In Observation of the Fourth Anniversary of The Reading Life

Four Years!

I started my blog on July 7,2009. I never dreamed it would last four months, let alone four years. In my personal reading life, I am in complete isolation. The vast network of worldwide readers I have connected to through my blog has greatly enriched my life. I want to thank all those who have ever made a comment on one of my posts. I know without you I would have stopped posting a few months at most after starting. I thank the many, well over 100, writers who have done Q and A sessions with me, contributed guests posts or short stories. If anything on my blog has lasting value, I think it is the Q and A sessions with Irish writers.

Many of my blog visitors are what I call "homework help seekers". All are welcome but I am not a scholar or an "expert" so read the works yourself.

My blog has taken me places I never dreamed I could go. I am on the board of a Mumbai, The Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Art, based literary journal and was asked to write an article for the journal of the Katherine Mansfield Society. I never heard of her before I started blogging. I made a trip to Ireland with Max u and met a number of Irish writers, visited the grave of William Butler Yeats, and walked the streets of Dublin. I am now reading Ulysses for the first time in decades and it helps so much to be able to visualize Bloom's walk. I have also received many free books from publishers and writers.

My readership is increasingly Asian. The most common cities of residence for a blog visitor are Manila, Mumbai, London, New York City, and Delhi.. The most viewed of my 1700 + posts are all on older short stories of the Philippines. On a typical day I have visitors from about 75 countries.

On a good blogging day I have 4000 visits, on a slow day, 2000. I follow my blog stats carefully. I am now satisfied with my readership volume and am very proud of the high literacy of my readers. I know something about a very small percent of my readers. For example, there is someone from a small town near Hanoi has logged on over1000 times, normally just for a few seconds, they probably pay by the minute for their Internet time.

I think of all my readers I most hope I am helping isolatesbookish "nerds" with no one to share their passion for readingfeel less alone. There are millions and millions into the reading life.

I will shortly do a post on my plans for The Future of The Reading Life. I will say if March 1, comes around one year and I do not start Irish Short Story Month, something is wrong and I ask someone do at least a week in honor of this great reading area.

My thanks to all my readers. I claim no expertise, I am not a book reviewer, I just read stuff and post on it.

Mel u