Missoula Reads
The 8th annual Missoula Reads year-long reading challenge
Read one book in each of 50 categories by December 27 and win a fabulous prize. Free reading logs will be available on Level Three starting Tuesday, January 2.
Friendly reference librarians will be available all year to suggest titles or to chat about the challenge. Email us anytime at .
Please note: Missoula Reads is open to Missoula Public Library cardholders only.
Catch the Seeley Reads podcast on Soundcloud
Hear about the books our Seeley Lake branch librarians are reading as they work their way through the 2024 challenge.
50 Categories
Find all categories listed here. For reading recommendations in select categories, see below. Download a pdf copy of the categories
200 Pages or Fewer
2023 Montana Book Award Nominee*
24 or Twenty-four in the Title
400 Pages or More
About an Historical Event
Any eBook, any audiobook, or re-read an old favorite
Author is from the Same State as You
Bad Guys / Gals
Book from an MPL Display
Book that any of MPL’s Book Groups is Reading*
Children’s Book You Never Read
Complicated Relationships*
Cover is Green
Cozy Mystery
Dynasties*
Enemies to Lovers*
Epistolary (Letters or Diaries)*
Escape*
Fantasy
Fast-paced
From Your TBR List
Furniture on the Cover
Geography
Graphic Novel
House on the Cover
Indigenous Author*
Investigative Non-fiction*
Lawyers
Makes You Think
Memoir
Microhistory*
Montana Author
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner*
Nature Writing*
One of the Seven Deadly Sins
Poverty*
Published in 2024
Punctuation in the Title
Reviewed or Discussed on NPR Books
Revolution
Room in the Title*
Satire*
Second Chances
Set in the Future
Set in the Past
Time*
Two Books by the Same Author (first)
Two Books by the Same Author (second)
Vampires or Werewolves or Zombies
Your Favorite Animal
Select Reading Lists
Awake in the World, Volume 3, Mara Panich, editor et al.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Maggie Anderson
Blood Money, Kathleen McLaughlin
Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle
Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars, Steven Rinella
Crow Mary, Kathleen Grissom
Flags on the Bayou, James Lee Burke
Fractal Noise, Christopher Paolini
Holding Fire, Bryce Andrews – honor book
Lookout, Christine Byl – honor book
Lost Journals of Sacajawea, Debra Magpie Earling – winner!
Sun House, David James Duncan
We Hold Our Breath, Micah Fields
Wild Girls, Tiya Miles
Crossings, Ken Goldfarb
Red-Headed Pilgrim, Kevin Maloney
Iggy Horse, Michael Earl Craig
Man, Undergound, Mark Hummel – honor book
Stop, Drop, Grow, and Glow, Holly Swenson
Order Without Law, Benjamin E. Sanders
Pathfinder, Robert Love
Mumblecusser, Allen Morris Jones – honor book
Montana: A Paper Trail, Thomas Minckler
Great Plains Forts, Jay Buckley
Fire Truck that Could Fly, Patricia Osborn
Wisdom River, Larry Kaputska
This Wheel of Rocks, Sister Marya Grathwohl
Time Again, Scott Parker
True West, Betsy Gaines Quammen
This is Wildfire, Nick Mott
Sky and Timby, Rick Ferruggia
Idaho Madams, Milana Marsenich
Big Sky, Big Parks, Ednor Therriault
Crooked, Nathan Masters
North to Nowhere, Allison Brennan
Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, Peter Young
Unlashed, Rebecca Schuster
Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
Family Trust by Kathy Wang
The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
Nothing Burns as Bright as You by Ashley Woodfolk
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A Separation by Katie M. Kitamura
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Us by David Nicholls
What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan
The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation by Miriam Pawel
The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward
Crown and Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy by Tracy Borman
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires by Selwyn Raab
Gilt by Jamie Brenner
Growing Up Getty: The Story of America’s Most Unconventional Dynasty by James Reginato
The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain’s Wars for America by Julie Flavell
Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
The Rathbones by Janice Clark
The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty by Natalie Livingstone
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Dating You Hating You by Christina Lauren
The Deal by Elle Kennedy
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker
The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh
The Appeal by Janice Hallett
Authentically, Izzy by Pepper Basham
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Cover Story by Susan Rigetti
The London House by Katherine Reay
The Lost Manuscript by Cathy Bonidan
Olga by Bernhard Schlink
Picture in the Sand by Peter Blauner
Trust by Hernán Díaz
The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
This can be a book about escaping something, or a book that helps you escape.
Empire of the Wild by Cherie Dimaline
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead
A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson
Red Paint: The Ancestry Autobiography of a Costal Salish Punk by Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well by Chelsey Luger
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
The World that We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation by Michael Powell
Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelton
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery of Across America by Clint Smith
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The New Wild West: Black Gold, Fracking, and Life in a North Dakota Boomtown by Blaire Briody
Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson
Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters” by Kim Todd
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Butter: A Rich History by Elaine Khosrova
Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt
Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times by Don Kladstrup
Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese
Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson
Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol by Iain Gately
Milk: A 10,000-year Food Fracas by Mark Kurlansky
Pox: An American History by Michael Willrich
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World by Aja Raden
For a list of winners, please visit https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World by Kathleen Dean Moore
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
Hawthorn: The Tree that has Nourished, Healed, and Inspired Through the Ages by Bill Vaughn
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries From a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie
Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret E. Savoy
The Way Home: Tales From a Life Without Technology by Mark Boyle
Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending US Poverty by Joanne Samuel Goldblum
Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality by Angus Deaton
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America by Michelle W. Anderson
The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America by Kathryn Edin
Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Child Poverty by Jeff Madrick
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-first Century by Jessica Bruder
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice by Tony Messenger
Toxic Inequality: How America’s Wealth Gap Destroys Mobility, Deepens the Racial Divide, and Threatens Our Future by Thomas M. Shapiro
The word “room” or any kind of room (e.g., kitchen, study, den, nursery, etc.) in the title.
Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Moo by Jane Smiley
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Straight Man by Richard Russo
Temporary by Hilary Leichter
Trump Sky Alpha by Mark Doten
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene
Introducing Time: A Graphic Guide by Craig Callender
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
Recursion by Blake Crouch
Slaughterhouse Five: Or, The Children’s Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald
The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life by Philip G. Zimbardo
Your Brain is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time by Dean Buonomano