Saturday 18 August 2012

Reviewing books

I have trouble reviewing books. I never know quite what to say - and saying that so many books are "well-written" or "awesome" or "interesting" gets tired after a while. No, I don't say any or all of those things for every book that I've read. I'm therefore going to try and start writing book reviews using a question/answer template that I'm hoping will help me to say a bit more about what I've read and what I think about it. For people who wish to look through reviews that I've written, you can find links to them here. I primarily use Goodreads as my review site, but a few are also on Smashwords and most are on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com too. Pretty much, where the book is available without me doing too much legwork. I tend not to review on Barnes & Noble unless specifically requested.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

List of Books

I've just posted a list of 548 books on my blog which, if you've read all of them, you can consider yourself a very well-read individual indeed! This came about as a result of a friend of mine, Amy Rose Davis, challenging herself to read 100 books from a list that she came across online. She has since expanded the list using other sources; I got intrigued, and added more lists myself, with the result that there are a lot of books! My final(ish) list is here. I would be interested to know how many of the books you have read - if you can find the time to peruse the list. I can lay claim to having read 56 of them myself to date.

I'm not proposing that I take up the challenge of reading them all. The idea of adding more books to already substantial library is not entirely palatable for various reasons, and the thought of forcing myself to read through a list is even less desirable. So this is mostly for interest on my part, although I will probably keep tabs on the books I read and try to read them through the years. An interesting exercise, however one embarks on it.