New Year, New Whatever...

A few months ago, I read Nick Hornby’s Polysyllabic Spree. A collection of essays Hornby wrote for his column in the Believer, TPS is a year in books. The premise, that Hornby - best known for his lad-lit titles About a Boy and High Fidelity - as an author and avid reader, has more books than he can possibly read. Each month he purchases heaps of books and only reads a few. Included in Hornby’s genial ramblings about literature, life, and the pursuit of more bookshelves are some gleefully brilliant witticisms like his realization that “if I’ve forgotten everything I’ve ever read then I can read some of my favorite books again as if for the first time,” and his demi-rant about the spare school of style which he asserts is an attempt to make writing a more masculine (and thus proper-er) job. All in all, TPS is more a collection of essays than a book. Lacking an overall coherency beyond the stated premise of man vs. monthly flow of books, it did not cover the theme I had hoped for - what does one learn from all this?

At the risk of committing one of the most egregious sins in writing (or at least journalism), I need to move on from Hornby before I do indeed bury the lead. TPS inspired me. I, too, suffer from Hornby’s particular strain of bibliophilia. Despite the fact that my bookshelves are dangerously overloaded and I have little time to read, I cannot stop purchasing books. I buy loads and loads, often at the risk of my bank account balance or my brain cells (this latter part comes into play in used bookstores and library sales where my oddly strictured willingness to read almost anything leads me to purchase trashy titles due to their relatively low cost). As the author events manager for a large bookstore in Boston, I’m constantly thinking about books and getting free advance copies of new titles. Combine these facts with the thought that had been rolling around in my head for a while that I’d like to try my hand at book reviewing (because who wouldn’t want to get paid to read books and then say what they thought about them?) and the end result was my desire for a book commentating blog.

What is book commentating? I won’t call myself a reviewer. Reviewers have two rules that I am willfully going to break in this blog because they do not suit my purposes: (1) Being Current - You can’t review a book that was published six months ago, let alone six years ago, and expect to remain a reviewer. They’re supposed to write about the newly published, newly released, or newly opened so that everyone else can stay home and form opinions from what the reviewer tells them so they can save time rather than risk that trial (and possible error) themselves; and (2) Remembering The Audience - Reviewers have to keep in mind that people will read what they say and possibly send them hate mail. Actually, they have a responsibility to be interesting and relevant to their audience. I could care less about that since this blog is about me and what I read. I don’t need to sell newspapers with this blog, and I won’t lose my day job if I don’t have any readers. Book commentating then, is reading a book and then reporting on said book (hm, sounds a lot like those horrid book reports we all used to do in school). With my qualifications, and just enough vanity to think what I have to say matters, this blog should be fun for me and hopefully entertaining for you, dear reader.

As this is the first of the new year, and invariably at this time I start thinking reading resolutions, it might be a good idea to set my intentions to paper, so to speak. Last year, I said I wanted to read more non-fiction and more classics. I succeeded with the non-fiction (although non-fiction was still a fraction of what I read compared to fiction), but failed with the classics (I never did get past the first page of Wives and Daughters, and I think that was the only classic attempted). Similarly this year I hope to broaden my book knowledge through three goals: (1) to read a better variety - non-fiction, classics, perhaps the odd book I’d turned up my nose at before; (2) to give new books a chance (but not to the point of forcing myself to read something dreadful, there is after all a finite amount of reading time for me so why waste it on anything less than fabulous?); and (3) to think about what I’ve read and write about it here.

So, with that said, on to the next…

(Many thanks to R for titling this blog. L, I loved your idea too, but I think you need to write that one!)