I’m a writer, so books are important to me. I know, that’s pretty darned obvious. But where I find out about ones I might like to read is something I’ve been thinking about of late.
There’s The Short Review, which is always excellent (the new issue’s out now).
There’s word of mouth and recommendations from friends. I bought Elephants in Our Bedroom on the Twitter recommendation of Dave Clapper (ed of the utterly brilliant Smokelong Quarterly) and recommended, by response, Etgar Keret’s work. (I’ll review Elephants in our Bedroom later – it is an incredibly good book.)
Scott Pack’s recommendations are usually spot on. It’s thanks to him that I’ve read and loved Thirteen by Sebastian Beaumont, Lizard by L Shick (interview with her here) and a few others.
There’s the Goodreads website, which I check if I’m not sure which book by a certain author I should try first.
They’re the ones that come to mind straight away. I’m sure there are others.
So, last night, I was thinking about this and wondering how I could get people to share the boosk they love and would recommend to others.
As an experiment, I Twittered it, with the hash-tag #ilovethisbook
There is quite a list there now. So if you’re on Twitter and you’d like to share your favourite books, or see if you can find something you’d like to read, you know what to do.
And if you want to follow me, my Twitter username thingy is @nikperring.
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I must say that I was rather surprised when I checked the blog’s stats earlier. I’ve had about 500 visitors more than usual, all of whom have found their way here by googling ‘Landseer Newfoundland’. It’s a dog. A big breed of a dog. I helped a lost one out once and mentioned it on here. Anyway, I had a bit of a google myself and the reason for the sudden increased interest was clear. That is a Very Big Dog.
So, to all of you coming here expecting to find out about Landseers and finding a writer waffling, I’m sorry.
Hey, NikSorry to ask a dead boring question, but how do you check your blog stats? I'm sure whatever it is I'll get obsessed with it. Maybe I shouldn't ask.No, TELL ME!!!(ta)
Hey TeresaNo probs at all. And I can't guarantee you won't become obsessed…but I use these folks:http://www.statcounter.com/N
Thank you. Okay, I've signed up. 3 page loads in a minute, all mine. Excellent. Stop refreshing page and going back to check stats, Teresa…
Ha! I've just gone on, to top up the hits x