Reconciling Faith & Race Poll: Part 1
by Linda Leigh Hargrove ~ December 1st, 2008. Filed under: good fiction, racial healing.Week 1 Question:
How many books by authors of color did you read this year?
Just the numbers please, folks. If you feel so led, you may indicate your race or ethnicity.
If you read widely (secular and sacred; fiction and nonfiction), please include those details with the numbers. Thanks.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:42 am
secular nonfiction 5
secular fiction 8
sacred fiction 4
sacred nonfiction 3
December 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am
So I’ll bite. I’ve read around 30 books this year (a really low number for me) and only two (that I know of) were written by people of color (both Hispanic). Although I should add that a majority of the books were written by women and a good handful by LGBT people. I’m a white women. most of the books were in the pop theology and social justice categories, and there were a handful of fantasy novels as well. I admit that the genres I gravitate to are mostly populated by white writers… I’m interested to see where this conversation leads.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:25 am
I read one novel by an African American author. It was Christian fiction.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:44 am
Hmmm…this is hard because I wasn’t good about keeping my reading log this year. I’d say I read about 100 books or so and about 35 of them were by writers of color. Lots of them were YA and fantasy.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 am
I haven’t kept a reading log this year. I think I read about 40 books. About 2/3 were African American authors. Most of the others were non-fiction. I read 3 novels by white authors; 2 of them were people I have met, one online, one in person.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’ve read 52 books this year so far, most of them fantasy, romance, or historical fiction. Three books (that I know of; some didn’t have the author’s picture) were written by black or biracial authors; six books were written by two Asian American authors. All of those nine books were by people I know. I am white.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I wanted to update my comment. I also read a fantasy by a black author that I did not personally know. So 19% of the books I read were by people of color.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I just found you via Carleen Brice and this is a great poll. I am one of those geeks who keeps a reading list, so it was easy to tally up the stats for this year so far.
Total books read: 64
Written by men: 40
Written by women: 24
Written by Asians: 2
Written by African Americans: 4
Written by White Americans: 43
Written by Europeans: 13
Written by Middle Eastern: 1
Collection of multiple: 1
For 2007
Total books read: 47
Written by men: 31
Written by women: 16
Written by Asians: 0
Written by African Americans: 2
Written by White Americans: 34
Written by Europeans: 10
Written by Middle Eastern: 1
I’m a little surprised that the number of books I’ve read by non-white American authors is as low as it is and I realized that I do have quite a few other books I’ve purchased, but not read yet.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
This year I read one. A couple of years ago I read one. When I look for a book, I don’t look at the ethnicity of the author, just if the book is worth reading. (Yours was). So I may have read more.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Oh dear!
As a relatively new African-American author, I hardly think about the fact that this is something else I have to worry about while my book sits on the the shelves of bookstores. My first novel, “Angel’s Grace” was marketed as African-American fiction, but I don’t think my non-fiction books will be, but then again, they are mainly written about white subjects.
In the past year, I have not read that many books, but I know that the majority of them were African-American, Hispanic or Caribbean authors, as that is my heritage and what I’m most interested in. It’s interesting to see what kind of books other readers are picking up.
This survey is enlightening. Thanks.
http://traceybaptiste.wordpress.com