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Circadian Reading Challenge

Read a book in 24 different time zones! You don't have to physically travel around the world, just pick books where either the author or the setting is from/in that time zone. Simple, right? Pretty much yes, but there are a couple of possible snags I've tried to spot and address below.



There are more* than 24 time zones in the world, but for the purposes of this challenge we'll use the term to mean the 24 one hour UTC offset zones.

*

Modes

Author - Author is from the time zone
Setting - Book is set in the time zone
Relaxed - Book or author has something to do with time zone

You can read 1-24 books in Author/Setting/Relaxed mode, or mix and match modes. You could read 8 books in Author mode, 8 in Setting mode and 8 in Relaxed mode for example. If you want an extra challenge, you can of course read 24 in Author mode and 24 in Setting mode!

If you want to add a level of silliness, you can read according to your chronotype**! :D

Lion - Make a list of 24 books you want to read and stick to them
Bear - Make a flexible plan, edit as needed, take lots of naps
Wolf - Fill as you go, if you remember
Dolphin - Chaos! Throw whatever you've got at the challenge and see where it gets you!

**

Time Zones

I've added a couple of links below, but you can use any time zone map you like! The interactive maps will help with finding countries in each zone, and they show DST info, too, which is very useful year round.

As you look at the maps you'll notice that the zone borders don't exactly match with geographical locations. It's up to you if you want to mentally draw a straight line down the map and anything that's located between the borders is that zone (Mean Solar Time***), or if you want to dig deeper into what time zone each country uses. Both are acceptable, and you don't have to pick one and stick to it, you can mix as needed. For large countries that have more than one time zone, you don't have to find a city that is in that exact zone unless you want to.

In short, if any part of the country uses that time zone at any point of the year, or is geographically located in that Mean Solar Time*** zone, it counts!

One book can only count for one time zone, but one country can cover several zones. Please try to only use the US once. (Unless you're reading from Indigenous authors! See Kaa's excellent question here.)

Example 1: Iceland uses UTC/GMT time, but is located in the UTC -1 zone (Mean Solar Time***). You can use Iceland for either zone.

Example 2: For UTC -4 you could use Brazil (AMT/UTC -4 zone) or Argentina (Mean Solar Time***).

Example 3: A book set in New York can count for any US time zone, but only one of them.

Time zone map in different sizes:
Interactive time zone map 1:
Interactive time zone map 2:
Countries in each zone on Wikipedia:

If you find a great map/resource, please share and I'll add it to this list!

***

I can't find anything for this time zone?!
Pick something that's kind of near that zone on the map. If it's super hard to find a book, go with whatever comes closest.

DST?!
I know! We don't care about it! DST on or off, either is fine. If you use the interactive maps they'll change all the DST silliness automatically, so the colors and zones will change, but geographical locations will fortunately stay the same.

Is this challenge for 2022 only?

In true circadian heretic fashion, you can do this challenge any time! There will only be a challenge tracker for 2022, because we have new challenges every year, and we can't have hundreds of trackers! (Take a look at Current Events for a list of all the challenges you can still participate in!)

What genres/formats count?

Any genre! Any format! It doesn't have to be SFF, and short fiction, graphic novels, kids�� books, etc. all count.

How do I keep track?

However you want! A simple list in your personal challenge thread or this thread should do the trick. Of course you can get as fancy as you want, and please share any cool maps, etc. you make!

Pick a song and let's take a trip (All) Around the World!

Daft Punk:
ATC:
RHCP:
Aqua:
KSHMR (Feat. NOUMENN):
Lisa Stansfield:
Oasis:
Justin Bieber:
Now United:

(I was going to link to just one of these, but I was amused by how many results I got when I typed the song name into Youtube without the artist name. These are in the order Youtube showed them to me. I've never heard (of) some of these, and never want to again, but maybe your taste in music differs from mine!)

tl;dr: Read 24 books and try to make them fit a different time zone in some way.

Sign up for the 2022 challenge here on January 1st.
Personal challenge threads here.
Other challenges in Current Events.

edit: Here's a great map resource with books from around the world, thanks Sarah!

I'm expecting to see lots of Relaxed Dolphins! :)

Here are some extra exclamation marks, because I don't think there are enough in the first message: !!!!!!!!!!

Are you on the app and have no idea what's happening?

Please read the first post in a browser! Don't use the app, you're missing out on so much! Convert to browser! Just do it! You'll feel so much better! And you'll know what Relaxed Dolphins are :)

I'm presuming the books don't have to be SF&F? I read a lot of mysteries set in other countries, but Fantasy Settings could be difficult. Author might be doable for SF&F for me. I think I could easily fill 6-8

UK - Tchaikovsky
Canada - De Lint
any US author
France - Aliette de Bodard (lives and was raised there)
Russia - anything from Worlds Apart: An Anthology of Russian Fantasy and Science Fiction
China - Ken Liu
Israel - Livie Tidhar
Australia - Garth Nix

Yes, any genre! 😊 And as always, short fiction, graphic novels, kids�� books, etc. all count!

