Can you read 50 books in 2024? Join us for this fun and popular challenge, now in its eighth year.

The 8th annual Missoula Reads year-long reading challenge

Read one book in each of 50 categories by December 27 and win a fabulous prize. Free reading logs will be available on Level Three starting Tuesday, January 2.

 

Friendly reference librarians will be available all year to suggest titles or to chat about the challenge. Email us anytime at .

 

Please note: Missoula Reads is open to Missoula Public Library cardholders only.

Missoula Reads 2024
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Hear about the books our Seeley Lake branch librarians are reading as they work their way through the 2024 challenge.

50 Categories

Find all categories listed here. For reading recommendations in select categories, see below. Download a pdf copy of the categories

  1. 200 Pages or Fewer

  2. 2023 Montana Book Award Nominee*

  3. 24 or Twenty-four in the Title

  4. 400 Pages or More

  5. About an Historical Event

  6. Any eBook, any audiobook, or re-read an old favorite

  7. Author is from the Same State as You

  8. Bad Guys / Gals

  9. Book from an MPL Display

  10. Book that any of MPL’s Book Groups is Reading*

  11. Children’s Book You Never Read

  12. Complicated Relationships*

  13. Cover is Green

  14. Cozy Mystery

  15. Dynasties*

  16. Enemies to Lovers*

  17. Epistolary (Letters or Diaries)*

  18. Escape*

  19. Fantasy

  20. Fast-paced

  21. From Your TBR List

  22. Furniture on the Cover

  23. Geography

  24. Graphic Novel

  25. House on the Cover

  26. Indigenous Author*

  27. Investigative Non-fiction*

  28. Lawyers

  29. Makes You Think

  30. Memoir

  31. Microhistory*

  32. Montana Author

  33. National Book Critics Circle Award Winner*

  34. Nature Writing*

  35. One of the Seven Deadly Sins

  36. Poverty*

  37. Published in 2024

  38. Punctuation in the Title

  39. Reviewed or Discussed on NPR Books

  40. Revolution

  41. Room in the Title*

  42. Satire*

  43. Second Chances

  44. Set in the Future

  45. Set in the Past

  46. Time*

  47. Two Books by the Same Author (first)

  48. Two Books by the Same Author (second)

  49. Vampires or Werewolves or Zombies

  50. Your Favorite Animal

Select Reading Lists

Awake in the World, Volume 3, Mara Panich, editor et al. 

Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Maggie Anderson 

Blood Money, Kathleen McLaughlin  

Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle 

Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars, Steven Rinella 

Crow Mary, Kathleen Grissom  

Flags on the Bayou, James Lee Burke 

Fractal Noise, Christopher Paolini 

Holding Fire, Bryce Andrewshonor book

Lookout, Christine Byl honor book

Lost Journals of Sacajawea, Debra Magpie Earlingwinner!

Sun House, David James Duncan 

We Hold Our Breath, Micah Fields 

Wild Girls, Tiya Miles  

Crossings, Ken Goldfarb 

Red-Headed Pilgrim, Kevin Maloney 

Iggy Horse, Michael Earl Craig 

Man, Undergound, Mark Hummelhonor book

Stop, Drop, Grow, and Glow, Holly Swenson 

Order Without Law, Benjamin E. Sanders 

Pathfinder, Robert Love 

Mumblecusser, Allen Morris Joneshonor book

Montana: A Paper Trail, Thomas Minckler 

Great Plains Forts, Jay Buckley 

Fire Truck that Could Fly, Patricia Osborn 

Wisdom River, Larry Kaputska 

This Wheel of Rocks, Sister Marya Grathwohl 

Time Again, Scott Parker 

True West, Betsy Gaines Quammen 

This is Wildfire, Nick Mott 

Sky and Timby, Rick Ferruggia 

Idaho Madams, Milana Marsenich 

Big Sky, Big Parks, Ednor Therriault 

Crooked, Nathan Masters 

North to Nowhere, Allison Brennan 

Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, Peter Young 

Unlashed, Rebecca Schuster 

 

 

Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Family Trust by Kathy Wang

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

Nothing Burns as Bright as You by Ashley Woodfolk

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

A Separation by Katie M. Kitamura

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

Us by David Nicholls

What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan

 

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Dating You Hating You by Christina Lauren

The Deal by Elle Kennedy

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Authentically, Izzy by Pepper Basham

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

Cover Story by Susan Rigetti

The London House by Katherine Reay

The Lost Manuscript by Cathy Bonidan

Olga by Bernhard Schlink

Picture in the Sand by Peter Blauner

Trust by Hernán Díaz

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

This can be a book about escaping something, or a book that helps you escape.

Empire of the Wild by Cherie Dimaline

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead

A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson

Red Paint: The Ancestry Autobiography of a Costal Salish Punk by Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well by Chelsey Luger

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

 

The World that We Knew by Alice Hoffman

The word “room” or any kind of room (e.g., kitchen, study, den, nursery, etc.) in the title.

Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Moo by Jane Smiley

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Straight Man by Richard Russo

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

Trump Sky Alpha by Mark Doten

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