember that you don’t have to sign up today – as the challenge runs until the end of 2015, you can sign up at any time during the year.
Hope you enjoy the challenge and best of luck! The hashtag for Twitter is #whatsinaname2015 (the number included so we don’t get lost amongst various Romeo And Juliet quotes!)
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About: The Off the Shelf Reading Challenge is probably the most popular challenge there is on BA. The goal? To read books on your shelves that have gone unread for far too long. Selecting books from the year before (in this case, 2012 and before), read as many of the unread ones as you can. It’s up to you if you want to keep them or give them away afterwards, the main goal is to turn those unread books into read ones.
About: The Free Reads Challenge is about all those books you’ve received for free, but haven’t been able to get to. Read books you’ve gotten via presents, review requests, prizes, or just found in the street. Does not include library books or other 
