2012 Year End Blog Round-up

I enjoyed last year’s year-end blog post round-up, so here is a brief post summarizing and reflecting on the last year at Tales from the Bookworm’s Lair.

I wrote 46 new blog posts this year (including this one), which is certainly on the low side, but I hope to boost my numbers in 2013! What can I say, finishing a dissertation and starting a full-time college teaching gig takes a lot of time and doesn’t leave much room left for reading and blogging about books.

Here are the top search terms that visitors have used to reach my blog:

tintin
tintin covers
doc savage
tin tin
choose your own adventure
tintin cover
cthulhu mythos
the ship that sailed to mars
fuck me ray bradbury
james bama doc savage covers
classic vampire novels
alternative book titles
doc savage covers
alternate book titles
tin tin covers
tintin cover art
amazing stories
celebrity libraries
stephen king books
doc savage cover art
the insidious dr. fu manchu
the swap academy greg stevens

Obviously I need to write more about Tintin and Doc Savage!

Here are the most popular blog posts I’ve done thus far (my general home page gets the most hits by far, but people also seem drawn to particular posts):

Making reading sexy
Great “new” Doc Savage and Tintin Covers
Book Review: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer
Classic fantasy novel: The Ship That Sailed to Mars by William Timlin
Choose Your Own Adventure books analysis
New interview with Doc Savage cover artist James Bama
Stephen King Flowchart
20 celebrity libraries
Cartographic analysis of maps in fantasy novels
Review: Hell Island by Matthew Reilly
Alternate book titles for the classics
Modern science is catching up with occult tomes
Book Review: That Which Should Not Be by Brett J. Talley
Book Review: The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger by Robin Moore
Rachel Bloom has finally met Ray Bradbury
Review: Nick Carter #53: The Arab Plague
New Doc Savage novels!
Book review: Roberts Ridge: A Story of Courage and Sacrifice on Takur Ghar Mountain, Afghanistan by Malcolm MacPherson
10 classic vampire novels that inspired Anno Dracula
Book Review: Level 26: Dark Origins by Anthony E. Zuiker and Duane Swierczynski

So what do these results tell us? I’m not entirely sure, but several things are apparent:

1. Not much has changed since last year. These results are all remarkably similar to those from December 31, 2011.
2. My post regarding The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society (link NSFW) was probably the single most popular blog post I’ve ever done, and has returned the most traffic to my blog of any site. As I said last year, carry on, ladies! May your outdoor reading adventures continue into the New Year, especially when it gets a little warmer.
3. Readers STILL love both Doc Savage and Tintin, and are frequently visiting in search of more. I didn’t write anything new about those series this year, but obviously there’s a great deal of interest in them, so I probably should.
4. As I said last year, t’s never clear to me what readers will enjoy and what they won’t, and that’s ok. I write this blog almost entirely for myself. However, I love interacting with readers, and hope to encourage more of that in the new year (suggestions on how to do that are always welcome). Here’s hoping I have a bit more time for reading, reviewing, and blogging in 2013. Now that I am also reviewing for Hellnotes (and reposting those reviews here after a brief delay), I am reading and reviewing even more horror-themed fiction than usual, but that’s not at all a bad thing.

I have several new blog posts queued up for the new year, and will open with something I had never done before: interview an author. So look for that soon. I will also have to include a post or two about recent book acquisitions (when not blogging I have been having a number of new book-related adventures) and some long-overdue commentary about the state of the book industry (writing, publishing, retailing, reading).

Just to close things out — and because I don’t like to do posts that don’t include an image to accompany a wall of text — here’s a picture of me reading my Kindle on the couch with my Chihuahua Crisco, who is apparently exhausted from all the reading that he’s been doing.

Hope the new year brings you many great books!

Year-End Blog Round-Up

I haven’t done one of these year-end blog posts before, but I’ve seen lots of others do them and they seem like fun.

