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bookgazing) wrote2010-12-17 08:44 am
bookgazing) wrote2010-12-17 08:44 am
Challenges - 2011
I always find it fun to sign up for new reading challenges, so I’ll be signing up for some in 2011. However because I’m also not that great at completing challenges I’m going to take a slightly different approach this year.
A book a month, for as many months as you like style challenges
This year I’m signing up for the Women of Sci-fi challenge, it’s companion challenge the Women of Fantasy challenge and the Year of Feminist Classics challenge. I won’t be reading the selection every month, but I’ve made myself a schedule that I hope I’ll be able to stick to. I also have plans to read along with a few months of Amanda’s classics book club.
Having read a couple of the Slaves of Golconda selections this year and really enjoyed the format of everyone talking about the same book for a little while I thought I’d make this type of challenge my main focus for the year. I’ll still be reading a few books from the SoG selections this year too (yay excited about January and Tove Jansson) but that feels too relaxed a group to call it a challenge.
Traditional style challenges
I’ll only be signing up for two of these this year in order to achieve maximum success!
The GLBT challenge – I loved this last year and it let me read a lot of YA, so I’ll be aiming high in 2011.
One, Two Theme challenge – Yes, I’ve decided to sign up for this challenge that asks you to pick themes to read around next year. You start with one theme and one book, then progress to a second theme where you read two books. Each level except the first must include a non-fiction book, which should help me make some space in my non-fiction chest (yes it’s a chest, a huge wooden chest full of unread non-fiction – it must be defeated). I just need to settle on my themes.
Unofficial, readerly goal
In 2010 I took a lesson from Eva and scrutinised the list of books I’d read in 2009 to see just how many books on it were written by writers from racial groups that are often underrepresented in publishing – Asian authors, black, African authors, black, Latino/a authors, Native American authors and all the dual intersecting cultural and racial identities in between (have I expressed that right, I’m not great at separating out racial and cultural groups). I had read 9, in a year, when I’d read roughly 70+ books. Yeah. So in 2010 I decided to take a small step to fixing this imbalance, in much the same way that I went about correcting the gender imbalance in my reading five years ago (yes for some reason I was a huge fan of female authors, but had stopped reading so many – fixed that glitch sharpish once I noticed it). Reasons for this action were diverse, but I’ve talked about a lot of them over the past year. I wanted to at least double that amount of books and read 18. I set out to do that and I achieved it. Right now I’m on my 22nd book for 2010, by authors that fit the racial criteria of my personal challenge.
Although I've been working on reviewing each book that fits this personal challenge as Eva suggests, my total is still not great in a year when I’m heading for a 70+ total of books again. It’s a start and in 2011 I’d like to increase that total to at least half of my reading. Eva really explains well why this is important to her and how a typical journey into this kind of goal might go. I’ll just quote quickly and then leave you with the link to explore:
‘Yep, I had to try harder, especially at the beginning. I had to be more conscious of the books I was choosing to read (although now it’s become a habit). And I definitely didn’t love every POC book I read. But then, I don’t love every white author I try either. And here’s the thing…after several months of changing my reading, I’ve barely scratched the surface of all of the wonderful POC literature out there.’
So there’s a reason for me to actively seek out literature by Asian authors, black, African authors, black, Latino/a authors and Native American authors – enjoyable books. I can't stand the thought that I might be missing out on masses of really great books, just because they're not being discussed in a hyper visible spot and so I'm making an effort to find out about really good books, to add them to my list and to read them. Personally while I’m increasing my enjoyment I am also hoping that I'm working to increase the market for books by these kind of authors, thereby increasing the enjoyment of others searching for excellent stories by them. Right now the market is pretty grim and I’ll pass along some stats from Zetta Elliott and Doret to illustrate that:
Number of YA books published by African American authors in 2010 in the US.
Number of middle grade/YA books published by Latino authors in 2010 in the US.
Statistical breakdown of publishers publishing novels by African American authors in the US. That last post also contains an estimate of how many books are published overall in the US each year.
If anyone has stats for similar racial categories in publishing for the UK I would very much like to see them if you fancy sharing.
I’ve been y’know, kind of reluctant to talk about this personal challenge online for a number of reasons. Then I saw raych’s post about her own enjoyment bias and a desire to find a way to stretch her reading outside white, dead, Victorian authors and at the same time find lots of books she would enjoy so I thought I’d do what Eva suggested a year ago:
‘Commit, preferably publicly, to reading X number of POC books. Or X percentage.’
