SF_fan_mae's 2026 Challenge Reading

I had fun with the Bingo challenge last year, so I'm back again. It really helps me pare down my TBR piles.



Bingo Challenge:
1. features senior citizens - re-read The Thursday Murder Club
2. micro-history - Boldly Writing
3. set entirely or in part at sea
4. dead author - Artful: A Novel
5. tree on the cover - Grub and Stakers Move a Mountain
6. fairy tale or myth retelling - I know I have several of these in the TBR
7. something living on the cover - The Serpent's Shadow - numerous animals
8. award winner
9. "end it"
10. published before you were born - Perry Mason - One-eyed witness (1950)
11. new-to-you author - Elizabeth Peters
12. "green" book
13. CAT or KIT - Cover/ColorCAT
14. beautiful cover
15. onomatopoeia in title
16. difficult to categorize - re-read The Pushcart War
17. female author's debut novel - These Our Revels by Ann Hathaway-Nayne
18. great first sentence
19. indigenous author
20. set in province/state bordering your own - Murder in the Secret Garden
21. road trip book - re-read Stranger than Fanfiction
22. mode of transportation in title - Everyone on this train is a suspect
23. classic from another literary tradition
24. book of poetry
25. from an LT Legacy Library - The Deeds of the Disturber - Edward Gorey's Library

Color/CoverCAT:

Jan - orange/garden - Murder in the Secret Garden
Feb - blue/item of clothing - The Ghost and the Femme Fatale - hat
Mar - green/greenery - Grub and Stakers Move a Mountain
Apr - yellow/sun,moon,stars,planet - The Latter Fire - planet
May - turquoise/jewelry - The Serpent's Shadow
June - purple/food or drink - A Touch of the Grape - purple
July - pink/umbrella - Thorn
Aug - brown/window or door - The Warlock is Missing
Sep - brass/musical instrument - The Marriage of Meggotta - lute
Oct - black/Halloween costume - The Samurai's Wife - black and you could make a Samurai costume
Nov - silver/fantasy creature - A Matter of Taste
Dec - red/winter - The Scarlet Letters

Welcome back and have fun with your Bingo card!

Have a great 2026 Bingo read.

Bingo is a fun way to work through your TBR. Good luck!

Hope your Bingo reading is fulfilling in 2026!

Good luck with your Bingo!

Great blessings to you and your reading in the new year.

Happy Bingo reading in 2026!

Started going through my TBR lists and picking out some possible bingo square matches. I also decided to do the Cover/ColorCAT this year. I'll add my potential reading lists to the top post.

I think planning is half the fun, even though it makes my TBR grow even longer.

Enjoy your 2026 reading!

Hope you have a good reading year in 2026.

>9 SF_fan_mae: Picking books to fill categories is the best part of all. Have fun with your reading in 2026.

Hope you have a great year of reading!

BingoDOG is one of my favorites, too! Happy reading in 2026!

Have fun finding books to complete your Bingo card. I am glad you decided to join us in the Colored CoverKIT.

I started off 2026 with two good mysteries, each set at a conference. Murder in the Secret Garden by Ellery Adams, the third Book Retreat Mystery, was both my January Color/CoverCAT book with a garden on the cover and a bingo square set in Virginia next to my Maryland location. The Medieval Herbalist Society is holding their annual gathering at Storyton Hall. The 9 members are authors, hobbyists and medical practitioners, all experts in herbs and poisons. When one member is found presumably drowned in the river, rivalries are exposed and suspicions spread. Who is Storyton's hermit herbalist and how did the Society members find out about him? The individual mysteries for this book are quite gripping, kept me up reading late a couple of nights, but the series thru-plot went a bit off the rails with a far too ridiculous revelation about a new resident of Storyton. I would love to visit a book-lovers retreat like Storyton Hall, so I'll be looking for more of this series and author.

The second book, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect, the second Earnest Cunningham mystery by Benjamin Stevenson, fits another bingo square with a mode of transportation in the title. It takes place much farther away, on a train journey across the entire north to south middle of Australia. The Australian Mystery Writers Association is holding their 50th anniversary festival on the famous excursion train call the Ghan and Ern is a guest, along with other writers with various specialties and levels of fame. Ern promises the reader that he will play fair and follow the traditional mystery rules. He frequently speaks directly to the reader and tells several details of the eventual murder in the prolog and chapter 1, though you won't realize it. And I learned a big new word "ferroequinologist". I thought he'd made it up until I googled it and found out it really is a word.

Next I've started a book for the dead author bingo square - Artful: A Novel, by the late Peter David.

Picked something for the "difficult to categorize" square - another re-read of one of my all time favorite books, The Pushcart War. A children's "history" of the Pushcart War in NYC, which took place "back" in March 1976. I was still in elementary or middle school in the late 1960s when I first read it.

Starting my March CoverCat book - The Grub and Stakers Move a Mountain, which also fits the tree on the cover Bingo square.

Re-reading a favorite, Stranger than Fanfiction, about 4 high school grads who take a summer road trip before going their separate ways to college. Obviously meets the "road trip" square, but may also fit "end it".

Decided that Stranger than Fanfiction really does fit "end it" very well. Each of the five main characters does end something significant in the course of the road trip.

Just figured out that Boldly Writing fits the micro-history square. It's a detailed history of Star Trek fanzine publishing in the 1970s and 80s. I'm just up to 1976, but I'm already starting to recognize author and publisher names who were still active when I started collecting in 1980.