Year of the Asian Reading Challenge #YARC2019 // Welcome & Introduction

Hi & welcome to one of my most anticipated bookish events this year! 🎋🍚💫

As you all know, books with Asian representation, and books written by Asian authors, are very important to me, seeing as I’m Asian myself. I only started to actively and deliberately seek out Asian authors and their books last year, and I’m so happy I did, because it was such a wonderful feeling to see myself represented in books in a way I wasn’t able to before—and I learned so much about my own heritage as well.

Naturally, I’m incredibly excited to announce that I’ll be co-hosting the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge 2019—YARC, in short—together with three of my amazing blogger friends; CW from The Quiet Pond, Shealea from Shut Up, Shealea, and Vicky from Vicky Who Reads!

GUIDELINES

The challenge is to read as many books written by Asian authors as we can! These books can be backlist titles, new releases, or ARCs of any genre, format, and length. We’ve also created fun levels, depending on how many books you want to challenge yourself to read (more info on that below!).

In order for a book to count, you must start and finish it in 2019, because the challenge ends on December 31, 2019. This also means that any books you started in 2018 and finish in 2019 do not count. You can join in at any time during the year! The sign-up form will remain open all year.

Follow us on Twitter (@YearOfTheAsian) for announcements, surprises, bookish chats, and more! The official hashtag for this reading challenge is #YARC2019.

HOW TO JOIN

1. Announce your intention to participate in YARC on any online platform (your blog, Twitter, Goodreads) and create a progress tracker.
   1. If you’re a blogger, announce your participation via blog post, which will serve as your update post. Please make sure to link back to the sign-up post, so that other people can join in, too!
   2. If you’re a reader without a blog, you can either create a Goodreads shelf that’s dedicated to the books for this challenge, or create a Twitter thread for tracking. Use the hashtag (#YARC2019) for the latter, and make sure to link back to the sign-up post.
2. Select your target level and grab your badge. You can display your badge on your blog, or share it on social media.
3. Start reading, and keep track of your progress.
4. Share your updates on social media using the official hashtag: #YARC2019.

CHALLENGE LEVELS

(You’ll find a little clue in this post as to which level I’m challenging myself to reach! Let me know in the comments, which one you think I’m aiming for. ☺️)

Philippine tarsier: 1-10 books ⭐️ Indian cobra: 11-20 books ⭐️ Malayan tapir: 21-30 books

Giant panda: 31-40 books ⭐️ Asian elephant: 41-50 books ⭐️ Bengali tiger: 50+ books

And here are the cute badges you get to wear proudly, with each level you reach!

MORE CHALLENGE FUN

🌟 MONTHLY LINK-UPS & GIVEAWAY 🌟

• Monthly link-ups will be posted by Shealea on the second day of every month, and will close on the 15th of the following month (e.g. the January form will expire on February 15).
• For the monthly link-up, you can submit any of the following links:
  • Your updated progress tracker (e.g. blog post, Goodreads shelf, Twitter thread).
  • Your review of an Asian book that you read for that month. This can be a review on your blog, on Goodreads, on Amazon, or anywhere online. The review itself does not have to be elaborate; any length will do.
• Every link you submit is counted as an entry for the mysterious grand giveaway, which will be drawn once the year ends. (It’s mysterious because we’ll be revealing the prize later on! ✨)

🌟 MONTHLY PROMPTS & RECOMMENDATIONS 🌟

• We’ve prepared fun prompts for each month of the year! These prompts will be released quarterly (i.e. January, April, July, October).
• You can read whichever books you want, of course, but if you want to make this challenge a bit more difficult and exciting, then feel free to participate in these prompts!
• Because we are the kindest souls ever and we love talking about books written by Asian authors, we will pick three featured books based on the monthly prompts. These featured books will be included in the monthly link-up posts.
• CW, Vicky, and I will also post a list of recommendations every first day of the month to help you build up your TBR.

🌟 TWITTER CHATS 🌟

• Once every two months, there will be a fun #YARC2019 Twitter chat! These chats will be held either on the third or fourth week of the month.
• The host for #YARC2019 Twitter chats is @YearOfTheAsian, so don’t forget to give us a follow on that account—we’ll announce the dates for our chats there, as well as other exciting info!

DAYS & DATES TO REMEMBER

Every first of the month: list of recommended books (for the monthly prompt)
Every second of the month: release of monthly link-up post
Every 15th of the month: closing of previous monthly link-up post
December 31, 2019: last day of the reading challenge
January 1, 2020: announcement and contacting of giveaway winner

SIGN-UP FORM

Link to sign-up form: https://goo.gl/forms/hZVBCQGBPamdzuB02

We’re all so excited about this reading challenge, boosting Asian authors, their books, reading them (of course), and chatting with you all! Hopefully, you’ll have as much fun with it as we’ve already had organizing it, and have a great year filled with amazing books. 💛💛

Are you signing up for #YARC? (The right answer is yes.)
Do you already have books on your TBR that’d be a great fit for this challenge?
Which level do you think I’m aiming for? 🌟

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