Here are the top search terms that visitors have used to reach my blog:

making reading sexy
alternate book titles
tintin covers
doc savage horror in gold
harry potter comics
wildside press coupon
tintin cover
doc savage covers
doc savage desert demons
doc savage
harry potter comics
choose your own adventure books
alternative book titles
celebrity libraries
richard blade books
fuck me ray bradbury
horror in gold doc savage
james bama doc savage covers
james bama doc savage

Here are the most popular blog posts I’ve done thus far (my general home page gets the most hits by far, but people also seem drawn to particular posts):

Making reading sexy
Great “new” Doc Savage and Tintin Covers
Alternate book titles for the classics
New Doc Savage novels!
New interview with Doc Savage cover artist James Bama
Book Review: Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens Trilogy by Robert Reginald
Review: Nick Carter #53: The Arab Plague
Harry Potter comics
Review: Rhialto the Marvellous by Jack Vance
Book Review: Allison Hewitt Is Trapped: A Zombie Novel by Madeleine Roux
Choose Your Own Adventure books analysis
Book Review: Masked, edited by Lou Anders
Tolkien literary criticism and new media
Book Review: Mugger Blood (The Destroyer #30) by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
Classic fantasy novel: The Ship That Sailed to Mars by William Timlin
Wildside Press coupon code
Cartographic analysis of maps in fantasy novels
Book review: The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger by Robin Moore
Rachel Bloom has finally met Ray Bradbury

So what do these results tell us? I’m not entirely sure, but several things are apparent:

1. My post regarding The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society (link NSFW) was probably the single most popular blog post I’ve ever done, and has returned the most traffic to my blog of any site. Carry on, ladies! May your outdoor reading adventures continue into the New Year, especially when it gets a little warmer.
2. Readers absolutely love both Doc Savage and Tintin, and are frequently visiting in search of more. I think I will have to do some reviews of both series (two personal favorites) next year.
3. It’s never entirely clear to me what people will enjoy and what they won’t, and that’s ok. I write this blog almost entirely for myself. However, I love interacting with readers, and hope to encourage more of that in the new year (suggestions on how to do that are always welcome). Here’s hoping I have a bit more time for reading, reviewing, and blogging in 2012. Sorry my pace has slacked a bit this year, especially compared with 2010, but I’m teaching and finishing up my dissertation (cross your fingers for me in the spring) and sometimes I just don’t have it in me to post after I’ve finished all my work.

Hope the new year brings you many great books!

And just remember:

Making reading sexy

As I write this Friday night, the rain from Hurricane Irene has begun here in North Carolina, and we narrowly survived our “brush with death” earlier in the week from the rare East Coast earthquake (I barely noticed that anything had happened, to be honest), so in honor of this week of natural disasters, I thought I’d post about something nice.

Well, I think it’s nice anyway.

I like to think of my blog as being rated something like PG-13. We can talk about “adult” subjects here, but not in a graphic way, and the link I’m about to point you toward isn’t really graphic or lascivious — unless you have a particularly low threshold for lasciviousness — but I feel obligated to warn you that it contains a number of photos of topless women. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: visits to the Bookworm’s Lair must have fallen off and he’s just trying to boost his numbers. Not really. Honest. These aren’t just any topless women, you see. These are topless women reading various pulp fiction books in public places in New York City. Let that sink in for a second. So, these particular topless women fit right in with my reading and other interests. God bless ‘em. If this is what it takes to inspire more people to read, than so be it.

Without further ado, I present to you The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society. If only there was a local chapter….

Suggested reading on the Egyptian Crisis

I’m certainly no expert on the current state of affairs within Egypt, and don’t want to engage in political discussions of the crisis here, but since that country is undergoing tremendous turmoil right now, I thought it appropriate to link to a piece that recommends a number of books on Egypt and how it got to where it is today. I can’t personally vouch for these works, not being particularly up on the subject myself, but this list looks like an interesting starting point.

The key to greater understanding, as with any similar issue, is to read synthetically. One book just isn’t enough, even if it’s a “classic.” Even if everyone says that’s the “one book to read” on Topic X. Especially if everyone says that’s the “one book to read” on Topic X. One book is a starting point. Read deeply. Read broadly. Read books that argue against each other. Read books that agree with your own views and analyses. Read books that argue against your own views and analyses. Read books that talk about other books. Read reviews and other discussions of books. Get book recommendations from your friends and acquaintances on additional books you should read.

We tend not to do enough of this (and I’m certainly guilty myself). We often tend to read a single volume on a topic, then latch on to that initial author’s ideas as our own, disregarding counter-arguments, and kid ourselves about knowing a particular topic. That’s a bad, lazy habit to fall into, but it’s frighteningly common, even among well-intentioned, thoughtful people. If you want to “master” a topic — or at least begin developing an informed view and some expertise on that topic since “mastery” is such an elusive and perhaps even unattainable concept — read a bunch of books. You won’t be sorry.