2016 Horror Reading Challenge & Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge

In my hunt for reading challenges to take on the rest of this year, I've found two more that are right up my alley.

The first is the 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge, hosted by Nicola at the challenge's blog.  I really like this challenge button, because it is very eye-catching and perhaps a little scary.

Mostly I just really want to see the rest of this guy's costume!  For this challenge, I am going to sign up for the Bronze Age or intermediate level, that is to say, I am going to try to read and review 24 graphic novels, comic collections, and/or mangas during the remainder of this year.  Since I am in the middle of reading several excellent graphic novel and manga series, including Locke & Key and Attack on Titan, I hope this shouldn't be too difficult!  Other graphic novels I want to read soon include The Umbrella Academy, Rat Queens, Lumberjanes, the next few volumes of Lazarus, Outcast, The October Faction, American Vampire...yeah, quite a few, to sum it up.

The next challenge I'm signing up for is the 2016 Horror Reading Challenge, co-hosted over at the blog Cornerfolds and at Books, Movies, Reviews, Oh My!

I am going to try to read and review 16 or more books that belong to the horror genre, and win the Horror Hound badge.  I usually read a lot of horror, especially collections of nineteenth-century ghost stories and Gothic novels, which I adore.  I have been trying to force myself to read The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, a very classic Gothic novel, but admittedly it has a very slow start which is discouraging me.  Last year I read Matthew Lewis's The Monk, which is insanely entertaining and twisted, and also Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, arguably one of the first English Gothic novels.  Otranto is pretty silly, and features a guy getting crushed to death by a giant helmet (no, really), but it was wildly popular after its publication.  Right now I am reading something a little more modern: Stephen King's Bag of Bones.  I am not a big fan of King typically, so we will see how that goes.  I'm looking forward to reading books for both of these challenges, and will add them to a new Challenges page so I can keep track of them more easily.