Every challenge must come to its end

Happy New Year everyone! A new year means the 2011 LGBT reading challenge has come to an end. When looking back I think we can say it was a pretty good year for reading and writing reviews. A few stats always help to illustrate this point, so here goes:

-50 people participated in this challenge, that's only counting those who actually submitted at least one book review.

-Even though the reading seemed to go pretty well, many of you had trouble getting around to writing the reviews and others did not always link to their reviews on this blog. So I can't say for certain how many books each of you read for this challenge, but I can say that (if I counted correctly) 7 of you posted more than 10 reviews this year, which I think is rather impressive. Well done!

-This blog has had around 25,000 page views, the most popular post being the overview pages of the 2011 and the 2010 reading challenge, followed by the guest post by Gloria Anzaldua and a guest post about GLBT Manga.

Unfortunately, not enough people indicated they wanted to continue the LGBT Reading Challenge for another year. Thus, this is the final post you will read on here.

Thanks so much to everyone who has taken part in this challenge or has participated in other ways. It's been a lot of fun hosting it! I'm sure I'll see many of you around on the internets, and I hope you'll all continue to be such avid readers.

December Reviews

It's the final month for you to get reading and submit your book reviews for your reading challenge!

I can't believe an entire year has almost come and gone, or more specifically, that our reading challenge of 2011 is almost over. Even if I started reading nonstop right now, I still couldn't catch up with all the reading I intended to do. Oh well, let's hope next year will be a little better.

You can add your final book reviews of the year below. I will keep the list active until December 31st.

December Reviews:

LGBT Reading Challenge 2012

Our LGBT Reading Challenge isn't completely over yet, but I think you'd agree it's been a success. Even though some of us did not read quite as much as they set out to, I was pleased to see most of you came back each, or every other month to post your book review links.

It would be a shame not to continue such a great reading challenge, and therefore I'm willing to host it for another year. If you guys want me to..

So, if you would like to participate in the LGBT Reading Challenge of 2012 please include the link of your blog below. This can be a general link to the blog you'll be posting your LGBT book reviews on, but you can also write a specific blogpost if you want, letting us know you will be participating and how many books (or what kind) you intend to read in 2012.

I did rather poorly this year, so next year I intend to at least read one LGBT book per month. I have quite a few unread left on my reading pile, so it shouldn't be a problem.

How many LGBT (related) books do you intend to read next year?

UPDATE: I will only host this challenge for another year if at least 15 people have added a link to their website by December 28th.

Participants 2012 LGBT Reading Challenge:

November reviews

November is here, which means only 2 more months to read all those books you intended to read for our reading challenge!

Have you read as much as you wanted to or have you exceeded your ambitions? I know that I thought I'd read so much more than I have. It seems like every month I am surprised it's already time for a new list.

You can add your November reviews below or check out what others have been reading.

November LGBT Reading Challenge review:

October reviews

October is here already, time to accept summer is really over and embrace autumn! October also means there's only 3 more months to complete our reading challenge.

In last month's top 10 you could see who has done the most reading so far, but if you didn't see your name up there there is still plenty of time to catch up! I see how much you guys all read, so it's not impossible to make up for lost time.

As always, you can add your book reviews at the end of this post. Do check out each others reviews, as I think it's one of the best ways to find new books to read.

Are you following us on Twitter yet?

October LGBT Reading challenge reviews:

Reading challenge update: Most active contributers

When we started the reading challenge at the beginning of the year, everyone was very eager to take part and most of you were pretty ambitious about the number of LGBT related books you were going to read.

We all know that what we plan to do does not always correspond with what we actually get done. Usually we think we will be reading much more than we actually do, although when sometimes the opposite happens it's a really nice surprise.

Are you curious who has been reading and writing about the most LGBT themed books? Or want to know how well you're doing compared to others? I sat down and counted everyone's reviews from January until August and made a little list for you guys.

Here are the 8 people (there were too many people with 5 reviews) who've been the most active contributors to the challenge to date:

08. Sally from Bibrary book lust with 6 reviews
07. Buried in print also with 6 reviews
06. Jodie from Bookgazing with 7 reviews
05. Caroline at Portrait of a woman also with 7 reviews
04. The reading life with 8 reviews
03. Trisha from electric-eccentric also with 8 reviews
02. Amanda from the Zen leaf with 10 reviews
01. Memory at Stella Matutina with a whooping 15 reviews!

Well done guys!
If you did not make it into the top 10, but would like to be there...you still have 4 months to catch up!

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What do you think of the top 10? How are you enjoying the reading challenge and does the amount of LGBT reading you do compare to the goal you set yourself at the beginning of the year? Let us know in the comments!

September reviews

It's September, which means back to "normal life" for most of us. I hope things won't get too busy for you guys and you will still find time to read some LGBT themed books and tell us about it.

I haven't been reading as much (queer lit) as I would like to, but I'm hoping to change this the coming weeks while preparing a post on my favourite gay male novels. I'll also be compiling a list (a top 10 maybe) of those of you who've been most active in our reading challenge to date.

So watch out for those posts, but in the mean time check out the reviews of the LGBT books read this month:


September LGBT Reading challenge reviews: