Yzabel / June 11, 2012

Part of the reasons why I’m very busy this year is that I’ve been trying to read more—I’ve always been an avid reader, but having many projects and many centers of interest make it so that I only have a little time to devote to each of those. And reading is what tends to be put on the back burner, since it’s one of my least ‘productive’ activities. (By ‘productives’, I mean ‘an activity that leaves me with a finished product, such as a piece of drawing, a chapter, a short story, etc.’ Of course reading will always be more productive to me intellectually than, say, watching TV.)

Putting aside required readings, such as those that’d be useful for my job or for my studies—I’m an eternal student, really—I’ve also been taking part from time to time in what’s usually called ARRs (Author Requested Readings) and ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies). Both are in a way similar, being offered by authors and publishers. The difference, as far as I’ve understood, is that ARCs are the step right before official publishing—a sort of last proof-reading—so of course, they’re not always perfect in terms of typos. ARRs are requested by their authors, for instance, indie authors going through self-publishing (which doesn’t mean that such novels are bad just because they’re indie, of course).

So far, I’ve only done that through a couple of groups on Goodreads, but this experience was interesting, and I may do it again elsewhere if the opportunity strikes. I’ll also post here the few reviews I wrote about such books. Some were pleasant reads; others were less interesting. I tried to remain as objective as possible when writing my critiques.