Let's try this again :)

I didn't know about the animal chronotypes before, but when I was hysterically laughing in bed last night, for hours, despite having taken sleep medication, I embraced my inner Chaos Dolphin!

I do want to do this challenge myself, but I'm way too stressed about this year's challenges right now to make any plans. I'll let the Chaos Dolphin guide me in January, and maybe I'll even plan something when we're actually in 2022. I know that I've read from several countries around the world this year without meaning to, so hopefully I'll get at least part way through this without even trying!

Would Around the World in Eighty Days count for everything?

Relaxed Dolphin here with some Cheating Fox thrown in

It does say one book per zone, but if you go Hard Dolphin mode, then sure why not! :D

Ah, reading ALL the instructions has always been a problem for me.

I don't blame you, that's a wall of text!

(I was editing the challenge text at the last minute, trying to make it shorter, but it became longer instead. Oops.)

This one is a really cool challenge, Anna!

Yay!

@CBRetriever

Good starting point with the authors, I'll pick some of those and build on that.

Update:
I'll go with 12 Time Zones for now.

(view spoiler)[

UTC Time Zone Country Author Title

-8 Canada - Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake

-7 Mexico Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Velvet Was the Night

-6 US Brandon Sanderson - Cytonic

-4 Argentina - Angélica Gorodischer - Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

-3 Brazil - José de Alencar - Senhora

0 UK - Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Doors of Eden

1 France - Aliette de Bodard (lives and was raised there)

2 Lebanon- Amin Maalouf O Périplo de Baldassare or
Israel - Lavie Tidhar

5 India -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni-The Mistress of Spices

8 China - Ken Liu - The Grace of Kings

10 Australia - Garth Nix - The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

11 Russia - Sergei Lukyanenko The Night Watch

(hide spoiler)]

Anna wrote: "...Here are some extra exclamation marks, because I don't think there are enough in the first message: !!!!!!!!!!"

*work mode triggered* *backspace engaged* Edited:

!

I am genuinely impressed how neat and organized you've managed to keep the posts, Anna - despite GR's linkage sabotage 👏 Respect.

A fun challenge, too.

Come on Jemppu, you know it hurts me and I hate it :P

Hank wrote: "Ah, reading ALL the instructions has always been a problem for me."

Read it 24 times!

Mel, it's still just one book :D

It does make a nice wild card though, for that hard to find zone.

Haha, true :D

edit: Accidentally laughed in Finnish, corrected to English

we're going to have to watch out for North to South overlaps like this possibility

Garth Nix might be from/live in the part of Australia that is in the same time zone as Ken Liu in China

Yep, I looked a little bit at my previously read books, thinking this is going to be easy! But a lot of the countries I read from happen to overlap time zones :(

But!

We really do not need to look at which city an author is from! Any time zone in that country is fine. Too much work to go that deep :)

I finally got to look at this challenge on my laptop!! I think I'm a wolf which is also how I would fill it in! Strange.....

I don't know if the person who came up with the animals (I forget his name) would agree with my idea of how each animal would approach this challenge. It was just a fun thing I wanted to add :)

Hmmm, would this work for the UTC -10-12 zones: A lot of these island are actually US or French Territories so maybe use the US and France for those areas?

That's really stretching it though so I'm questioning this thought

UTC��12:00  Baker Island  Howland Island
UTC��11:00  American Samoa  Midway Atoll
 Jarvis Island  Niue (New Zealand)
 Kingman Reef  Palmyra Atoll
UTC��10:00  Cook Islands  Johnston Atoll  United States: Andreanof Islands, Islands of Four Mountains, Near Islands, Rat Islands (Aleutian Islands, Alaska)
 French Polynesia (most)  United States: Hawaii
UTC��09:00  French Polynesia: Gambier Islands  French Polynesia: Marquesas Islands  United States: Alaska (most)

The only problem is that there are only three "countries" in those zones: United States and French Polynesia (part of French countries) and Niue & Cook Islands (New Zealand)

CBRetriever wrote: "Hmmm, would this work for the UTC -10-12 zones: A lot of these island are actually US or French Territories so maybe use the US and France for those areas?"

I think there are going to be some zones where you'll have to do exactly this. Especially those who prefer to only read SFF.

AMG wrote: "Pretty sure I'm going to be a dolphin. I'll see where I am at the end of 2022 for the fun of it."

