On the list of books that represent turning points in my reading life, “Harriet the Spy” by Louise Fitzhugh is somewhere in the top five. The story taught me an important life lesson – “There are as many ways to live as there are people in the world.” Harriet is an authentic and relatable character who records observations about residents of her neighborhood (her spy route) in a secret notebook. When I read the novel in fifth grade, my eyes opened wide at the new-to-me method of storytelling, which I would later learn is called epistolary.
I was thrilled to see 2019’s Read Harder Challenge includes a category for an epistolary novel or collection of letters. For the purpose of the challenge, Book Riot uses the Wikipedia definition: “An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.”
My biggest quandary was that so many books on my to-read list fit the bill. And then there were books I’ve enjoyed through the years that I considered re-reading, from Bram Stoker’s bone chiller, “Dracula,” to the heart-warming “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer.
I settled on a book of letters — actually postcards — as my choice. “Dear Data” 
contains a year’s worth of weekly postcards exchanged between New York and London by two graphic designers, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. Each card provides a graphic depiction of data they collected about their lives, based on themes they selected. One week they’d focus on laughter, another on smells, or apologies, or phone use. I was mesmerized by the blending of art, statistics and memoir.
I hope everyone participating in the 2019 Read Harder Challenge enjoys this task as much as I did. There are so many great titles from which to choose. More can be found in DBRL’s catalog list and on the Book Riot website.
