Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Where my last 20 reviewed books came from (4)

I'm a bit late with this - these are all books read last year.

Generation A by Douglas Coupland - Amazon Vine
When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge - Provided by author as part of TLC blog tour
The Naughty List by Suzanne Young - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair
The Natural Beauty Book by Anne Akers Johnson - Sent by publisher (unsolicited) for review
Dork Diaries by Rachel R. Russell - Provided by author after I accepted author query
Candor by Pam Bachorz - Won at the Teen Author Carnival at the NYC public library in May
Gone by Lisa McMann - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti - Requested via Shelf Awareness
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan - Won via Library Thing Early Reviewer Program
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - Own, used to be my mother's
Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton - Provided by author after I accepted author query
Boyology by Sarah Burningham - Provided by author after I accepted author query
The Help by Kathryn Stockett - Requested via Shelf Awareness
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve - Sent to me by the fabulous Nicole (thanks again!)
The Mark by Jen Nadol - Traded with Ka-Yam
Notes from My Travels by Angelina Jolie - Borrowed from the "hotel" library in Lamu, Kenya
Fodor's The Complete African Safari Planner - Requested via Shelf Awareness
Footprint's Kenya Handbook - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair
Lonely Planet's Watching Wildlife East Africa - Picked up at Frankfurt Book Fair
How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson - Provided by publisher after I accepted publicist query

So quite the variety this review period, though most were still review copies. I'm hoping to get a better balance between review copies and bought/owned/library books as I read more deliberately in 2010. I'm sure review copies will still dominate at least the first half of the year though as I whittle down the pile.

I am officially giving myself permission to abandon books that I am just not into, and I will begin to list those in these FTC Disclosure posts as well as a separate list. There is only so much reading time, and I want to start spending mine reading worthwhile books. I went through my list of books read in 2009 and realized that if I hadn't been such a stickler for reading books to the bitter end last year, there are at least 20 (!) I would have abandoned after a few chapters. That's about 2 months of just so-so reading. But I do want to stress that just because a book isn't for me, doesn't mean YOU won't enjoy it, so take my future DNFs with a grain of salt.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I should do this, as well. I should at least put it in the reviews with the title, author, pub date, etc. info.

I'm thinking I should've done the Bloggiesta mini-challenge to make a template.

Quite impressive how few of these books you actually had to buy :-D Free books (even traded or borrowed) are the best, aren't they?

Unknown said...

How interesting to see where all the books came from. I'm finding it tricky to keep up with all the review copies.

Carla said...

I agree on the whole abandoning of books; I love reading, and am always looking for new books to read, but I do find that I spend far too much time reading books that I just don't connect with. I cringe now when I think of some of the books that I really wasn't enjoying in the first few paragraphs, but forced myself to finish, hoping they got better, and they never did. Its such a waste of valuable reading time, so i'm doing the same, i'm not going to worry about it if I don't finish a book, and like you said, just because I may not enjoy a book, doesn't mean to say others won't. High five on the abandoning of books we know we won't love!

Petunia said...

You piqued my curiosity. I did a last 20 post of my own, linking back to you of course. It was fun. Thanks!

Sandra said...

This interesting to do. I admire anyone who can do so many ARC reviews. It's a lot of work and some of the books are of dubious quality unfortunately. Some of did this assessment of our reviews a few months back after a commenter suggested book bloggers were blogging just to get free books (by accepting ARCs). It started quite a few conversations. Here's my post:

http://freshinkbooks.blogspot.com/2009/07/is-only-reason-we-blog-to-receive-free.html

Ashley R. said...

i thought about subscribing to the shelf awarness newsletter, do they seel your info or not? i wanted to subscribe because i heard you can get free books but i wasnt sure.

Ashley R.
arudd908@gmail.com