Dolphins will be welcome to join the fun at any time of the day/week/month/year! :)

I will participate in this challenge in author mode, trying to read only fantasy o science fiction (some zones are very difficult!).

I have a question: if I read an anthology with short fictions, can I choose an author from all the writers in order to complete a zone?
In my case, there is Current Futures: A Sci-Fi Ocean Anthology where Karen Lord has written a Sci-Fi short story. Karen Lord is from Barbados, so this will count for -4 zone.

Yes, you can do that! I'm also planning on reading more Karen Lord next year :)

For me, that book will be the first time that I will read Karen Lord.
In Italy we have only that short story translated!

I haven't read this story/anthology, so I don't know what you're in for, but I hope you like it!

This is the preliminary list with the author that I have selected:
UTC-11: Witi Ihimaera - New Zeeland
UTC-10: Christelle Dabos - France - with book Fidanzati dell'inverno ★★★★
UTC-9: Madeleine L'Engle - United States - with book Nelle pieghe del tempo ★★
UTC-8: Kelley Armstrong - Canada
UTC-7: Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Mexico
UTC-6: Isabel Allende - Peru
UTC-5: Arthur C. Clarke - UK - with book Incontro con Rama ★★★★
UTC-4 Karen Lord - Barbados
UTC-3 Adolfo Bioy Casares - Argentina
UTC-2 Paulo Coelho - Brazil - with book Brida ★★
UTC-1 José Saramago - Portugal
UTC 0 Bruno Puelles - Spain
UTC+1 Daniele Viaroli - Italy - with book La fiamma azzurra ★★★★
UTC+2 Natalia Teodoridou - Greece
UTC+3 Tevfik Uyar - Turkey
UTC+4 Cassandra Clare - Iran
UTC+5 S.B. Divya - India
UTC+6 Liu Cixin - China
UTC+7 Eka Kurniawan - Indonesia
UTC+8 Vina Jie-Min Prasad - Singapore
UTC+9 Gord Sellar - South Korea
UTC+10 Amie Kaufman - Australia
UTC+11 K.A. Teryna - Russia
UTC+12 Nalini Singh - Fiji





Books completed: 5/24


And yes, my chronotype is Bear!

Wow! 😮 I will take a closer look at this when I’m at a computer 🤩

UTC-12
& UTC+13?

Samoa/American Samoa?

This is an amazing challenge. I am feeling very Relaxed Dolphin, though, and will have to see where the books fall as I read them.

I had no idea Cassandra Clare was born in Iran! :o I'm planning on reading the Christelle Dabos series (A Winter's Promise) soon myself, although I don't think I'll have any trouble finding books for that time zone. (edit: Meaning France/Europe, not UTC-10)

Liane wrote: "I am feeling very Relaxed Dolphin, though, and will have to see where the books fall as I read them."

Don't be *too* relaxed or one of the books might fall on your toes! :P

@Cronache di Betelgeuse

I feel like a bear lately too, pity I can't hibernate the whole winter...

Anna wrote: "I had no idea Cassandra Clare was born in Iran!��"
Me too! I have discovered this fact on , searching by every country.

Leticia wrote: "I feel like a bear lately too, pity I can't hibernate the whole winter..."
Yesterday in Italy we had an epic snowfall. The "hibernate time" is coming ;-)

What about using Native American / Native Alaskan / Native Hawaiian authors/stories for the specific time zones in which those communities are located? Many Native American nations in the US (not sure about Canada) are legally sovereign governments. The same is not true for Native Hawaiians or Alaskans, but these communities are still politically distinct from the US as a whole, and I feel like reading books from different Indigenous communities would align with the goals of this challenge.

Absolutely yes!

I'm finding that the authors for SF&F aren't as difficult as the books set in the time zones. I'll probably use mystery books/short stories to fill in the locations. Oh, the Tor site might have some good options for short stories here:



and I see Nigeria, Israel, & Pakistan represented here for next year's Best of Tor short stories book

It can be any genre, no?

yep, it says in the rules:

What genres/formats count?

Any genre! Any format! It doesn't have to be SFF, and short fiction, graphic novels, kids�� books, etc. all count.

I read a lot of mysteries, so I gravitate towards those to fill in the blanks.

Ok good! I was thinking of it was only SFF it might a little harder. I read mysteries and other genres so I’m glad we can fit them all in.

If you want any ideas for Australian authors, let me know! We have some great authors whose books I really enjoy reading. I mostly know about the fantasy writers...

