Author: Geoff W

Reading my way through life.
Updates

One Year Anniversary! Part 2

Geoff W

As promised, here is post number two for the day.

This post is about numbers. Over the past year I’ve seen a lot of traffic come to my blog, starting with only 67 views in July 2010 to over 600 views in May of 2011. I’ve had over 3,000 unique visitors over the past year. I know quite a few of the visits are by spam-bots, but I’m also convinced quite a few of the visits are by students writing papers, the most common searches leading people to my site generally starting with ‘quotes from…’

After the jump you will find a list of the Top 10 visited books. I’ve removed my old ‘Quotes from…’ posts as I didn’t actually review the books and I’ve grouped all the Artemis Fowl books together as they were almost all in the Top 10. I’ve also included the Top 10 most used Tags.

I can’t believe it’s been a year, especially with how quickly I abandoned my blog for my family and friends while living abroad for two years. I guess between my love of reading and my newly found “tech” skills in my position at work I’ve become better at keeping up with my posts.

The final post of the day will be about the changes I’ve already made and those coming to the blog! I know it’s a bit egocentric and self-serving to post this many on one day, but I might as well since I’m sure there will be a streak in the near future where I forget to post or refuse to post.
Click here to see the Top 10 Visited posts and the Top 10 Tags…

Updates

One Year Anniversary! Part 1

Geoff W

A year ago today I started this blog.

I started the blog because I was wrapping up a year of AmeriCorps and in the process of searching for a full-time job. I went from working 10-12 hour days to having no specific reason to get out of bed. At one point during the many hours of trolling the internet for jobs (or distractions) I stumbled across the 50 book challenge and thus this blog began.

My original goal was to read 50 books by the end of December 2010, but between getting a full-time job (with an awesome organization) and not writing posts for all the books I read, that didn’t happen. I reached 27 posts.

However, yesterday I realized if I looked at the calendar year for the blog, July 20, 2010 – July 20, 2011, I completed the original 50 book challenge. This is a feat for two reasons: 1) I didn’t believe I’d stick with the blog – I barely remember to email my family members on a regular basis; and 2) I actually read 51 books in 365 days (more read, but documented 51).

Perhaps this calendar year (July 20, 2011 – July 20 2012) I’ll actually get all the books I read into the blog. Stay tuned for posts later today about updates to the blog and the top ten books visited on this site for the past year!

One Year Anniversary! Part 2

One Year Anniversary! Part 3

*I did not make the picture, but I wish I had. I’ve gained the skill set this year to make that one so maybe next year I’ll make my own! I found it through Google Image.

Books

Book 52: The Boy Detective Fails – Joe Meno

Geoff W

The Boy Detective Fails - Joe MenoThis is the story of Billy Argos, the boy detective. The way the book is put together is fascinating and reminded me a lot of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The chapters start at 31 and there are random pages with word formations or small paragraphs which was a bit annoying, but it added to the quirkiness of the book. Perhaps the most intriguing/annoying thing was the hidden message along the bottom of the pages. I of course had to figure it out because it was driving me nuts. The coded message is after the jump, but I didn’t decode it and left out a bit so you have to read the book yourself to find out. I did follow the instructions and we’ll see what happens. Update: After having emailed the address and then googling the email address I found they no longer respond 🙁 Apparently you received another coded email and if you broke that code some stickers.

Click here to continue reading the review, to see the coded story and quotes from the book.

Books

Book 51: The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson

Geoff W

The Finkler Question - Howard JacobsonI’m not sure how to review this book. I’m surprised I’ve not heard more about it, but simultaneously not in the least bit surprised I’ve heard so little about it. I don’t know anything about the author and the only reason I know this book is because it beat Emma Donoghue’s Room for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. I read it because it was the first book I came across on my new Kindle (see I got a Kindle!!!) under $5.

This book is about being Jewish, or wanting to be Jewish in today’s London. It’s hard to say what was good and what was bad about The Finkler Question. There were times where the comedic and playfulness of the novel bordered on irreverent or even blasphemous. I definitely recommend reading it as it was a hell of a lot easier than most of the other Man Booker Prize novels I’ve read and is about a fascinating subject. There are quite a few quotes thanks to the Kindle’s Notes feature. I recommend checking them out as they might give a better idea of the breadth of the novel than this review.

Click here for quotes and to continue reading.

Random

I got a Kindle!!!

Geoff W

As you may have guessed from my fairly obvious title, I got a Kindle.  I’m sure it had something to do with my blog post (July Update) including Tom’s cameo (among other things) or Tom’s rekindled, notice I didn’t say new, appreciation for books.  He gave me a gift certificate to Amazon for 2/3 of the kindle because I didn’t want him to pay for all of it.  It was a bit of a decision because I could have gotten 20-25 used books easily, but I really did want a Kindle so I bought it.

It arrived last Saturday and I immediately uploaded 25 books, three I paid for including The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, and the rest were pre-1923.  I realized pretty quickly that the books are pretty expensive (compared to used) and I will purchase books, but I can’t wait until the public library starts loaning Kindle e-books.

Everything was going great until Monday morning on the way to work. Less than 48 hours of owning it I gave myself a mini-heart attack by dropping it in a parking lot. If you know me, this isn’t too surprising, but I was petrified and swore at myself for not just shelling out the money to purchase a cover when I got it.  The back casing partially popped open and there is now a lovely scrape (smaller than a dime) on the back left corner, but thankfully it still worked/s.  This scare necessitated my lovely blue case to the left. It doesn’t photograph very well and Amazon doesn’t show the color very well, but it’s a nice blue, maybe a bit lavender-ish depending on the light.  I splurged and got the one with the light because after the mini-heart attack I needed something special.

I’ve had it for nearly a week and so far the pros definitely outweigh the cons.  It responds significantly faster than  my Sony Pocket e-Reader which isn’t that shocking considering this is the third generation Kindle and I have a first generation Sony.  The formatting of the novels is great, but I wish rather than it automatically starting you on the first page with text, it would start you on the cover page.  I absolutely LOVE the notes feature, although you can (and I did) go overboard as you’ll see in the quotes section of my next post.

The two biggest negatives are the side navigation buttons (personal preference) and the lack of page numbers.  The navigation bothers me because for some reason I’m convinced the left should be backward and the right forward, but both sides have a large forward and a small backwards button.  The lack of page numbers really bothers me, especially as I like to see how many pages to the next chapter.  You can check the page numbers, but you have to pull up the menu screen and hope that the publisher included them.  I’m sure I will get used to both the navigation and the page numbers as everything else works seamlessly.