Book reviews

I have finally finished something I have been trying to complete for at least two years.

Shortly after I started this blog about life in Cyprus, I also started a blog of my book reviews. I read about 8-10 books per month, usually, and like to review them. I've posted reviews on the Ciao and Dooyoo sites, and more recently TheBookbag, but my book blog is a personal record of everything I've read, however obscure.

However, I have been keeping a pen-and-paper notebook of book reviews ever since April 1999. So I decided I'd work backwards on the book blog, and type in reviews of ALL the books I've read since then. Again, this is really just for my own interest. I also have my books and very brief reviews listed at Bibliophil, and the last year or so of books and DVDs at AllConsuming, and recently I also joined Goodreads - all places where I can list the books I've read. I'm not sure quite why I have this compulsion to write about books in so many places, except that I love them - and find it useful, sometimes, to see what I thought of something a few years ago.

However, while I really enjoy writing new reviews of books I read, typing up hundreds of old book reviews wasn't very inspiring, and when I decided also to add Amazon affiliate links, it took rather longer. So I set myself targets - five a day, or whatever - and ever so often would spend a week or two getting some more done.

But FINALLY, last week, I realised I had only thirty reviews left to type up. I decided to do ten per day, and actually completed them yesterday. Amazing. Apparently I've read about 840 books in the last nine years, including the ones I've re-read.

That might sound like a reasonable amount, but since the UK alone publishes over 200,000 books per year, it's really just a molecule in the ocean of available literature.

Also surprising is that I get about 40-50 visitors at the book blog, mostly via search engines, looking for - surprise, surprise, reviews of books!