Well, Howdy!

Julie introduced me a couple of posts back, but I thought I should say a few words.

I’ve been reviewing books on the web since December of 1996, back when the competition was considerably less fierce.  The pond was really small. Once upon a time I had the #1 Alexandre Dumas page on the entire World Wide Web!  Its claim to fame was that it told you just which books were in the Three Musketeers saga, anyway, and which editions you should buy if you wanted a good, unabridged translation.  The page is still there, looking very dated, now; the web, alas, has moved on.  And once the on-line edition of the Times (London, not New York or Los Angeles) was doing an article on Patrick O’Brian and linked to my Patrick O’Brian page.  It’s equally dated.

Back then I used to do not much but read, it seems like, and I reviewed every book I read.  Even if I’d read it a hundred times before, I’d review it again anyway, often ten or fifteen books a month.  The kids have gotten older since then, and I seem to have gotten busier, and it’s been quite a few years since I’ve been that driven about the whole thing.  But I still read a lot, and I still write reviews; I’m just more selective.

I don’t often read review copies, and I don’t usually read a book just to review it.  Most of the time, what you’ll see is a book that I found interesting enough to buy, and enjoyed enough to review.  It’s extremely rare that you’ll see me pan a book; if it’s that bad, I usually prefer just to consign it to the dustbin of history.

My plan is to try to post at least one book review a week; if I don’t have anything new, I’ll try to find something interesting from the archives.  And we’ll see how it goes!