The Reading Life Blogging Year 2013

2013 was an excellent blogging and reading year for me. Blogging has changed my life way for the better.  I for decades felt isolated and even odd in my love of reading.   Now I know I am one of millions of people that feel the same way.   

Here are some of the highlights of my blogging and reading year.

In March and April I focused on Irish short stories.  I did Q and A sessions with about seventy Irish writers.  This was a tremendous learning experience for me.   In May in the company of Max u, I went to Ireland where I met a number of writers, soaked up as much of Ireland as I could and ate some awesome food.  This was a peak life experience for me.  It was almost overwhelming to visit the grave of William Butler Yeats.

  

I continued to post on the work of Desmond Hogan whom  I had the honor of meeting.  This will continue in 2014 and beyond.  

I continued reading and posting on short stories by writers from the Philippines, the most viewed of any of the now 2007 posts on my blog.  I continued reading Japanese novels, though not as many as in previous years.  I read a good number of Indian short stories also. 

I began to post on collections of poetry, so far just by Irish writers.  I find posting on collections of poetry very challenging.  

In November, through my participation in German Literature Month, I discovered several new to e writers I want to read in full, chief among them Joseph Roth.  

I was given a large collection of Yiddish language works in translation by Yale University Press and am finding this a fascinating area.

In December I began something totally new for me.  In Cooperation with Sue Guiney,  project director, I began to post short stories and poems by at risk Cambodian Street Children being helped by the Anjali House Writing Project in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  I found these works deeply moving.  

One of the things my blog is about is giving what voice I can to the lost, the forgotten, those with no one to speak for them.  The Yiddish may be a destroyed civilization but there was never a culture more into the reading life.  The Irish are man for man and woman for woman, the world's greatest writers.

I am also very influenced in my thinking by the ideas of Edward Said and Declan Kiberd.  I see the Cambodian posts as the recreation of literature from ground zero.

The item I am most proud of on my blog is My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - 

I am not a scholar or an academic (though I don't defer to those who are).  I read stuff and I post on it. I don't like to be referred to as a "book reviewer".  

 

I started to make a "big reads" list as I did in the last two years but when I was at sixty books i quit.  

The top blog visitors countries are The USA, the Phillipines, India, Russia, England and Canada.  The top cities of residence are the greater Manila area, then Mumbai, then New York City, London, and New Delhi.  The top American states are Califorinia and New York.  

The writers who draw the most hits internationally are Katherine Mansfield and R. K. Narayan.

I am very proud of the extreme literacy and keen intelligence of my readers.  

I ended the year with 3062 Twitter followers.  Since blogger began including a statistics pack with their software The Reading Life (begun July 7, 2009), has had 2,226,423 pageviews. 

My greatest thanks are to those who take the trouble to write comments and the writers who did Q and A sessions.  There will be more in 2014.  

I will do another post where I talk about the future of The Reading Life.

Thanks to all visitors, even homework assistance seekers (just don't blame me if your professor says the ideas you take from  me are crazy).

I am always looking for reading suggestions. 

,

Be sure and come join in for Irish Short Story Month Year Four starting March 1, 2014

 

My Favorite Reads-Part 3-

Favorite Reads (other than Japanese)  Second Half 2009

In My Favorite Reads Part 1 I talked about the books I read in the first half of 2009, before I began my blog in July 2009

In My Favorite Reads Part 2-I spoke of my favorite Japanese reads among the 40 or so works on which I have posted on in 2009

Now in the last part of The Reading Life Best Reads of 2009 part 3 I want to talk about my favorite non-Japanese reads from July 7 to now.   I am still reading and hope to post on two more books by year end but both are Japanese works.

Most of the books I read since my blog began I have posted on.   I should note that when I fail to write a post on a book I have read, it is not a negative comment on  the book. 

There were three works I read in this period that I somehow could not bring myself to do a brief blog post about.   I will try to say why now.

1. A Sentimental Education by Gustav Flaubert-This well might be a better novel than MB.   The editor of the book in the Oxford Classics edition  flirts with the idea that it is better than War and Peace but never fully embraces the idea.   Maybe you think Flaubert is an ice cold Olympian.   Those who know or have read only MB  will be shocked how full of the love of the pleasure of life A Sentimental Education is.   I am going to reread it pretty soon and feel then I can do a post on why I like it so much.    If you are in a personal quest to experience the greatest works of literature ever written, my advice is to read this book as young as you can so you have a standard to hold other works up to.
2. Keepsake by Kristy Gunn-The only post on this work that would do it justice would be to scan it all in and post the whole thing.   Gorgeous prose
3. Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli-young adult-deeply moving story about the Warsaw Ghetto-I love the last five pages so much I have reread them numerous times.   If  I had done a blog post right after reading this all I would have probably said would come down to "Do yourself a favor, read this book this week so the rest of your life you can have it in your head".

Best Blogged on Books

1.  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (books in no special order)
2. Barefoot in the Park:  A Filipino WWII Childhood by Barbara Ann Gamboa Lewis.   This book deserves a high  place in the YA literature of WWII-
3. The PowerBook By Jeannette Winterson
4. Balzac and  the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Siuji
5. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry
6. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
7. A Start in Life  by Anita Brookner
   
8. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Anne Borrows
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton-unlike pretty much everybody else I do not see the deepest meaning of this work in its social commentary
10. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
11. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford-can hardly be over praised
12. I am the Messenger by Marcus Suzak-I know this is a quirky pick but read it if you liked The Book Thief .

Of my  top 12, 9 are by women.   This just happened by accident.

Only Real Advice I Offer From These Lists

If you are serious about experiencing the best literature the world has to offer, then read A Sentimental Education and The Good Soldier.   (This will not be a task, they are both hugely fun reads.) 

My best by far non-fiction read of 2009 is Flaubert:  A Biography by Frederick Brown-just what he says about Ivan Turgenev, a good friend of Flaubert, is fascinating.  

What are your favorite reads for 2009?   

Mel u