A to Z Challenge

Description
The A to Z Challenge has been around since 2007 and hosted by Becky's Book Reviews since 2008. The original challenge (for 2008) was to read 52 books in a year. The challenge for 2009 provided five options to help increase participation and the chances for more people to complete the challenge. Only three of these options were kept for 2010 and beyond. The challenge lasts from January 1 through December 31 of the specified year. The sign up is announced in December of the year leading up to the beginning of the challenge, providing ample time for readers to declare participation before the year begins, although anyone can sign up at any time throughout the challenge year.

Rules
Readers are challenged to read books through the alphabet, one book for each letter, within a year. Participants can choose to read 26 books based on the name of the author's last name or based on the first word of the title of the book; or participants can combine both options and commit to reading 52 books.

Signing Up
To participate in the A to Z Challenge, participants can sign up in the comments section of the blog. Bloggers are encouraged to enter the URLs of their blogs in that comment. However, having a blog is not a requirement for this challenge.

Readers' Helps
The original A to Z Challenge site provides lists for suggestions of authors and titles for each letter of the alphabet, as well as links to sites that do the same.

The official rules acknowledges the difficulty in finding books and/or authors beginning with difficult letters such as X. The host encourages a search for the letter somewhere else in the author's name (first, middle, last) or anywhere in the title.