We don’t need a book club ‘challenge’ – what happened to reading for fun?

Between reading challenges, writing challenges, drawing challenges, running challenges, cooking challenges, and every other kind of challenge under the sun, Flic Everett wonders when we’re supposed to have time to do things for ourselves

If everything becomes a challenge, nothing is (Getty)

How many books did you read last year? Does a page count as one side or two? Can you still add it to your list if you listened to the audio version? Should you withdraw all privileges until you’ve reached the last page of Prophet Song?

As an author and a reader, I belong to several online book groups, and this year, more than ever, they appear to be dominated by “reading challenges”, such as the one launched by megalith book site Goodreads. Rather than just reading a book and returning to discuss it, participants are encouraged to take a “challenge”, ploughing through a certain number of books in a year and ticking them off like a laundry list. People worry about not finishing a novel as if it’s a GCSE set text, and fret about “dropping below my average” like timed marathon runners.

It seems that reading for pleasure is no longer enough. Like almost everything else enjoyable, books are now units to be joylessly chomped through, turning the escapist fulfilment of reading into a process of clocking in and out.