HAPPY SATURDAY!!! Welcome back to Stop & Chat my loves! This week’s topic is about something I think we are all guilty of (just a bit?) and I noticed right here on RSR.
Where are all the reviews for older books?!
A few weeks back I reviewed, Storm Front, a book released in 2000. To be honest I didn’t think anything of the review but when I was looking at our past reviews it struck me how few books we review that are more than 2 or 3 years old. And then I started looing at the blogs I follow and saw it’s not just me. Obviously this isn’t a “shaming” post where I try to make everyone feel bad about neglecting our elders but it really made me think. If you look at your blog or goodreads how many books have you read in the past 6 months that were published more than 3 years ago? How much comment love did those books receive? Do we shy away from reviewing them because we feel like no one cares? Or are we just so busy with our ARCs and debuts and shiny new releases that we no longer give two shits about the book we bought at release 3 years ago but just never got around to?
Again, I’m not trying to shame anyone, I myself am 100% guilty of feeling like maybe no one cares about these books so why invest in a full review. This is simply me asking YOU guys why you think this is a thing. A trend. A reality in our beautiful book blogging world? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
I like reading older books, but it’s true I don’t review them on my own blog nearly as much as I should. It’s fun to look at a book that is 3+ years old and see the shift in views of how the book is received by reading through its Goodreads or Amazon page. Shannon Hale’s DANGEROUS comes to mind – it was reviewed very critically because it wasn’t marketed correctly, but newer readers seem to have a stronger appreciation for it.
Maybe we should start a Backlist Bookclub and pick a year to read from every month (or just a few times a year)?
I think it’s very important to review older titles. I am a blogger myself, but I’m also a blog reader. I love seeing reviews for older books. A good amount of the time I will end up adding the title to my TBR. And because they’re older, there’s little to no hold at the libraries. If all the blogs are reviewing the newer titles, it gets redundant and there’s no variation in content.
I am making an effort to read older titles this year. Especially the ones that are owned and on my bookshelf. I want to have read every book I own.
Great topic and post, Octavia!
I read a mix of new and older titles, have ever since I started blogging. You’re right of course, most blogs tend to focus on the OMG LOOK AT THIS BOOK THAT’S RELEASING THIS MONTH. My preference to catch up on older books I’ve missed is part of the reason why I haven’t put enough effort into requesting ARC’s all the time. While I sometimes get ARC envy, I’m mostly okay with that. I blog to discuss what I read, not what publishers are telling me I should read at that moment 🙂
A lot of the time I feel out of place because I read a lot of books that were published quite a few years ago! I can’t afford to keep up with the buying of new releases so I mostly just buy and read whatever I can. I’ll only review a book if I really want to which means that (I think) I have a mix of new and old books. Besides, I’m not interested in reading reviews of books that I haven’t read yet – BRING ON THE OLD REVIEWS.
I’m super guilty of this! Personally, I don’t get around to read them. I have so many ARCs and review copies I need to read and review that I don’t get to read the books that are older. I really want to though, because I remember being so excited about them. I don’t review some of them not because I’m scared they won’t get as many views, but because I don’t remember a lot about them. Since I read most of the older books at least 6 months ago, it’s difficult to remember all the details about them. And for the books that I read even before that I really don’t remember much. So that’s the reason for why I don’t have reviews for books published more than 2 years ago on my blog, at least recently.
Great post, I actually read a good amount of non-new books and I do tend to review them, but sometimes I just read without reviewing because I think that people reading blogs are looking for newer books to read…
I’m also guilty of having books I bought quite a while back sitting there unread… and I’m trying to get to them with the #RockMyTBR challenge!!