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What’s a mashed potato book? For the average reader, that’s a nonsensical question, but listeners to Ariel Bissett and Raeleen Lemay’s Books Unbound podcast will recognize the term immediately. It refers to books you are sure you’ll love, but you’ve put off reading—like leaving the mashed potatoes for last in your meal.
Mashed potato books include that classic you know will be an all-time favorite that is collecting dust on the shelf, the book you preordered six months in advance but have yet to crack the cover on, or the backlist of an author you’ve rated five stars once and never revisited.
Mashed Potato May is a readathon that encourages us to finally pick up those mashed potato books, whether you’ve been putting them off for months, years, or decades. Sometimes, the pressure of an anticipated book feels like too much. Or, it might be that you’ve been waiting for the “perfect moment” to finally read it. Whatever the reasoning, life is too short to not read the books we’re most excited about.
This readathon is an opportunity to upgrade your reading life, prioritizing the books you’re most excited about. Even if they end up being disappointments, it will be a relief to finally check them off your TBR list.
I can’t tell you what your personal mashed potato books are, but if you’d like to mash together(!) this readathon with the Read Harder Challenge, here are a few tasks that are good contenders.
Task #8: Read a classic from the Zero to Well-Read Podcast
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Classics are the most common version of a mashed potato book, which makes task #8 the easiest one to combine with Mashed Potato May. Sometimes, readers put off picking up classics because we worry we won’t understand them. Luckily, you can listen to the Zero to Well-Read podcast episode afterwards, which summarizes the key takeaways and provides all the background information you need.
Task #10: Read a book recently adapted for film, TV, or musical
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Have you been putting off watching Project Hail Mary until you read the book? Let Mashed Potato May be the motivation to finally pick it up! That way, you can likely still catch it in theaters. This task doesn’t have to apply to just the biggest adaptations, though: maybe you’ve been meaning to read the Witch Hat Atelier manga series, which just got an anime, or the PBS adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo has convinced you to pick up the original.
All Access members, read on for four more books that combine Read Harder with Mashed Potato May.
Task #14: Read a work of magical realism or fabulism
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
This is one of the most well-known and beloved books of magical realism, so if you’re at all interested in the literary tradition, it’s likely on your TBR list. Bonus: it recently got a Spanish language adaptation on Prime Video, which means you can check off task #10 at the same time.
Task #20: Read a book set in space
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
You can certainly pick up Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir for this task too, but I can’t miss a chance to recommend The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a sci-fi classic, which is why I think it has a good chance of becoming a mashed potato book, but I also highly recommend it if you don’t think you’re a sci-fi reader. The books in this series are some of the funniest I’ve ever read, and you don’t have to keep up with hard sci-fi explanations.
Task #21: Read a genre (SFF, horror, mystery, romance) book in translation
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz
This is a post-apocalyptic novel about a group of women who are caged underground and can’t remember how they got there or how much time has passed. It was published in France in 1995 and was translated into English in 2024. It had a moment on BookTok, so there’s a good chance it has reached mashed potato status for some readers at this point!
Task #23: Read a book by an African author
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
If you’ve been a Book Riot reader from the beginning, you’ve likely either read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Nigerian author Oyinkan Braithwaite or added it to your TBR: it was a huge hit with our readers when it came out. If you have read it already but haven’t picked up her newest novel, Cursed Daughters, that’s another contender for Mashed Potato May reading!
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