How to Participate

1. Sign up on the Massachusetts Center for the Book website.
2. Choose and read a book that fits the monthly challenge.
3. Log in and tell us about the book!

That's it!

Need some reading suggestions? Check out this list! Each title brings you to the book in our catalog.

• January: A book about or set in winter

  1. Beartown by Fredrik Backman
  2. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
  3. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
  4. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
  5. How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz, PhD.
  6. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
  7. Never Lie by Freida McFadden
  8. In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
  9. Wintering by Katherine May
  10. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  
  

  February: A book outside your usual genres or spin the genre wheel on our site: massbook.org/genre-wheel

  1. Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray
  2. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  3. The Last Tiger by Julia Riew and Brad Riew
  4. Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay
  5. A Truce that is Not Peace by Miriam Toews
  6. Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
  7. Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
  8. Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi
  9. The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick
  10. Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
  
  

  March: A book featuring an unlikely friendship

  1. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
  2. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
  3. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
  4. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 
  5. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
  6. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  8. The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar
  9. The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro
  10. House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
  
  

  April: A short story or essay collection

  1. Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
  2. What is Not Your is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
  3. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
  4. Grand Union by Zadie Smith
  5. We are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
  6. Tenth of December by George Saunders
  7. Table for Two by Amor Towles
  8. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
  9. Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat
  10. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami 
  
  

  May: A book set in Massachusetts

  1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  2. Things you Save in a Fire by Katherine Center
  3. The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin
  4. Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand
  5. Sandwich by Catherine Newman 
  6. That Summer by Jennifer Weiner
  7. Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
  8. The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
  9. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  10. Finding Margaret Fuller by Allison Pataki
  
  

  June: A book with a sympathetic villain

  1. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo 
  2. Carrie by Stephen King
  3. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
  4. All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody
  5. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
  6. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
  7. Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
  8. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  9. Nimona by ND Stevenson
  10. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
  
  

  July: A book found at a Little Free Library, tag sale, or used bookstore

  • Use this map to find a LFL near you!
  
  

  August: A book that could be considered taboo

  1. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
  2. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  3. Critical Race Theory by Kimberle Crenshaw
  4. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  5. One Hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  6. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  7. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
  8. Maus by Art Spiegelman
  9. Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
  10. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  
  

  September: A book about a journey

  1. Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
  2. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
  3. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
  4. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
  5. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
  6. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  7. Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
  8. The Odyssey by Homer
  9. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
  10. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  
  

  October: A mystery, thriller, or ghost story

  1. God of the Woods by Liz Moore
  2. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
  3. Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell
  4. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
  5. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia
  6. The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
  7. Tell No One by Harlan Coben
  8. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
  9. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
  10. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  
  

  November: An adult classic you’ve never read

  1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  3. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
  4. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
  5. Dracula by Bram Stoker
  6. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  7. Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
  8. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  10. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
  
  

  December: A book that connects to your heritage or cultural identity

  1. The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
  2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
  3. The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
  4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
  5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
  6. The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali
  7. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
  8. Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
  9. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado
  10. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

More information

• Dedicated readers will be invited to a year-end celebration hosted by Mass Center for the Book.
• If you read a book in each of the 12 months, you will be entered in a drawing to win 1 of 2 totes filled with books.

Have questions? View Massachusetts Center for the Book's FAQ.