Eyes down for summer bingo
A reading challenge with a slightly competitive twist
If you like the idea of a summer reading challenge but you are also motivated by being able to tick items off a list, then this fun Summer Book Bingo challenge is perfect for you.
I can’t promise stickers and a reward chart, but I do have a few prizes up my sleeve as well as some extra bonuses for members of my paid community.
All the details
We start on Monday 14 July, as schools in my part of the world start to break up for the summer holidays.
The challenge will run for 8 weeks in total ending on 8 September.
In the bingo sheet you will find 24 prompts plus a wild card but don’t worry, you don’t have to read 25 books - unless you want to. Feel free to ‘double dip’ and select books that enable you to tick off more than one category at a time.
You are welcome to get as creative as you like with your interpretation of the prompts too - I love a good tenuous link and the more tenuous the better.
Prizes
In true bingo fashion I have some prizes for you too:
5 in a row: If you tick off 5 boxes in a row (vertical or horizontal) you can select any of my self-published patterns and I will send you a gift copy.
House: If you complete the full challenge you’ll get a little prize sent directly from my stash to yours.
Random participation: 1 player will be drawn at random at the end of the challenge to receive a full size (100g) skein of yarn and a book of my choice which I will happily post anywhere in the world.
Extras for paid members
If you are a member of my paid community here on Substack then there are also a few additional perks of the challenge coming your way so keep on eye on your emails:
✨ Exclusive weekly chat threads.
✨ A private Storygraph group - if tracking your reading online with pals is your thing.
✨ A digital reading planner - either in Trello or Notion - ready for you to download and use however you like.
✨ My curated list of 100 top reads. Nothing fancy and with no elaborate scoring system. Just books that I have read and I think that others might enjoy too.
What do you think? I’ll send out more information shortly and paid members - keep an eye on your email.
There’s no formal sign up process but feel free to let me know what you think in the comments (if you are reading this in your email you’ll need to hop over to the Substack app to do that).
This is a cool list. I might give it a bash even if it is winter. :-)
hmmm one from my decade. That's an interesting choice. Would have to do some serious research.
Would have been easier if you had 24 from the TBR pile though. Bwahahahah...
My first read is the 1964 novel Herzog by Saul Bellow. Written in the decade I was born, and it is a one-word title. It's a multiple award winner and could be considered a classic, I guess.