The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Lebanese author Rasha al Ameer's Judgment Day.
(Aside: as I've noted repeatedly, the complete review has an incredible imbalance in how many of the books reviewed are written by men and how many by women -- an historic (and astonishingly consistent) average of well over 6 books authored by men reviewed for every one by a woman (i.e. less than 15% of all titles reviewed have women authors). I don't consciously think about the sex of the authors of the books I review (though who knows what the hell is going on sub-consciously ...) -- and the focus on fiction in translation does affect the odds (a whole lot more is translated that's been authored by men than women) -- but for some reason (?) I'm on a female-heavy stretch here: four of the past five titles reviewed were by women (and 7 of the past 10; and 10 of the past 17 -- all far, far above the historic average).
I don't think I'm doing anything different, but I don't think there's ever been a streak like this (not of all different authors, anyway -- the occasional batch of books by a single female author may have temporarily skewed things). I figure it's a statistical fluke -- after 2800 reviews, it seems likely there would be streaks like this -- but it's still pretty striking. Or have I actually mended my ways ?)
(Aside: as I've noted repeatedly, the complete review has an incredible imbalance in how many of the books reviewed are written by men and how many by women -- an historic (and astonishingly consistent) average of well over 6 books authored by men reviewed for every one by a woman (i.e. less than 15% of all titles reviewed have women authors). I don't consciously think about the sex of the authors of the books I review (though who knows what the hell is going on sub-consciously ...) -- and the focus on fiction in translation does affect the odds (a whole lot more is translated that's been authored by men than women) -- but for some reason (?) I'm on a female-heavy stretch here: four of the past five titles reviewed were by women (and 7 of the past 10; and 10 of the past 17 -- all far, far above the historic average).
I don't think I'm doing anything different, but I don't think there's ever been a streak like this (not of all different authors, anyway -- the occasional batch of books by a single female author may have temporarily skewed things). I figure it's a statistical fluke -- after 2800 reviews, it seems likely there would be streaks like this -- but it's still pretty striking. Or have I actually mended my ways ?)