Book Confession: Old verses New?

There is a question I’ve been pondering recently and I'm just torn, so I thought I would ask you lot for your opinion. What type of books do you prefer to read reviews for? The latest, sparkling releases or older, treasured books?

Old Capt Kirk vs New? When it comes to this old vs new I know who I'm rooting for! Com'on Chris!



I don’t tend to review a lot of latest releases here because I don’t get a lot of review copies – just a few from netgalley. Although to be fair I don’t request any arcs (I have enough purchased and won books on my TBR waiting to be read without adding to the pile!). There are a lot of authors on my must purchase list that I pre-order their books – Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher, Carrie Vaughn, Patricia Briggs, Karen Chance... but even if I get their latest releases as soon as possible, I don’t always start reading them straight away. Sometimes I purposely leave them so I can find time when I won’t be distracted or stressed with other things to read them. Other times books I’ve borrowed off people or which have been in my immediate reading pile for a month need to be read more. All these means I don’t review the latest releases  on launch day – or even the week after. But I love reading reviews of new releases on everyone else’s blog. I get excited and often find myself buying the book or adding it to my wishlist. Occasionally though a book has such excitement about it – it’s being reviewed on every book blog I come across and I get a little blasé about it. I stop reading the reviews . I get turned off slightly. I understand the reason for the big campaigns – to get word out and drive initial sales – and I do fall for a lot of books that way!

And what about old books? Not necessarily the classics, but those books that were released two or three years ago...I have a lot of them in my pile! I bought them when they first came out but haven’t got around to reading them yet. They’ve been sitting in my pile weeping quietly to themselves about not even being opened yet. But when I do open them I often find some gems that others may have forgotten about . Reviewing books that much older – does it drive sales as much? Unlikely.

And do we(readers) still get as excited by these slightly more mature books? Do you get as excited about a great review a couple of year old if it doesn’t have the big marketing campaign behind it and you don’t see it popping up every where? I have to confess I don’t. I mostly think ‘ hmm...interesting...I will look at it more detail...’ rather than ‘ohmygod-wow-I-must-get-that-straight-away’. Am I just a victim of good PR and marketing campaigns?

Not sure what point I’m trying to get too, but I love showing love for the older books here – some that haven’t been lucky enough to get the big marketing campaigns. I think if even one person thinks, ‘hmm...interesting...’ I’ve achieved something. J

So what do you prefer reading reviews? Older books or newly released?