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 published or about the year you were born

• 1975 - The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
• 1976 - A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James 
• 1977 - Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
• 1978 - A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
• 1979 - The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder 
• 1980 - Under the Magnolias by T.I. Lowe 
• 1981 - The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
• 1982 - Swing Time by Zadie Smith
• 1983 - Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• 1984 - The Address by Fiona Davis
• 1985 - The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

February: A book with the name of a city in the title

• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
• The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
• Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
• Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
• Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
• The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

March: A book about someone with a marginalized identity

• James by Percival Everett
• Coming Home by Brittney Griner
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
• There, There by Tommy Orange
• We Will Be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo
• Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe
• The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland
• Maame by Jessica George
• Our Migrant Souls by Hector Tobar

April: A book about books, bookstores, or libraries

• That Librarian by Amanda Jones
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• Hidden Libraries by DC Helmuth
• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
• The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
• The Bookshop by Evan Friss
• The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
• Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

May: A book with a first sentence of eight words or less

• The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
• Paradise by Toni Morrison
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle 
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson

June: A book that spans multiple generations

• The Glass Maker by Tracy Chevalier
• These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card
• The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi 
• Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
• The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
• The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
• The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

July: A book you were drawn to by its cover

• Knife by Salman Rushdie
• Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
• The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
• Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
• Playground by Richard Powers
• River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• Soil by Camille T. Dungy

August: A book with a protagonist who is a teenager or senior citizen

• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
• Beartown by Fredrik Backman
• The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

September: A book told in non-chronological order

• The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
• That Summer by Jennifer Weiner
• People You Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson 
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

October: A book published by a Massachusetts press

• The Other Pandemic by Lynn Curlee
• The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin
• When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance by Joan Baez
• A Gardener at the End of the World by Margot Anne Kelley
• Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy
• Hardly Harmless Drudgery by Bryan A. Garner
• The Charterhouse of Padma by Padma Viswanathan
• Ike’s Road Trip by Brian Black
• The End of Respectability by Anthony Walton
• Andaluz by Fiona Dunlop

November: A cookbook or book about food

• Taste by Stanley Tucci
• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
• Delicious by Ruth Reichl
• Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala
• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
• Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat by Samin Nosrat
• Relish by Lucy Knisley
• You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby
• Black Food by Bryant Terry

December: Another book by an author you’ve already read

• Long Bright River by Liz Moore
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
• The Black Church by Henry Louis Gates Jr. 
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Voileta by Isabel Allende
• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
• The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
• Grant by Ron Chernow
• Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

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.