#reading challenge

Welcome to another year of the Fanfic Reading Challenge (FRC)!

Here's the gist of the challenge:

The event runs for the whole year - Jan 01-Dec 31, 2026

There is no official sign-up. You can make a copy of the challenge spreadsheet and track your fic reading however you want to. You can start at any time of the year.

To participate in the challenge, you read fics that match the tasks in the challenge. Some are easy. Some are more difficult.

This challenge is for any fandom, any ship(s), and you can use more than one fandom and/or ship to complete it.

Fics can count towards more than one task (unless the task says otherwise). Podfics count too.

This challenge operates on the honour system. If you said you completed a fic for a certain task, that's between you and whichever ghost/saint haunts/watches over you. No one is checking your work.

Likewise, if you're unsure about whether a fic fits the task, you are welcome to discuss it with us on the Challenge Discord OR you can use your best judgment. Again, no one is checking your work.

There are prizes! If you finish even one task, you'll be eligible for a fun badge to show off wherever you show off online badges. Here's a link to the 2025 badges to show you how cute they are!

Participation (1 task completed)

Regular Mode (80 tasks completed)

Hard Mode (150 tasks completed)

Extreme Mode (230 tasks completed)

Complete (300 tasks completed)

Category Challenge (extra challenge)

The 2026 Fanfic Reading Challenge! (link)

You will need to download and make your own copy of the above spreadsheet. There is an info page on the first sheet of the spreadsheet that may answer any additional questions. If you need to contact any of the Admin, please send us an ask, or join the Discord.

This year, there is a Virtual Book Club group of tasks, where you are required to ask others for suggestions for various task prompts. You can do this via Tumblr ask, in the specific Discord channel, on some other Discord you belong to, or even by asking your friend who lives next door. We've created a Discord channel to help people complete this, but it's not required to join us there; however we've really become a lovely community of vastly different people who are all joined together in our love of fanfiction, and you would definitely be welcome.

As there is a component of the FRC that includes tracking numbers of words read, most of us use a reading log/tracker to keep count of how many fics we read, including data such as words, of course, chapters, month completed, ship, author, title, fandom, link to the fic, and such. It’s a great place to mark what fics you want to read in the future as well!

We've got four suggested trackers linked below. All of them are quite different from one another - and you're welcome to make a copy of any of them if you'd like - and you can customize them for your personal preferences.

Optional Fic Tracking Sheets

Tarukryl's 2026 Tracking Sheet Juulna's 2026 Tracking Sheet Emmie's 2026 Tracking Sheet Jandy's 2026 Tracking Sheet Trinket's 2026 Tracking Sheet

We are so excited to have you join us for another year.

Hopefully, we'll all have a better 2026 - Happy Reading!

Dan Pelzer, who died on July 1 at the age of 92, left his friends and family a 109-page list of all the books he’s read since 1962.

Though Pelzer’s family considered distributing the list at his funeral, they realized it was far too long to share in that way. So instead, they scanned the list and created a website sharing his reads called, What Dan Read.

In a post shared on the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Facebook page, Pelzer’s daughter, Marci, wrote, “ALL of his books were Columbus Metropolitan Library books. Nobody loved the library more than Dan.”

“When we were little, he took us to the downtown library every Saturday morning and enrolled us in every summer reading program,” Marci shared with the library. “He was a regular at the Livingston and then Whitehall branches until he could no longer read. I'm sure he would be among your highest circulation and longest term borrowers.”

In Dan’s obituary, the family asked that in place of flowers, donations be made to Kinship Community Food Center, adding, “You could also honor Dan by reading ‘a real page turner.’ ”