What to Review This Year?

Last year curiosity had me attempting to gather data about AAR reviews. How did the reviews breakdown into genres?  Well, for a statistics novice, it was impossible.  I would cut and paste data into my spreadsheet, but never could figure out how to populate it. I would work on it for a couple of hours, and then give up. This went on for about three months.

Finally I asked the right person and discovered that LinnieGayl is an expert at this type of thing.  I sent her my Excel file and within hours I had wonderful facts and figures such as a breakdown of what we each reviewed and the totals for the site.  Now these results are not all of 2012.  A portion of December is missing, still is it very close representation of the selection here for last year.

We talked about it in the group – more like kidding each other, because some of us definitely have a preference for certain genres while others are more eclectic. But then I got busy over the holidays, and forgot all about it.  But recently two different discussions on the potpourri board brought it to mind. And I thought you as readers might be interested in seeing the scope of books reviewed here.

Can I admit that I was surprised how close the numbers are between historical and contemporary! Sometimes with my half empty glass attitude I tended to notice more when the reviews were of something I didn’t read.   Overall I was impressed by the variety, especially when you realize that the owners don’t assign books. Are there some holes? Sure, but that’s more because of our taste as reviewers and since we plan to add reviewers,  I expect that will change things a bit in the coming year. If I was guessing, I would suspect that our ratio of contemporary books and historicals and others probably mimics the readers to the site. However as any good pollster knows, you don’t get by on guessing.  You do surveys, you ask people questions.

Like the AAR Annual Poll, where you get the chance to voice your opinion on the best books for 2012, now you can say what you type of books you would like to see more of or even certain books that you would like to see reviewed.

Is there a guarantee that it will happen? No, because as reviewers we do get to pick our books and to be honest it is difficult enough to finish a bad book in a genre that you like, much less read a bad book in a genre that you don’t normally choose.  But we have a great group of reviewers with a wide range of tastes. If I know that there is a desire for a certain book, and the book seems interesting then I will read it over another book. And the other reviewers feel the same way.  Our goal is to assist you in finding great books.

Realize that our selection is limited by the publishers’ releases and our ability to get access to a certain book. If there are not any Westerns being released in February, then of course there probably won’t be a review of a Western, unless someone reads a previous month or previous year release. And all things are not equal. Some months there is a great selection of a certain subgenre and other months not so much.

Please comment  on the results of last year, and your wish list for this year. Is there something you really want to see reviewed this year? Is your favorite author getting the exposure you think she deserves? Or are there some authors that you feel are over exposed here?

– Leigh Davis