The Global Challenge

Welcome to the reenergized Global Challenge!

Founded in 2010, the Global Challenge is a place to track your reading from countries around the world and, if you wish, try to complete the original challenge of reading five books from every country (see details below). Feel free, however, to customize the challenge however you wish. It's up to you!

There are currently 193 member states of the United Nations, but 208 sovereign states are recognized. Some Global Challenge participants have added even more countries or broken some large countries into subsections. See the pinned post A New Country List for ideas.

You might also want to check out the sister group, Reading Globally. This year there is also an African Novel Challenge.

Happy Reading!



Here is the original challenge as created by fmgee: to read a book that is set or about (at least in part) as many countries as possible. This is an ongoing challenge (not limited to a year) and you can use any books you have read in the past as your base.

The rules (and scoring) are simple.

-You can read and list up to five books per country.
-Each book is worth one point.
-All books can only be listed once! If you are reading a travel book that goes through Africa you need to choose which country you want to put it in (BUT ONLY ONE!).
-Fiction or Non-Fiction (Novels, Lonely Planet, even Children's Books if you need a fifth from Rwanda!)
-193 Countries and 5 books each is a maximum of 965 points.

TopicTopicMessagesLast Message 
Pinned — MESSAGE BOARD12 unread / 12rocketjk, January 7
Pinned — Where in the World are You Reading Now?210 unread / 210Willoyd, Yesterday 7:25pm
Pinned — A NEW COUNTRY LIST1 unread / 1labfs39, March 2022
Places Tess has read15 unread / 15labfs39, Saturday 1:39pm
RidgewayGirl Reads Around the World63 unread / 63RidgewayGirl, Friday 6:10pm
rocketjk's goes forward and back7 unread / 7rocketjk, Friday 5:45pm
Willoyd's Read Around the World40 unread / 40Tess_W, Friday 2:15pm
Cecilturtle's world tour144 unread / 144Cecilturtle, March 21
labfs39 reads around the world159 unread / 159labfs39, March 20
Dilara's World Tour74 unread / 74Dilara86, March 18
MissBrangwen travels on the pages72 unread / 72MissBrangwen, March 15
Jackie's global reading challenge86 unread / 86Dilara86, March 14
Streamsong's Global Reading132 unread / 132labfs39, March 11
Liz_M Reads Around the World67 unread / 67ELiz_M, February 12
Annie travels the world in books26 unread / 26AnnieMod, January 17
Beth's Global Challenge43 unread / 43BLBera, January 14
starbox's attempt at 2014 challenge (to update as I go)35 unread / 35labfs39, January 7
The Country List6 unread / 6ELiz_M, December 2021
Ritacate's World Tour40 unread / 40ritacate, August 2021
EllaTim reading tour43 unread / 43EllaTim, December 2018
Orbasan's Virtual Voyage Part II7 unread / 7Orbasan, December 2017
Zozette's World Tour22 unread / 22starbox, December 2017
Orbasan's Virtual Voyage52 unread / 52Orbasan, September 2017
fmgee's travels48 unread / 48fmgee, March 2017
Cinnamon Heart's Journey So Far...9 unread / 9starbox, May 2016
Benny's Global Challenge21 unread / 21benuathanasia, February 2015
starbox's world tour2 unread / 2starbox, January 2014
Great idea!4 unread / 4bchaplin, August 2010
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