This market will resolve to Yes if my Goodreads 2024 reading challenge page lists that I have completed 30 (or more) books within 2024, and a minimum of five of those books are in my "hard" category, which I'll list below.

Asking me questions about my progress is allowed. I won't bet on this market.

I'm trying something new -- the overall number of books is smaller, but a greater number must be "hard."

It's hard to categorise what this means. I'm after dense, foundational nonfiction, or books in the Western literature canon. While something like Frankenstein is in the Western canon, it's not a challenging read. Similarly, books like Schelling's Strategy of Conflict & Micromotives and Macrobehavior are foundational and fascinating, but probably not worthy of the "hard" tag.

So, lacking a good way to categorise this, I think I'll just list the books currently on my bookshelf that count towards the requirement:

• The Idiot - Dostoyevsky

• Voltaire's Bastards - John Ralston Saul

• Manufacturing Consent - Herman & Chomsky

• Wilhelm Meister (complete) - Goethe

• Faust Parts 1 & 2 - Goethe

• Godel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter

• The Divine Comedy - Dante

• Progress & Poverty - Henry George

• Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

• The Road to Serfdom - Hayek

• Cultural Amnesia - Clive James

• Essays - Ralph Waldo Emerson

• The Great War for Civilization - Fisk

• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Yudkowski

• Oliver Twist - Dickens

• The Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker

I'm hesitant to add to this list mid-year because I don't want people to feel rugged, but I also want to leave a little wiggle room for unknowns. If I add any books, I can promise they'll be of a similar density. It's possible a Brothers Karamazov or a Don Quixote might cross my path and I'll want to dive in.

My reading progress this year can be tracked here - https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/11634-2024-reading-challenge

Previous years:

2023 - 44 books - https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/42019534

2022 - 40 books - https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/32127846

2021 - 33 books - https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/26026004

Last year's market - https://manifold.markets/JeremyRay/will-i-read-40-or-more-books-in-202