This post is to say that I will likely not be blogging this coming week, or if I do, which at best would happen once, I will not be able to reply to comments and will not be able to read your blogs.

All will be revealed once I’m back because I will hopefully have some great photos to show you.

See you soon.

Well, ok, maybe not completely, but I would hope that there’s enough difference in this layout to warrant the change. In time I hope to have a drop-down menu accessed via a link that will be situated beside the social network buttons and I’m also hoping to change the location of the random review to the footer (because let’s face it, that footer is pretty huge, it’s the blue version of whitespace.)

Please let me know if you spot any bugs via the comments on this post.

When it came to the read-a-thon, I was a failure, I managed to read only a little. But I’ve been making up for it today alongside studying and finishing this layout.

When I look back and think of 2010 in general it feels like the year went by very quickly, yet when I look at it from the perspective of book blogging it seems so long ago that I started.

This I know has mostly to do with the number of books I’ve read since then, and the amount of writing I have completed for reviews – but I think it’s also to do with the fact that when I began, ebooks weren’t so big and looking at it that way shows how much we’ve changed in a few months.

I am reading far more broadly, and I’ve discovered so many new and different authors. Through reading reviews of classics from people passionate about them, I’ve come to make classic authors a staple part of my reading. My review style has changed to include more commentary rather than simply whether a book is good or not. I’m finding myself actively seeking out books with social themes in all the genres I like to read.

I’m enjoying book blogging so much and the community is fabulous. Thank you all for being so welcoming and for enriching my reading life in a way that would never have happened if I had continued alone and if there was no community.

February is going to be a busy month for me, with a few birthdays coming up and the start of a difficult part of my course. I try to blog once every three days but recently I haven’t had as much time to sit down and think about what to write about, baring reviews. So I thought I would turn to other bloggers for help.

I’m looking for a few people who might be interested in writing a post about the world they would most like to live in – that world being taken from a book, of course. This would be the world you’d most like to live in as yourself rather than as a character, and isn’t restricted to fantasy. You could describe why you’ve chosen it or tell a short story from the perspective (a sort of fan fiction, I suppose), it’s up to you really. The main points would of course be to illustrate your passion and to ignite an interest for the book in others.

If you’d like to be a guest blogger, let me know in the comments and I’ll contact you with a list of days to choose from.

6 months ago today I began this blog. To look at my statistics and think of all the books I’ve read since it seems such a long time ago. Yet the time confuses me. It feels like it’s gone so fast but on closer inspection so much has happened since 4th April.

I’ve read 34 books since starting my blog
I’ve blogged here 88 times
I’ve posted 40 reviews, 26 of which have been written in the 6 months
I have far more blogs in my reader than I can keep up with.

Some of the most notable things these last few months: I received books for review; I gained experience in a new field of work; I gained a nephew (he’s growing so quickly!), and I decided to begin and have started a degree.

Because of the nature of book blogging, having that one certain topic and a constant stream of reviews for posting, I’ve managed to post a lot more than I have in the two years I’ve been writing my general blog – in fact my post count at The Worm Hole have already almost overtaken it. It’s given me a confidence boost; yes, I can write a lot more if I want and yes, it was just the ideas that were lacking.

Thank you to all my readers, to both those who comment and those who don’t (I invite you to say hi!), and to the friends I’ve gained.

Choosing to write down my thoughts and start this blog are two of the best decisions I’ve ever made.