I had A Guilty Moment recently, as I looked back at my seasonal TBRs and realised quite a few of the books that I’ve never quite got round to reading were ARCs. Thankfully, there’s an annual summer event for miscreants like me: so here I am, reporting for ARC August.

ARC August was devised by Octavia and Shelly at Read. Sleep. Repeat. It’s a low-key annual readathon in which readers focus on those overdue ARCs (the clue is in the name). No prizes, no goals, no fuss – just reading and reviewing with the reward of a clean(er) conscience and a bump in that NetGalley ratio.

I’m not defining a specific TBR for the month, but I will share some of my options so yell enthusiastically at me if you see any of your faves! I’ll check back in at the end of the month to share what I ended up reading…

Recent releases

AKA my current ARC accountability check. In previous summers, I’ve tended to focus single-mindedly on catching up on current year releases, which – given my reading speed and Subjective Chaos finalists – would usually mean these would be the only ARCs I read. However, I want to mix it up with backlist ARCs this year… so which ones should I prioritise? Woman, Eating and Dead Water would both work for Spooktastic Reads in a couple of months, but I’ve just devoured Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey so more chilling reads rather appeal.

Not so recent

I think The Bone Shard Emperor is the most recent title here – the others go back years. This is the tip of my guiltberg, but the only one I will commit to (try and) read is The Sky Weaver as I have a suspicion it will be Not For Me. Better to plough through 50-100 pages to confirm that and remove it from the list (or be delightfully surprised that I love it) than have it linger another year!

Spooktastic Reads

You know the saying: ARCs aren’t just for August (wait, am I getting confused?) – by which I mean there’s already a few autumn ARCs on the shelf that I’m eyeing up for Spooktastic Reads. The only ARC that is well past its sell-by date is the VE Schwab bind-up – The Dark Between The Trees is coming out in October, and while I’ve been sat on a copy of No Gods No Monsters for a year, it’s getting a UK release in October from Titan Books. But again – Just Like Home has whetted my appetite, so I may have to pull (some of) these forward…

SciFiMonth

Similarly, I have a stack of long-standing ARCs that I’m considering for SciFiMonth (again, this isn’t exhaustive, it’s just the titles that are calling to me the loudest at the moment). I’ve been feeling a bit over-exposed on the fantasy front, so I may get tempted to dive in early…

My plan – okay maybe it’s more of an aspiration – is to alternate a recent ARC with a backlist ARC; and while I would say and I’ll read nothing but ARCs we all know that’s a lie as I’ve got some Subjective Chaos finalists to read too. My goal is to read and review at least 6 ARCs as this will get me back to the much-prized 80% on NetGalley as a bonus.

Let’s see how I get on…

Photo credit

Photo by Asal Lotfi on Unsplash