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Back in November, I sent out a survey about your experience with the 2024 Read Harder Challenge, including your favorite book you read for the challenge. A couple weeks ago, I shared some of those results, including pie charts and bar graphs for the data nerds. If you want to know the most and least popular tasks as well as how many books Read Harder Challengers read in a year, check out that post too!
Today, though, I’m sharing your answers to my favorite question on the survey: What’s your favorite book you’ve read for the 2024 Read Harder Challenge, and which task does it check off? The vast majority of the titles mentioned came up only once, but I’ve put together a list of the most frequently mentioned books and which tasks they fulfilled.
I’ve omitted the books that I already mentioned in the results of the halfway check-in survey, so click through to find even more popular Read Harder books of the year!
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Task #5: Read a sci-fi novella.
Murderbot is the reigning monarch of sci-fi novellas, so it’s no surprise it was one of the favorites of this task! This has won the biggest awards in SFF, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus. All Systems Red is the first book in the series, and it follows a security android who has reprogrammed themselves and mostly just wants to be left alone to watch TV—relatable. Unfortunately, Murderbot keeps getting pulled into human conflicts, and now they’re reluctantly trying to find out what went wrong in a neighboring mission.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Task #23: Read a “howdunit” or “whydunit” mystery.
In the post for this task, I recommended another book by this author, Deacon King Kong, but The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store ended up being the more popular read for this task. This one follows the residents of Chicken Hill after a skeleton is unearthed at the bottom of a well and the investigation brings the town’s secrets to light.
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