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It’s time to set those New Year’s reading resolutions — and our #ReadICT Challenge can help

We’ve turned the page to another new year. And that means it’s time for my annual pitch for the #ReadICT Challenge.

When I launched this challenge seven years ago, I never dreamed it would take off the way that it has. But here we are in 2023 with a whole new list of reading categories, and a thriving community of #ReadICT participants who are ready to get going.

Here’s how it works: There’s a list of 12 categories, which you can find online at KMUW.org or at the Wichita Public Library’s website. Over the course of this year, you read books that fit into each of those categories. And that’s it: 12 categories, 12 months, 12 books.

You can do it in any order, and you can adapt the categories to fit your personal reading tastes. For example, Category 2 is a book with a long title. That could be a nonfiction book with a long subtitle, or a Fredrik Backman novel like My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.

Category 6 is a book about time. That could be the Stephen Hawking classic, A Brief History of Time, or it could be a science fiction time-travel book, like Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being.

Other categories this year include a book about friendship, a guilty-pleasure read, and a book with a color in the title.

This year, for the first time, we’re kicking off the challenge with a live podcast recording. At 6 p.m. Thursday at the Advanced Learning Library, Beth Golay and I will talk about the new categories and what we plan to read.

So Happy New Year, readers. And happy reading.

Suzanne Perez is a longtime journalist covering education and general news for KMUW and the Kansas News Service. Suzanne reviews new books for KMUW and is the co-host with Beth Golay of the Books & Whatnot podcast. Follow her on Twitter @SuzPerezICT.