November Reading and Blogging Plans and a Look Back at October

October Blog Notes

My blog notes are mostly something I can use to look back on and judge the progress and regress of my blog.  My page views in October 2011 were 344 percent higher than October 2010 and my visits are up by 275 percent.   I do not know what my number of GFC followers was on October 31, 2010 but I ended October this year with 602 GFC followers and 1385 Twitter followers.

The top city of residence for blog users continues to be New Delhi, followed by London,  and then New York City.   In the United States the top state is California.   In the Philippines most readers are from Makati and Quezon City but I do have visitors from all over the country now, mostly brought here by school assignments.   The low days for readership are Saturday and Sunday with no real pattern found yet for the rest of the week.   

October Reading Notes

October was a very good reading month for me.    The big read of the month was Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.   This is the longest book I have read as an e-book and the longest since I began my blog in July 2009.   It is a great novel.   It is not a hard book at all, just long.  It will be one of the top reads of the year for me.  I read in all 11 longer works of fiction, 1 memoir of medical school in Manila in the 1960s, 1 play, Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov and 30 short stories.   


I posted on all but 2 of the novels I read and about half of the short stories.    If I do not post on a work, it is not a value judgement.    For example I read several more Saki short stories in October but I did not feel a need to post more on him.

November Blog Plans

I have as of now no big blog plans for November.    I will probably participate in a few events and am open to new ideas that will pop up.

November Reading Plans

   

Top Priority November Novels

1.  Dracula by Bram Stoker-already into and love it

2.  The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster-

3.  Gut Syndrome by Jeanette Winterson

4.  The Devil's Pool by George Sand-need to read more Sand

5.  The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

6.  The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

7.  The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie

8.  Death In Venice by Thomas Mann

I have also been sent e-books of four promising sounding historical novels to be published in December that I will post on if I like them.   

My next "big read" will be the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes.   I read it decades ago and I am looking forward to reading this much praised new translation.   

The Ruffington Boussweau Project

Mercalaliota Gaelwad

I also hope to read and post on at least  two more travel books by Ruffington Boussweau, starting with his very controversial account of his trip to Japan just before the Russian-Japanese war.    I also have an interview with Ms Mercalalitoa Gaelwad, director of the Sayajira Gaelwad Institute of Ruffington Boussweau Studies planned in which she will explain how she developed her interest in Boussweau and give us some details on her wonderful plans to publish a 25 volume joint English and Bengali edition  of Ruffy's work.   Her goal is to place a full edition in every school in her native Bangladesh.   Her great grandfather was a Maharaja of one of the richest Princely States in Bengal and she wants to use a small portion of the great wealth of her family to give something back to the people of the world.   I am very grateful to her for having a complete set of Ruffy's 25 books sent to me.  In the interests of full disclosure, The Reading Life is now under the very kind sponsorship of The Institute and the personal patronage of Ms Gaelwad.   

Short Stories

I will read some more Brazilian short stories and I hope some more Japanese and South Asian stories also.  Short stories are becoming an ever bigger part of my reading life and my blog.

Above all and always I give my great thanks to those who comment on my posts.   

Mel u