Some of you have probably noticed me talking about book bingo around here and were wondering what exactly I was going on about. Well, now that it’s after April 1st (the start of the new bingo period) I thought I’d do a post about it.
r/Fantasy Book Bingo is something I initially started on kind of a whim. Several years ago, after I’d been skulking about reddit’s r/fantasy community for a bit, I found myself engaged in thread about book challenges. In the discussion I mentioned having done a book bingo before and then said ‘I should make a fantasy one for the subreddit’ and a couple of people were like ‘yeah, you totally should’ and thus r/Fantasy Book Bingo was born.
So, what is r/Fantasy Book Bingo? It’s a year long reading challenge with the aim of getting readers to branch out, look at books they may have otherwise passed up, discover new authors and subgenres, etc. It’s really all about broadening ones horizons while having fun reading. There is a bingo card with twenty-five squares, each with its own specific requirement to tick off. If you get a bingo you can go into a prize drawing. If you fill out the entire card then you can get Reading Champion flair in the subreddit (basically a little tag beside your name that says Reading Champion).
Here is this year’s r/Fantasy Bingo Card!
Some of these squares require a bit more explanation, and for that you can find the full rules and square information here on r/fantasy.
This is my FIFTH year running the challenge and it’s really been a lot of fun. A lot of hard work but also very rewarding seeing people have so much fun with it and discover new books and authors. I’ve also gotten a lot of help with running bingo over the years and I’m super appreciative to everyone who has helped take on bingo duties — it’s been great seeing folks come together for this and I’d like to think I’ve made some new friends along the way.
What do you think about a bingo challenge? What reading challenges are you participating in? Leave a note in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
Way Too Fantasy 
I do like the idea of this but I’m fairly useless with challenges these days for some reason. I always have the best intentions but they usually go astray.
That being said there are a number of squares on here that would be completed just during the course of my normal reading.
Hope you have a great time with it again.
Lynn 😀
Yeah, I normally complete most of the card just doing my normal reading. There are a few squares that will be a challenge for me this year though! Also, I want to try and do an all Vampire themed card because I’m crazy, so we’ll see how that works out. Cyberpunk Vampires? That’s gotta be a thing lol.
This looks super fun! I’d like to try it because fantasy is a genre I don’t read enough of. It doesn’t look to hard either. Congrats on running it for five years! 👍😉
I’m just doing my GR challenge and of course the retelling rechallenge for the year. I did pick up on the April A-Z challenge which has been fun so far.
Thanks! It’s been a fun five years. 🙂
I also do the GR challenge. The retelling challenge is so cool! I’ve been enjoying all your reviews.
Thanks! Maybe you might end up doing the retelling challenge next year? I’m thinking of maybe trying this one next year well. 😊
That might work!
That’s so cool that you started this! I have never been able to figure out how to go on r/Fantasy and hang out, it’s still a mystery to me.
Hah! Reddit took me a while to get used to, it was a huge puzzle for me at first. Honestly probably took me a couple months of browsing before I started to figure things out. I love our community there even if some of the shitheel parts of the internet stop by sometimes. We do book clubs and other fun things, favorite book lists and all kinds of stuff. We try to make it a cool place to hang out. 🙂
Oo! This sounds fun! From the top of my head I have already done 11 of them based of the books I have read so far this year. You have some really good prompts on there!
Thanks!
Ahhhh, what a fun idea!! I’d love to give it a try.
Hope you decide to join us!
What a fun challenge to run! I’m participating in a Book Bingo for the first time as a part of one of my book clubs and it’s so fun. I’ll probably give this one a shot too!
Book bingos can be so much fun! I actually got the idea for this from a very general book bingo I saw many years ago. It’s been a lot of fun coming up with square for it and all that. 🙂
I love book bingo! I’ve done it the past two years and have such a fun time with it, I think it’s one of the best year-long reading challenges out there. I tend to just read randomly and end up hitting a fair number of the categories, then as it gets closer to time I check back and see what I’m missing to finish up. Loving the squares for this year, can’t wait to get started. 🙂
Yeah, I also usually hit a bunch without trying. Last year I did pretty much the entire card by accident except one square so I used the substitute rule…Haha. 😀
Hope you have fun with it this year too!
I’m going to take a shot at it! Looks like fun and I do love lists. 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever read a LitRPG book before, do you have any recs?
Yay! The only LitRPG I’ve read is Forever Fantasy Online by Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach. I enjoyed it a lot although it could have been shorter imo lol
This looks incredible! I’ve never been part of a book challenge before but this is definitely making me re-think this. I also always get stuck just staring at my TBR pile wondering what to read next, so kind of feels like this sort of thing would definitely work to help me chose as well. I love it!
Thanks, hope you decide to join in!
I really enjoyed this the couple of years I did it… some year I might get back with it
It’s both fun and exhausting depending on how deep into it you go lol
Oh I love reading bingo challenges! I like to play them blind though, like real bingo – only look at the card and see how many squares I can strike off based on my finished reads for the year 😀
I usually do that until near the end and see what I have left. This year I’m going to try for a theme card and do all Vampire books so that will take some planning. 🙂
This sounds like an awesome challenge 😀 I am doing a retellings challenge and an audiobook challenge this year!
Good luck with them both!
Reblogged this on My Writer's Journey and commented:
I’m doing this challenge again this year.
Hope you have fun with it!