National Year of Reading Challenge

_I've decided (gently nudged by the challenge) to read more next year. I'm signing up to read 20 books written by Australian female authors. Should be easy. One every fortnight with a few weeks off for good behaviour =) Will you sign up and give it a go?


2012 Challenge Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge

Keen on romance, fantasy, crime, YA, literary, mainstream women's fiction? Contemporary or historical? Memoir, other nonfiction or poetry? 

Whatever your preference, whether you're a fan of one genre or a devoted eclectic, the 2012 Australian Women Writers Book Reading & Reviewing Challenge invites you to celebrate a year encountering the best of Australian women's writing.

Objective: This challenge hopes to help counteract the gender bias in reviewing and social media newsfeeds that has continued throughout 2011 by actively promoting the reading and reviewing of a wide range of contemporary Australian women's writing. (See the page on gender bias for recent discussions.)

Readers should approach this challenge with a spirit of willingness. There are no failures, just personal goals. Reviews can be long or short, favourable or "this book is not for me". Hopefully, along the way, we'll all discover some future classics and perhaps a few surprises among genres we're not familiar with. The main aim is to have fun.

Challenge period:  1 January 2012 -  31 December 2012

Goal: Read and review books written by Australian women writers – hard copies, ebooks and audiobooks, new, borrowed or stumbled upon by book-crossing.

Genre challenges: 
Purist: one genre only
Dabbler: more than one genre
Devoted eclectic: as many genres as you can find
 
Challenge levels:
Stella (read 3 and review at least 2 books)
Miles (read 6 and review at least 3*
Franklin-fantastic (read 10 and review at least 4 books)*
* The higher levels should include at least one substantial length review

Authors as guest reviewer : Request a special "Guest Review" badge for your website. Read and review one book in a genre other than your own and write a considered review. You will be invited to share this review - along with some information about your own writing, if you wish - on the Australian Women Writers blog page.

Added option : WeLove2Read2 campaign. This page gives participants the option of a further challenge which could help redress the genre imbalance of the National Year of Reading's, Love2Read "Our Story" campaign. Dedicated bookbloggers and reviewers are particularly invited to add this element to their challenge.