Maybe I can just give some ideas here:

Juliet Marillier (not Australian, but has been living here a long time - Western Australia. Could also use for NZ, since she's from there)

Cecilia Dart-Thornton (hasn't written much, but her first trilogy was pretty amazing - Victoria/EST)

Victor Kelleher (wrote about maybe 30 years ago, but I really liked his books as a teenager. So, if you like thoughtful YA fantasy, especially dystopian. Probably NSW, also EST)

Isobelle Carmody, although she doesn't finish series! And has been focusing on young children's books for a long time now. But she has a few excellent books out there for YA and adults.

Fiona MacIntosh - now focusing on historical romance, but in the past, wrote some very good fantasy. Also lives in WA, I think.

Trudi Canavan, if you like her stuff. Also Sara Douglass, Sean Williams, and Traci Harding (I've tried all of these, but didn't end up continuing with them as authors). Ian Irvine, for the SF readers, and Jo Spurrier (I haven't read her stuff, but I think she's popular).

Jennifer Fallon - has written some very good things (fantasy, sometimes with SF and contemporary thrown in).

Do i sign up for this?

Thanks Tamara, I see a couple of new names, I will check them out!

Reed wrote: "Do i sign up for this?"

The challenge trackers for all challenges open on January 1st. You can sign up then if you want to. We'll remind everyone to do that in January. You don't have to use the tracker if you don't want to, and you could do the challenge without ever telling anyone about it, so in that sense there is no need to sign up :)

Kaa wrote: "What about using Native American / Native Alaskan / Native Hawaiian authors/stories for the specific time zones in which those communities are located? Many Native American nations in the US (not sure about Canada) are legally sovereign governments. The same is not true for Native Hawaiians or Alaskans, but these communities are still politically distinct from the US as a whole, and I feel like reading books from different Indigenous communities would align with the goals of this challenge"

Now that I'm not on my phone, here's the longer answer.

Yes, this would be brilliant. I wanted to make the challenge as simple as I could, because there was already lots of room for confusion. That's why I said that you could essentially use a book set in New York to cover any US time zone. However I don't want people reading 10 books by Sarah J. Maas or Brandon Sanderson to cover 10 time zones! That's why I recommended that the US should only cover one time zone. Your point is excellent though, and I will add it into the original post as soon as I'm properly caffeinated and able to produce words.

In short: You can absolutely read several "US books" by Indigenous authors from different zones and they will very much count! (And the same is of course true for all other areas of the world, but the US is the only country that I told you not to use twice.)

edit: typo

I'm saving the US one for UTC-10 (Hawaii). I'm still looking for

UTC��12:00 = Baker Island, Howland Island
UTC��11:00 = American Samoa, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, Niue, Palmyra Atoll
UTC��09:00 = French Polynesia: Gambier Islands, United States: Alaska (most)

UTC��02:00 = Brazil: Fernando de Noronha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
UTC��01:00 = Cape Verde, Greenland: Ittoqqortoormiit, Portugal: Azores

UTC+04:00 = Armenia, Artsakh, Azerbaijan, French Southern and Antarctic Lands: Crozet Islands, Georgia, Mauritius, Oman, Réunion, Seychelles, United Arab Emirates, Russia: Astrakhan, Samara, Saratov, Udmurtia, & Ulyanovsk

UTC+11:00 = New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea: Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Norfolk Island, Russia: Magadan, Sakha (east), & Sakhalin, Micronesia: Kosrae & Pohnpei

New Zealand has been used as has Greenland and the US was used for UTC-10

I haven't started looking into what I want to read for some of the harder zones, so do let me know if something seems too hard! I originally had a few bonus tools for people to use on the harder zones, but I took them out as the post grew longer and longer :D I can reimplement them if it seems like we need them!

Here is my tentative list, I stretched on some of this but hopefully kept in the spirit, I may change some later to fit better. I tried to stick to where author was born or from but for some I did what the story was about or took place.

1. UTC -12
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings
2. UTC -11
Inviting Interruptions: Wonder Tales in the Twenty-First Century
3. UTC -10
The Islands at the End of the World
4. UTC -9
Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir
5. UTC -8
Fuzzy Nation
6. UTC -7
Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles
*** making this one count as much as I can Anna :)
7. UTC -6
The Raven and the Reindeer
8. UTC -5
The Changeling
9. UTC -4
The Marrow Thieves
10. UTC -3
Cantoras
11. UTC -2
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao
12. UTC -1
The Gilded Ones
13. UTC 0
Altered Carbon
14. UTC +1
Freshwater
15. UTC +2
The Last Wish
16. UTC +3
Disoriental
17. UTC +4
Deathless
18. UTC +5
Island of a Thousand Mirrors
19. UTC +6
Djinn City
20. UTC +7
The Windup Girl
21. UTC +8
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
22. UTC + 9
1Q84
23. UTC + 10
Carpentaria
24. UTC + 11
Anna Karenina
25. UTC + 12
Mophead