Reading Challenge: 52 Weeks, 60 Books to Digest

Gilgamesh: A New English Version

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to read. And I’m always encouraging others to take up the reading habit. Reading is one of life’s simple pleasures. I try to read books from different genres and disciplines. And I try to read across cultures.

Sometimes it’s difficult to read books, where beliefs are so different from your own. They aren’t beliefs that are dangerous, just far removed from my reality. I have to stop myself from being critical of others. No easy feat when it's difficult to wrap my head around what I'm reading.

I’ve talk a lot about reading challenges and how you can use them to learn and solve big world problems. If you read the right books, you broaden your worldview. While participating in the Performance Accelerator Plan, you read books to learn key skills. And you also read the world to develop intercultural awareness.

A reading challenge that lasts a year, may seem quite daunting to many. But it’s important to focus on what you can accomplish in a month. Imagine if at the end of 2020 you discovered that you had read 60 books. How would you feel? I’m guessing you’d feel really good. All the books you read don’t have to be serious. You can read books for fun. Why couldn’t you learn while having fun?

I’m going to use my Performance Accelerator Plan as an example for an annual reading challenge. But the focus will be on reading the world each month. If you're looking for global literature to read, a great starting point is a website called Library Thing. Take some time to explore the site.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month One

1. Intercultural Awareness: Africa (Library Thing African Literature Reading List).
2. Problem solving.
3. Critical thinking and analysis.
4. Creativity and innovation.
5. Reasoning, analytical thinking, and decision-making.

Reading Cgallenge Requirements: Month Two

1. Intercultural Awareness: Antarctica (Goodreads: Popular Antarctica Books).
2. People management.
3. Coordinating with others.
4. Emotional intelligence.
5. Service orientation.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Three

1. Intercultural Awareness: Asia (Library Thing Chinese Literature Reading List, Library Thing Japanese Literature Reading List, Library Thing Indian Literature Reading List).
2. Negotiation.
3. Cognitive flexibility.
4. Presentation.
5. Written communication.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Four

1. Intercultural Awareness: Australia/Oceania (Library Thing Australian literature, Library Thing New Zealand Literature).
2. Happiness.
3. Active learning and learning strategies.
4. Psychology.
5. Leadership and social influence.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Five

1. Intercultural Awareness:European (Library Thing French Literature, Library Thing English literature, Library Thing Spanish literature).
2. Systems analysis and evaluation.
3. Classic and retelling of it.
4. Collection of comics.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Six

1. Intercultural Awareness: North America and the Caribbean (Library Thing American literature, Library Thing Canadian Literature, Library Thing Caribbean Literature).
2. Ideas and ideation.
3. Hobby.
4. Children’s book.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Seven

1. Intercultural Awareness: South America (Library Thing South American Literature, Library Thing Latin American Literature).
2. Essays.
3. Book and film adaptation – compare and contrast.
4. Book less than 100 pages.
5. Graphic novel.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Eight

1. Autobiography/biography of a woman written by a woman.
2. Science fiction written by a woman.
3. Murder mystery written by a woman.
4. Classic written by a woman.
5. Serious topic that’s written by a woman.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Nine

1. Autobiography/biography of a man written by a man.
2. Science fiction book written by a man.
3. Murder mystery written by a man.
4. Classic written by a man.
5. Deals with a serious topic that’s written by a man.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Ten

1. Intercultural Awareness: United States, Caribbean, Canada.
2. Industry/niche.
3. Someone’s journey.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Eleven

1. Intercultural Awareness: India, China, Japan.
2. Poetry.
3. Science.

Reading Challenge Requirements: Month Twelve

1. Intercultural Awareness: Europe.
2. Intercultural Awareness: Africa.
3. Religion.
4. Philosophy.
5. Entertainment.

Avil's Global Reading List

Every book on this list I've read. And there are many books on the list. There are a few books that left me speechless and didn't know what to do with what I read. I didn't know how to unpack the information. But that's what makes this list a good one. There's something for everyone!

Global Reading List: Reading Africa

July’s People, Nadine Gordimer, South Africa

Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwe

We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigeria

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, Nigeria

Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih, Sudan

Global Reading List: Reading Asia

Norwegian Wood Publisher: Vintage, Haruki Murakami, Japan

The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino and Alexander O. Smith

The Journey to the West, Anthony C. Yu, China

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa, Tibet

Ru: A Novel, Kim Thúy, Vietnam, Canada

Gilgamesh: A New English Version, Mesopotamia (Iraq)

Global Reading List: Reading Australia/Oceania

My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin, Australia

Bittersweet: A Novel, Colleen McCullough, Australia

A Man Lay Dead: Inspector Roderick Alleyn #1 (Inspector Roderick Alleyn), Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand

Global Reading List: Reading Europe

Hunger: A Novel, Knut Hamsun, Norway

Out Stealing Horses: A Novel, Per Petterson, Norway

The Bookseller of Kabul, Asne Seirstad, Norway

Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse, Germany

Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Brothers Grimm, Germany

The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Germany

Lord of the Flies, Centenary Edition, William Golding, United Kingdom

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon, United Kingdom

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, United Kingdom

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, United Kingdom

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, United Kingdom

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell, United Kingdom

Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren, Sweden

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson, Sweden

The Laughing Policeman (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard), Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Sweden

The Trial, Franz Kafka, Austria

The Shooting Party (Penguin Classics), Anton Chekhov, Russia

Pinocchio (Puffin Classics), Carlo Collodi (The original, not the “Disneyfied” version), Italy

Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini, Italy

The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel, Milan Kundera, Czech Republic, France

Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, France

Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis

The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues (Dover Thrift Editions), Plato, Greece

Medea of Euripides, Euripides, Greece

Jason and the Golden Fleece: (The Argonautica), Apollonius, Greece

Slowness: A Novel, Milan Kundera, Czech Republic

Aesop’s Fables (Oxford World’s Classics), Ancient Greece

The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank, Holland

Two Pints, Roddy Doyle, Ireland

Under the Glacier, Halldór Laxness, Iceland

Silence of the Grave (Reykjavik Murder Mysteries, No. 2), Arnaldur Indriðason, Iceland

You now have quite a few books to read and digest over the next few years. This will keep you busy. There are a lot of books on this list. If you asked me to recommend one book, I would say you should read The Epic of Gilgamesh. There are some excellent leadership lessons about what not to do as a leader.

How Avil Can Help You!

If you do not want to gamify your reading, I invite you to Join the Performance Accelerator Plan that walks you through the process of learning key skills and more. You’ll be reading books to build skills and develop intercultural awareness.  Get more reading and learning tips here.

In December 2020, I published two books on Amazon. I would greatly appreciate your support if you bought my two short e-books Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon and Performance Accelerator Plan: Guide to Learning and Mastering Key Skills for the Future.

Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon is not about speed reading. It’s about approaching every book differently and reading only the sections that align with your purpose.

The Performance Accelerator Plan book is a stripped-down version of the paid reading challenge of the same name. Obviously, you won’t get all the resources that come with the program that I sell on my website. But if you are a self-directed learner, it will help you tremendously.

If someone clicks on a link and buy something from Amazon, the company will pay me a small commission.