Comment: Personal Journeys in Reading

Today’s great discussion in certain corners of the blogosphere is about the nature of blogging. It’s actually in the air from publishers as well as bloggers.

I think blogging is partly about self expression ad partly about being a part of a community. It’s easy to get discouraged writing into the void.
Jonathan M

link: OF Blog of the Fallen: When do you ever stop whoring yourself out?

I don’t want to delve the use of competitions and other promotions. There is a good debate for those interested in the link above or a more personal reflection of the points raised on A Dribble of Ink:

Early on, when I was just setting out to create A Dribble of Ink, I wanted to be a creator of content, rather than a puller of content. I was determined to get people to read my blog because they loved me and my take on the world of Speculative Fiction. It started off great, of course, but it quickly became clear that there was so much more out there that I was interested in, wanted to pass on to my readers, but didn’t really leave much room for my own personal interpretation

link: A Dribble of Ink » Blog Archive » Article | Where’d the Enthusiasm Go?

I called this post, ‘Personal Journeys in Reading‘ as that’s what I started out doing. Now how is that reading shaped? That’s the dilemma. I’ll readily admit that my reading choices are swayed heavily by what’s received through the door.

This isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. I’m enjoying it. I get to experience authors I already know and like and old but new to me and new new authors that are on their first or second novels. It’s a challenging mix and what you get to see here is the ones that I’ve finished. Now as I tend to be books I’ve enjoyed as I can’t read books I don’t it’s up to you if they are your sort of books.

I’ve been thinking of taking the John Self approach to blogging but having nothing but reviews for me probably won’t work as I like the book p0rn, and cover p0rn posts.

I probably won’t feature any link-round-ups or pure promotional pots for a while. I’m getting more personal value from reading and reviewing. And I want to spend more time getting in touch with authors – and I’ve got a few that I really need to get back in touch with.

So it’s freeing up time but also de-cluttering the high number of books that are mentioned on this blog. I already filter by my personal taste. All books here I really want to try but I’m conscious that me going ‘oooh look pretty’ might not be the most handy selection tool.

Before I bore you to tears. I’d better say something about how I choose. Well the books I like are evident if you look back a few pages. I’ve selected my next 8 or so books – though they are subject to change so I’m not going to list them. The choice is simple. I like that. I need to read some sci-fi, fantasy, crime, other, and this one fits the bill. As not to show preference to one publisher or another I do try and choose books from different ones from one book to another.

Suffix to say that I’m hoping you’ll get to know a bit about me and the books I’ve read over the next 8 posts of so.

Enough about me. How is your own journey going? Going round in circles? Travelling without a map? Or do you know exactly what you’re reading and why?