This leg of the challenge is all about reading the new and exciting. These are books that many not have been tried and tested by decades of readers, meaning that you and I have the chance to discover new gems.

Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx is the best book I've read this year.

The list of books I want to read is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

In the Fullness of Time is a book about time travel--sort of. It's also a book about detective work--sort of. It's also about family, and technology, and generational trauma, and romance--sort of.

Shop local. Eat local. Buy local. You've heard the rallying cries, I'm sure. Local business owners, struggling to compete with large corporations who can easily sell at a loss until they drive local competition out of town, have devised a number of ways to encourage local consumption. This prompt asks you to go one step further: Read local.

July's People is a short, poignant little book about the perils of liberal claims to equality in Apartheid South Africa.

When I first started putting together the prompt list for this reading women challenge I was astonished by the number of prompt lists that already existed. There are dozens of prompt lists out there, although none of them quite fit the kinds of books I wanted to read this year. In particular, one prompt I read I still think about today: "A book with a pink cover."