2A: Revisit Something You Loved
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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2B: Author from a Different Continent: The author(s) resides on a different continent than you do. HARD MODE: The work required translation to be published in your native language.
Sacred and Terrible Air, by Robert Kurvitz. It details the story of four girls who got disappeared, and their classmates who never gave up hope of finding them.
Its a book from Estonia!
1D: Award Winner
1C: A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words: Illustrations, photographs, or graphic elements noticeably enhance the work. HARD MODE: Heavily visual, such as a graphic novel, manga, photo essay, picture book, or coffee table book.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199020569-grim-portraits
What do you see when you look at a painting? The image, the brush strokes, the stippled canvas beneath? What if you looked beyond it? And what do you know about the person who created that picture that's hanging on your wall? They say art requires a certain acceptable degree of madness. What secrets then lie beyond the pigment in the darkness between depiction and delusion?
Herein you'll find stories about self-destructive lovers on a quest to find themselves while getting lost in each other ("Sometimes They See Me"), meet a man who wakes to find himself bound to a chair in a gallery of nightmarish paintings ("The Binding"), discover how one horrific act converts a child's grief into artistic talent in "The Portrait", witness the unveiling of an art collector's most precious and macabre find in "The Acquisition", visit a comic book store with a pair of thieves intent on robbing a man they don't know is expecting them ("The Barbed Lady Wants for Nothing"), and read a roadie's account of a band's final days after they discover "The Amp."
Inspired by Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY, GRIM PORTRAITS features six stories of art, madness, and horror by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Kealan Patrick Burke.
Browse at your peril.
Might fit since its ABOUT pictures? I enjoyed it. It was a librarian recommendation during Halloween one year.
Manwha: Insanely Talented Player
It's like a satire of all the midslop manhwa I normally read, and it's actually pretty good.
5D: Kintsugi: A major figure attempts to navigate a significant personal or systemic struggle, trauma, or loss. HARD MODE: Centered on a healing journey.
5B: The Late, Great…: The author is deceased. HARD MODE: They passed away before January 1, 2000.
Just finished up Dangerous Visions by the Late Harlan Ellison. Dark fiction reaching from straight fiction to scifi and horror.
3B: We’re Putting the Band (Back) Together: A group assembles for a common purpose. HARD MODE: The group had previously drifted apart, but is now reunited.
1E: Against the Odds: A person rises against a seemingly insurmountable challenge. HARD MODE: An “unlikely” hero—someone who steps up despite having no special destiny, powers, or prior training.
5A: Get Off My Lawn: A major figure is middle-aged or older. HARD MODE: They’re considered a senior citizen or elderly.
3E: Late to the Party: Apparently this is a really popular work, you just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Read something you’ve seen recommended over and over. HARD MODE: Has not been released as a major film or television franchise prior to the end of the challenge.
Finally getting around to Dungeon Crawler Carl, after everyone in my friend group telling me I have to read it. It good, you get what you are paying for. I understand the appeal.
2E: Independent Author: Self-published by the author at the time of reading. This includes works that have been picked up by a conventional publishing house, but are not yet rereleased, as well as those that are no longer conventionally published. HARD MODE: Not published via Amazon Kindle Direct.
3A: Punctuated!
5E: Double Up, Double Down
4C: Free Read: A work you didn’t pay to read (e.g. in the public domain, a gift, from the library or a Little Free Library, an ARC, or borrowed from a friend). Illicit downloads or stolen copies of the work do not qualify. HARD MODE: By an author you’ve never read before.
New life as a max level archmage: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/118891/new-life-as-a-max-level-archmage
This site is called royalroad. Here, web serials get published, which are books that are uploaded chapter by chapter to the internet. Sometimes they stay up there forever, sometimes they are taken off of royalroad in order to get published to Amazon.
This one is free when I read it, but now the first book (arc/set of chapters) got taken off and was published to Amazon.
5C: Artificial Intelligence
3D: What’s in a Name?: The title contains the name (or pseudonym) of a figure or collective whose story is central to the work. Examples: Jane Eyre, Dracula, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. HARD MODE: The title is only the name, nothing else. (Multi-name titles with ‘and’, like Romeo and Juliet, as well as basic honorifics like ‘Mr.’/‘Mrs.’, still qualify.)
