Welcome, Reader

To begin at the beginning, this blog is an outlet for all of the bookish ramblings that I choose not to foist anymore upon my loved ones, who are real and not imaginary, I swear to you, dear Reader. If you are reading this, you are probably 1) interested in books and ideas about books, 2) lost on the interwebs, or 3) a masochist. Be forewarned, many a very nice, hapless blind date has been buffeted by ramblings like the ones that follow. Really, how many nice, single young men can stand to hear about the hero cycle or Things That Annoy Everyone in literature, and laugh politely? I can tell you that... it's not many. But I like to talk about these things anyway. So I share these thoughts with you, dear Reader, in the hopes that you will find them amusing or at least good enough to read until the next episode of [...] airs on the BBC. 

 

My reading list is mostly fiction, but I look forward to scientific non-fiction, historical, and business/strategy/self-improvement books occasionally. There is no grand scheme dictating which books I will review, except that I happen to find the book novel and readable in a timely fashion. Given my habit of devouring books in secret, you may expect new material without undue delay.

What follows is not really a set of "reviews," in the sense that I will not be grading books. A book is not an invention that needs a scored review for performance according to established metrics. Books age much better than most things. I will not be measuring the heights of my emotional torment or moments of clarity triggered by a passage. I will talk about what I think a book is intended to achieve, and whether I think it achieved it. Or perhaps not. We'll see. Having systematic criteria is the hallmark of good science, but I am taking the Art Criticism approach here and I will assume that there is no objective means of measuring the greatness of a book, and therefore any pretense at a scientific comparison or scoring of a book means very little to me. I hope that you enjoy the following cries of amusement and lamentation and that you will feel free to put forth your own reading tidbits, if you are so inclined. And welcome!