January inclusivity reading and shortening the gap in reviewing: 01/31/17

I am still struggling to find the best way to describe how I'm reading and reviewing. My goals for the last year (roughly) have been two fold: to reach a point where half of my reading is inclusive (or as I used to call it, diverse) and to lessen the gap between reading and posting reviews.

Looking first at closing the gap between reading and reviewing, I've managed to post the last of my 2013 reviews. Yes — I've had books on the back burner for nearly four years. My next hurdle is the 2014 books. I have seven left.

Review to post by month read.

Or course, I don't just want to post the old reviews. That would give the blog a very stale feeling and wouldn't accurately reflect where I am now in my reading, curating, and interests. Important trends that develop would be overlooked until they are no longer newsworthy.

In that regard, I am also trying to keep newly read books (including ones published this year) on the front burner. For instance I read five books published in 2017 (three released in January, and two coming out in April) and managed to post reviews for all of them.

I still, though, have twenty other books read in January that I wish to post reviews about. To keep chipping away at the front of the pile, I have a new policy. Every book I've rated three stars or higher I will put in the upcoming reviews queue. That said, I still have 52 books from 2015 and 129 books from 2016 that I want to talk about. That means I already have 201 books I want to talk about on my blog before even getting to the ones I'll be reading this year. Put another way, that's 55% of my potential posts for 2017. If I keep up with posting 10 reviews in the month I read them, I'll be left with an excess of 220 books by the end of the year, plus what ever is left from the 129 books.

Inclusive reading and reviewing is mixed into this equation as it's directly tied to how quickly I can post reviews. In my previous years of reading, I was selecting books based on different criteria. Looking at 2014, my reading was focused on graphic novels, especially those in the middle grade and YA categories. 2015 was mostly focused on reading through my wishlist of books — so a lot of older reading.

Read books by month with a breakdown of inclusive vs not.

Read books by month with a breakdown of inclusive vs not.

Now though, I am trying to find more balance in my reading — meaning actively including more stories and authors from outside my experiences. These books will include books from different countries, though I suspect many of them will be Canadian due to the upcoming move, and from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds.

Last month I tried to further breakdown the reading into an "own voices" category but there's still a lot of debate happening on that front and I don't feel well-read enough or qualified to get into continue subdividing my reading or reviewing in that fashion.

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