The legend of William Oh: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/92144/the-legend-of-william-oh
Although the first book is only on Amazon.
2C: Weapon on the Cover: The cover art (or key art, for short works) features a weapon (sword, gun, bow, tank, etc.). HARD MODE: No knives or swords.
2D: Great Big Title: The title takes up a lot of real estate on the cover (or cover-analogue). HARD MODE: It’s also six (6) words or longer (articles, conjunctions, and names do count, but subtitles don’t).
4A: Minority Author: The author belongs to a demographic that is underrepresented or marginalized in publishing where you live (e.g. LGBTQIA+, BIPOC). HARD MODE: Belongs to more than one marginalized group.
1B: Supplementary, My Dear Watson: Includes extra material like a map, glossary, introduction, afterword, or author’s note. HARD MODE: The work includes notes that add context or richness, such as footnotes, endnotes, sidenotes, or marginalia. (miskatonic.org/footnotes.html has a long list of qualifying works.)
4E: Putting the Pieces Together: The premise involves an individual or team solving a puzzle, uncovering a secret, unraveling an ancient mystery, or investigating a crime. HARD MODE: The “detective” is an everyday civilian or an amateur in the field of the investigation, like a cop looking for a lost city on vacation, or an archaeologist trying to solve a murder.
4D: The Ink Is Still Fresh: New for 2026/2027 (no reprints or new editions). First translations into your language of choice are allowed. HARD MODE: Not a sequel.
Questions, Complaints, Whines, General Commentary, Shitposting
As always, this year's Storygraph challenge is pre-seeded with over 400 example books from a variety of (99% fiction) genres and subjects! Each square on there has at least 10 works that qualify only for regular mode, plus 10 more that also qualify for hard mode.
Where are the suggestions? I've followed several links and just see the square descriptions.
Clicking on the name of a square on the Storygraph challenge page** should bring you to a page that shows every book that's been added to that square (by me or other participants). For instance, here's the A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words page. They do take a second to load all the way, especially when there's a lot of books in the list. Does that help?
** clarifying edit
Hmm, maybe my app is misbehaving? When I click on the links in the top post it just sends me back here, but when I clicked the link you shared in the comment it sent me to storygraph where I could see all of the recommendations.
I can find the rest of them now by browsing from there, so that does work for me. Ty for helping me find them. I just finished my latest series so I'm floundering for what's next!!
Hmm I think the post links may be messed up; I'll poke Jaymes.
Glad to help--I hope you find something fun to read next!
Ty, so I browsed those lists and found out there's a new Sanderson, and Wells this year, so I've got those two on my list. And I picked up the Twisted Ones from Kingfisher. My first for this author, and more real than I'm used to, but I think this'll be good.
For the Punctuated! prompt... does '&' count as a punctuation mark? From what I can work out, perhaps not?
Sorry for the delay in responding, I’ve had a busy time with work recently.
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there are no bingo police, if you think you can make a well reasoned argument why an interpretation is correct, go for it.
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I would say the ampersand is a ligature not punctuation, but see 1.
Thanks! Yeah I reckon you're right - and I wouldn't mind the challenge of finding something that fits :)
1A: LGBTQIA+ Lead: A major figure identifies as LGBTQIA+. HARD MODE: Features a significant, committed relationship (romantic, queerplatonic, or deep primary partnership) between LGBTQIA+ characters.
Locked Tomb Series. I just finished it.
What did you think of it? It’s been on my TBR for a bit.
It was a fun, easy read. Audio book narration is good, and the narrator does a really good job of differentiating the characters voices. I think the prose and narrator together both did their part really well voicing characters in the story that has a lot of body swapping kinds of things going on. It could be really easy to mix up who is saying what -- but I always felt like I had a good handle on it. The characters each have their own .... Attitude(?),voice (?),personality(?) And that came out both in reading and in the narration.
4B: Rooted & Rising: The natural world is prominent in some aspect of the work, such as setting, theme, or narrative catalyst. HARD MODE: Nature is key to a major figure’s resilience or ability to survive. Example: Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.