Diversity report for September 2016: 09/30/16

In August I reported on my progress to read more diversely. If this book blog is to serve all readers, I need to read beyond my own situation, and be more critical of the representation I see in books by white authors. There is growing discussion of representation vs appropriation (see my review of Ghosts, posting tomorrow).

Last month I reported that twenty-one percent of the books I had read featured diverse characters or were written by diverse authors. Among the reviews posted, I did slightly better with twenty-three percent. This month my reading stayed pretty much steady at twenty-two percent but my reviewing jumped up to twenty-eight percent.

One thing I'm becoming more aware of is the ethnicity of the author. As part of the own voices movement I'm trying to be more cognizant of the person behind the book. Here I am not looking to fill a quota. Rather I want to be more observant as a reader.

As diversity and own voices are both ongoing, important discussions in publishing, book blogging, and librarianship, I will continue to strive to be as current as possible with my review turnaround.

In that regard, the vast majority of the reviews I still have to post are from books I've read in the last eleven months, with the reviews remaining to post being clustered around November, June, and September. November's cluster represents the reading I did for last year's CYBILS and I'm sure to see a similar cluster in October and November of this year. Therefore, one goal for the coming month should be to clear out the reviews from last year's CYBILS reading.

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