Can you believe the Read Harder Challenge is more than ten years old? That’s a century in internet time! For a little bit of nostalgia, we tied in the very first Read Harder Challenge to this year’s for task #24: Pick a 2015 Read Harder Challenge task to complete. This might be the easiest task of the year, because those first tasks were very broad, like “Read a romance novel” or “Read a book published this year.”
I don’t think anyone will struggle with recommendations for task #24, so I thought I’d give myself the extra challenge of only recommending books that came out in 2015! Some of them have become even more well known over the past ten years, while others have been forgotten, but they’re all worth a read in 2025.
A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ
Nimona by ND Stevenson
I had to start with this title, because I wrote a retrospective on Nimona earlier this year, and it may be my favourite thing I’ve written for Book Riot: 10 Years Later, We Need Nimona More Than Ever. In it, I compare the 2015 graphic novel to its 2023 movie adaptation. To spoil my own article, I recommend both versions of this story, because I think they’re so interesting in conversation. Stevenson also came out as trans between publishing the book and making the movie, and while the book has queer subtext, the movie has canon queer characters as well as a trans allegory.
A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize for his unforgettable novel, The Sympathizer. Experience this breathtaking story and you’ll see why. Nguyen’s book traces a group of refugees from the Vietnam War who flee to America in 1975, focusing in particular on a North Vietnamese general in the South Vietnamese army who operates as a spy in his home country and again as a CIA agent in a South Vietnamese community that has settled in Los Angeles. The Sympathizer is a beautifully written war novel about the consequences of war. —Sarah S. Davis
All Access members, read on for four more 2015 books that are still worth reading.
A microhistory
Rain: A Cultural and Natural History by Cynthia Barnett
This is a charming, fascinating microhistory that tells the story of rain. Humans have long sought to understand and control rain—from worshipping weather gods and dancing to bring on rain, to trying to use science to predict the weather, to trying to prevent or cause rain with explosives. Barnett does a great job of incorporating science and history into this book. I read it on a couple of grey, rainy days and it was perfect. –Valerie Michael
A book published by an indie press
Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
I usually read non-fiction a couple chapters at a time between fiction. In this case, I INHALED this book. Leah’s writing is poetic and impactful. It not only placed me beside her—it crawled into me. Her journey from being a brown girl in the U.S. with a white mother, to seeking out POC, to finding her identity (in Canada after years of struggle) was heartbreaking AND beautiful, told in a voice that flowed beautifully from storytelling to a poetic narrative. It created a perfect balance for when she spoke of things like abuse, poverty, and racism. –Jamie Canaves
A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind
SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki
Disaffected teenagers with superpowers at a boarding school! This started as a webcomic, and although I think it works a little better in that format, I can’t help but love Tamaki’s humor and style. Frances, the guerrilla artist, was my favourite, but despite the cast that all gets a turn at the spotlight, this is clearly Marsha’s story. Marsha is closeted and in love with her best friend. It’s equally amusing and heartbreaking to see her criticizing her crush for being too kind and naive when clearly those are the traits that made Marsha fall for her. This is a new favourite.
A book that was originally published in another language
Sphinx by Anne Garréta, translated by Emma Ramadan
Anne Garréta is part of the Oulipo, a French workshop that experiments with language to stretch what it can do (such as the novel that never once used the letter “E”). In this short book, Garréta—and her translator— take on the challenge of writing a book that never uses pronouns for its protagonist or the lover. It’s a powerful experiment that argues that gender neutrality is certainly possible, even in gendered languages. And the novel itself is compelling, telling the story of a DJ in love with a dancer, and centering this tale in a world of clubbing, music, and parties that is both freeing and isolating, addictive and pulsing.
Content warnings for death, and racism from side characters. —Leah Rachel von Essen
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And that’s it! Those are our recommendations for all the 2025 Read Harder Challenge tasks! Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2026 Read Harder Challenge tasks, coming in just a couple of weeks…
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