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WINTER READING CHALLENGE

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Fight the cold this winter by joining our Fireside Tales Winter Reading Challenge. Let the art of storytelling carry you somewhere cozy as you enjoy books that warm the heart.

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  • Get your Winter Reading Challenge Kit (reading challenge prompts and reading log) at the Service Desk or by printing out from online beginning Monday, December 15th.

  • Read a book from one of the prompts and fill out the reading log. You can find recommendations online or at the Quogue Library Service Desk.

  • Each book on the reading log(s) received before Friday, March 20th will be one raffle entered for a large reading basket!

The more you read, the better your chances of winning!

 

Can't get to the library? Register HERE and download a Winter Reading Challenge Kit HERE. Send a picture of completed reading log(s) info@quoguelibrary.org


 

Challenge Guidelines:

  • Must register for the Quogue Library Winter Reading Challenge

  • Cannot use the same book for multiple raffle tickets

  • Prompts do not have to be completed in order (you may also use your own challenge prompts)

  • Audiobook, eBook, or print formats are all valid for raffle ticket entries

  • Partially completed log info will not be accepted in raffle drawing

  • The potential winner will be selected at random. The winner will receive a large raffle reading basket.

  • Reading log(s) must be filled out and submitted by Friday, March 20th to be included in the raffle drawing. The odds of winning depend on the number of books entered on the reading log(s) received by Friday, March 20th, 2026. Many people may enter, but only one person can win. The more books you read, the better your chances of winning!

  • The name of the raffle winner will be announced in Quogue Library marketing

Recommendations

Folklore / Mythology / Fantasy


1. A book based on American folklore or magic

• Country Under Heaven by Frederick S. Durbin
• Tales from the general store: the legends of Long Island / Janet Emily Demares
Amagansett lore and legend, by the Book Committee of the Amagansett Village Improvement Society. Edited by Louise Maunsell Field.
A season with the witch: the magic and mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts / J.W. Ocker.
A snake falls to Earth / Darcie Little Badger.

2. A book based on mythology, fables or heroism

• Mythos : the Greek myths reimagined / by Stephen Fry. ,  Wearing the lion / John Wiswell.
• Medusa / Jessie Burton; illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill.
• Norse mythology / Neil Gaiman.
• Elektra / Jennifer Saint.
• Circe: a novel / Madeline Miller.
• Harbor lights: stories / James Lee Burke.

3. A book based on magic, whimsy, or cottagecore

• Emily Wilde's map of the Otherlands: a novel / Heather Fawcett.
• The blanket cats / Kiyoshi Shigematsu; translated by Jesse Kirkwood.
• The annotated classic fairy tales / edited with an introduction and notes by Maria Tatar; translations by Maria Tatar.

4. A fantasy, horror or science fiction book

• Himself: a novel / Jess Kidd. 
•  Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna Van Neen
• Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
• The library at Hellebore / Cassandra Khaw.
• Elphie: A Wicked Childhood / Gregory Maguire.

5. A historical fiction folklore, mythology, or supernatural book

• Irish folk & fairy tales: fables, folklore & ancient stories / general editor J.K. Jackson; a new introduction by Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald.
• The red house: a novel / Mary Morris.
• Four treasures of the sky / Jenny Tinghui Zhang.
• Silver and smoke / Van Hoang.
• The geographer's map to romance / India Holton.
• The silence of the girls: a novel / Pat Barker.
• The Vaster wilds: a novel / Lauren Groff.

6. An epic tale (a book 500 pages or more)

• The Iliad / Homer; translated by Robert Fagles; introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. 
• North is the night / Emily Rath.
• Kaikeyi: a novel / Vaishnavi Patel.
• Daughter of the moon goddess: a novel / Sue Lynn Tan. (also first in series)
• Fairy tale: a novel / Stephen King.
 

The Art of Storytelling


7. A biography or memoir

• Raising Hare: a memoir / Chloe Dalton.
• Almost brown / Charlotte Gill
• The profession: a memoir of community, race, and the arc of policing in America / Bill Bratton and Peter Knobler.
• The third Gilmore Girl / Kelly Bishop, with Lindsay Harrison ; [foreword by Amy Sherman-Palladino]
• Be ready when the luck happens: a memoir / Ina Garten.
• Knife: meditations after an attempted murder / Salman Rushdie.
• Oath and honor : a memoir and a warning / Liz Cheney.
• The message / Ta-Nehisi Coates.
• The secret lives of booksellers and librarians : true stories of the magic of reading / James Patterson and Matt Eversmann with Chris Mooney.