Spill. How many challenges have you signed up for already? Aren't you even a little bit tempted by just one more?
A book a month, for as many months as you like style challenges
This year I’m signing up for the Women of Sci-fi challenge, it’s companion challenge the Women of Fantasy challenge and the Year of Feminist Classics challenge. I won’t be reading the selection every month, but I’ve made myself a schedule that I hope I’ll be able to stick to. I also have plans to read along with a few months of Amanda’s classics book club.
Having read a couple of the Slaves of Golconda selections this year and really enjoyed the format of everyone talking about the same book for a little while I thought I’d make this type of challenge my main focus for the year. I’ll still be reading a few books from the SoG selections this year too (yay excited about January and Tove Jansson) but that feels too relaxed a group to call it a challenge.
Traditional style challenges
I’ll only be signing up for two of these this year in order to achieve maximum success!
The GLBT challenge – I loved this last year and it let me read a lot of YA, so I’ll be aiming high in 2011.
One, Two Theme challenge – Yes, I’ve decided to sign up for this challenge that asks you to pick themes to read around next year. You start with one theme and one book, then progress to a second theme where you read two books. Each level except the first must include a non-fiction book, which should help me make some space in my non-fiction chest (yes it’s a chest, a huge wooden chest full of unread non-fiction – it must be defeated). I just need to settle on my themes.
Unofficial, readerly goal
In 2010 I took a lesson from Eva and scrutinised the list of books I’d read in 2009 to see just how many books on it were written by writers from racial groups that are often underrepresented in publishing – Asian authors, black, African authors, black, Latino/a authors, Native American authors and all the dual intersecting cultural and racial identities in between (have I expressed that right, I’m not great at separating out racial and cultural groups). I had read 9, in a year, when I’d read roughly 70+ books. Yeah. So in 2010 I decided to take a small step to fixing this imbalance, in much the same way that I went about correcting the gender imbalance in my reading five years ago (yes for some reason I was a huge fan of female authors, but had stopped reading so many – fixed that glitch sharpish once I noticed it). Reasons for this action were diverse, but I’ve talked about a lot of them over the past year. I wanted to at least double that amount of books and read 18. I set out to do that and I achieved it. Right now I’m on my 22nd book for 2010, by authors that fit the racial criteria of my personal challenge.
Although I've been working on reviewing each book that fits this personal challenge as Eva suggests, my total is still not great in a year when I’m heading for a 70+ total of books again. It’s a start and in 2011 I’d like to increase that total to at least half of my reading. Eva really explains well why this is important to her and how a typical journey into this kind of goal might go. I’ll just quote quickly and then leave you with the link to explore:
‘Yep, I had to try harder, especially at the beginning. I had to be more conscious of the books I was choosing to read (although now it’s become a habit). And I definitely didn’t love every POC book I read. But then, I don’t love every white author I try either. And here’s the thing…after several months of changing my reading, I’ve barely scratched the surface of all of the wonderful POC literature out there.’
So there’s a reason for me to actively seek out literature by Asian authors, black, African authors, black, Latino/a authors and Native American authors – enjoyable books. I can't stand the thought that I might be missing out on masses of really great books, just because they're not being discussed in a hyper visible spot and so I'm making an effort to find out about really good books, to add them to my list and to read them. Personally while I’m increasing my enjoyment I am also hoping that I'm working to increase the market for books by these kind of authors, thereby increasing the enjoyment of others searching for excellent stories by them. Right now the market is pretty grim and I’ll pass along some stats from Zetta Elliott and Doret to illustrate that:
Number of YA books published by African American authors in 2010 in the US.
Number of middle grade/YA books published by Latino authors in 2010 in the US.
Statistical breakdown of publishers publishing novels by African American authors in the US. That last post also contains an estimate of how many books are published overall in the US each year.
If anyone has stats for similar racial categories in publishing for the UK I would very much like to see them if you fancy sharing.
I’ve been y’know, kind of reluctant to talk about this personal challenge online for a number of reasons. Then I saw raych’s post about her own enjoyment bias and a desire to find a way to stretch her reading outside white, dead, Victorian authors and at the same time find lots of books she would enjoy so I thought I’d do what Eva suggested a year ago:
‘Commit, preferably publicly, to reading X number of POC books. Or X percentage.’
Spill. How many challenges have you signed up for already? Aren't you even a little bit tempted by just one more?