Monday 3 December 2012

Last ditch efforts

Oh, boy - how did it get to be December already?

The good thing is, I'm (mostly) on track to successfully complete two challenges - assuming that I read a lot during the Christmas-New Year break.  Which, by the way, I'm planning to do.  Unfortunately I have to accept that two other challenges simply will not be met this year (and I'm beginning to re-think how I attempt to maximise diversity in my reading next year, but that's for another post later this month.)

Anyway.  The state of the challenges is as follows:

Goodreads 2012 challenge: 69 books read of 80 goal
Australian Women Writers Challenge: 33 books read/25 reviewed of 40 read/30 reviewed goal.

50booksPOC: a rather miserable 13 books read of 50 goal.
Queerlit50: 15 (possibly 16) books read of 50 goal.

It was rather ambitious of me, in a year where my number of books read was 80, to also hope to read 50 books by queer authors and 50 by authors who are not white.  Especially as this year I have found only one queer, non-white Australian female author (Vivienne Cleven) and have so far read only one of her books.  There's still a month, right?

In that month, to complete the two challenges that are mostly on track, I need to complete a minimum of eleven books total, seven of which must be by Australian women.  The review goal won't be a problem as I have reviews outstanding from books already read, but it does mean I need to also complete at least five reviews by New Year's Eve.

In my currently reading Goodreads list there are eight books.  Four are by Australian women.  I have to finish Anita Diamant's The Red Tent by this Thursday so it can go back to book club headquarters, but other than that it shouldn't be difficult at all to have all the other ten books completed be by Australian women, just as long as I put aside the white men (David Weber and Mark Bowden) and don't get distracted by them.  (I do find it somewhat ironic that I'd kind of like to finish "War of Honor" just because it would mean that David Weber, rather than Stephanie Laurens, would be my most read author of the year, although admittedly Laurens is currently in a tie between Weber, Suzanne Collins, Gabrielle Wang and Radclyffe for most-read author.)

Goodreads to the contrary, I have also started Anita Heiss' memoir Am I Black Enough For You? although I can't get back to that one until I recharge my Kobo.  Or go home and read my newly signed tree-book copy.

But anyway - I now know what I'm up against.  Eleven books.  At least seven by Australian women.  And five reviews.  By 11.59pm on December 31.*

*I was also hoping to have read the Bible all the way through by that time/datestamp, but that's seriously unlikely to happen.  See this post on the Discernment blog, since which I have read very little.


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