8. The first book in a series

• Maisie Dobbs : a novel / Jacqueline Winspear.
• Odd Thomas / Dean Koontz.
• Wicked: the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West: a novel / Gregory Maguire
• Emily Wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries / Heather Fawcett
• Jewels of the sun / Nora Roberts
• Fourth wing / Rebecca Yarros.
• The seventh sun / Lani Forbes.
• The land of lost things / John Connolly.
• Outlander / Diana Gabaldon

9. A non-fiction sociology or multicultural book

• A great disorder : national myth and the battle for America / Richard Slotkin.
• Languages of truth : essays 2003-2020 / Salman Rushdie.
• Life of Pi / Yann Martel.
• Snow Flower and the secret fan : a novel / Lisa See
• Pachinko / Min Jin Lee

10. A literary classic

• Sense and sensibility / Jane Austen ; introduction and notes by Ros Ballaster ; preface by Tony Tanner.
• James : a novel / Percival Everett
• Beloved / a novel by Toni Morrison.
• Dracula / Bram Stoker
• The catcher in the rye / J. D. Salinger
• One flew over the cuckoo's nest / Ken Kesey ; with illustrations and an introduction by the author.
• 1984 / George Orwell
• Gone with the wind / Margaret Mitchell ; with a preface by Pat Conroy

11. A book made into a movie or show

• Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race / Margot Lee Shetterly.
• Gone girl : a novel / Gillian Flynn.
• Crazy rich Asians / Kevin Kwan
• Where the crawdads sing / Delia Owens.
• The princess bride : S. Morgenstern's classic tale of true love and high adventure / the "good parts" version, abridged by William Goldman.
• Red, white & royal blue / Casey McQuiston.
• The martian : a novel / Andy Weir
• People we meet on vacation / Emily Henry

12. A non-fiction history book, or non-fiction book on storytelling (written or oral)

• Captain Kidd : a true story of treasure and betrayal / Samuel Marquis.
• A fever in the heartland : the Ku Klux Klan's plot to take over America, and the woman who stopped them / Timothy Egan
• Poverty, by America / Matthew Desmond

13. A book written by a foreign or BIPOC Author

• Bitter orange tree : a novel / Jokha Alharthi ; translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth.
• Free food for millionaires / Min Jin Lee.
• The widows of Malabar Hill / Sujata Massey.
• Things fall apart / Chinua Achebe
• Yellowface : a novel / R. F. Kuang
• Banyan moon : a novel / Thao Thai
• Infinite country : a novel / Patricia Engel
 

Comfort Reads

14. A cozy mystery book

• Eggnog murder / Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, Barbara Ross.
• Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop : 'tis the season to be deadly : stories of mistletoe and mayhem from 17 masters of suspense / edited by Otto Penzler.
• The bullet that missed : a Thursday Murder Club mystery / Richard Osman
• The expectant detectives : a mystery / Kat Ailes
• The homewreckers : a novel / Mary Kay Andrews.
• High tea and misdemeanors / Laura Childs

15. A book recommended by a friend, family member, library or book club

• The river is waiting : a novel / Wally Lamb

16. A book by your favorite author

• Razorblade tears / S. A. Cosby

17. A comedic book

• You belong with me : a novel / Mhairi McFarlane.

18. A book about friendship, family and warm connections

• Angels on Earth : inspiring stories of fate, friendship, and the power of connections / Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski.
• A Christmas legacy : a novel / Anne Perry
• First friends : the powerful, unsung (and unelected) people who shaped our presidents / by Gary Ginsberg
• A map to paradise / Susan Meissner
• All the summers in between / Brooke Lea Foster.
• Another Brooklyn : a novel / Jacqueline Woodson.
• Assistant to the villain / Hannah Nicole Maehrer
• Crook manifesto : a novel / Colson Whitehead
• The Department of Sensitive Crimes / Alexander McCall Smith
• A friend is a gift you give yourself : a novel / William Boyle
• How hard can it be? / Allison Pearson

19. A book with a cozy cover

• The Christmas spirit : a novel / Debbie Macomber.


Romance & Hot Reads

20. A winter holiday romance book

• The Christmas countdown / Holly Cassidy
• Alaskan holiday : a novel / Debbie Macomber
• Winter Street : a novel / Elin Hilderbrand

21. A contemporary or foreign romance book

• Alice Chen's reality check / Kara Loo & Jennifer Young
• Last night was fun : a novel / Holly Michelle.
• What if I never get over you / Paige Toon.

22. A historical or fantasy romance book

• Pianos and flowers : brief encounters of the romantic kind / Alexander McCall Smith.
• Tusk love / Thea Guanzon.

23. A book about current affairs

• The fifth risk / Michael Lewis.
• At the edge of empire : a family's reckoning with China / Edward Wong
• Autocracy, Inc. : the dictators who want to run the world / Anne Applebaum
• On tyranny : twenty lessons from the twentieth century / Timothy Snyder.
• The big short : inside the doomsday machine / Michael Lewis
• The anthropocene reviewed : essays on a human-centered planet / by John Green

24. A book with a fireplace or fire on the cover or in the title

• Notes on surviving the fire Christine Murphy
• Emma on fire / James Patterson and Emily Raymond.
• When it all burns : fighting fire in a transformed world / Jordan Thomas.
• A fire so wild : a novel / Sarah Ruiz-Grossman.

25. A book with “tale” in the title

• The art spy : the extraordinary untold tale of WWII resistance hero Rose Valland / Michelle Young.
• Careless people : a cautionary tale of power, greed, and lost idealism / Sarah Wynn-Williams.
• The last tale of the flower bride : a novel / Roshani Chokshi.
• The wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder / David Grann.
• Who killed Jane Stanford? : a Gilded Age tale of murder, deceit, spirits and the birth of a university / Richard White.
• Diamonds and deadlines: a tale of greed, deceit, and a female tycoon in the Gilded Age / Betsy Prioleau.
• Horseman : a tale of Sleepy Hollow / Christina Henry.

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