I suspect that I read far more white authors than any other racial group although in all honesty, I don't really pay all that much attention to race so I could be mistaken. As a matter of fact, I did sort of revert to turning books over and looking at author photos on flyleafs to figure out if the books would qualify for the African Diaspora Reading Challenge or not. Don't know if this is a promising sign or just general cluelessness on my part (a little of both maybe?). In any case, here are the guidelines for the challenge:*This challenge will run from January 1, 2010-December 31, 2010
*Crossovers are allowed
*Fiction and nonfiction hard copies or e-books from any genre (no audio books)
*Participants should visit different geographical regions in their reading (i.e. not all African American or Afro-Brit or Haitian or any one group representing the diaspora)
*Levels of participation
Novice: commitment to read four (4) books
Versed: commitment to read eight (8) books
Scholar: commitment to read twelve (12) books
I'll be starting off at the novice level simply. My list at the moment looks like this:
1. Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
2. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie
3. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories by Charles Chestnutt
4. Small Island by Andrea Levy
I've been vaguely looking at the author's race for the past few months, and even tagging on librarything if the author is nonwhite, except that it's often hard to tell. Looking for non-white authors has really paid off in picture books, which don't show up on my reading count.
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