Book selection

With four books in the archives, I'll point out a few of my tendencies concerning book selection.

• Solo recordings - I tend to review recordings made by one person, rather than the chapter-per-person organization of the Librivox group recordings. I do this for two reasons: 1) I like solo recordings better and 2) it's easier to review. Listing the qualities of 14 different readers is difficult enough as it is without the possibility that I'll have to own up that one of the 14 is sub-par.


• No bad reviews - If I'm reading a book and decide I don't like it, I'll put it aside; no hard feelings. I've come back to books from time to time and discovered that they're actually good books, but I just wasn't in the right mental state to enjoy it. The same goes with readers. I won't continue listening if I dislike the reader, but neither will I publish my opinion that the reader is awful. There's too much of good stuff out there to spend time dwelling on the negative.

For the month of January, I've been choosing classics: Lord Jim, Pride & Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Conn. Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I decided that since everyone would be visiting my blog for the first time, they would like to see something familiar - either something they've read or something they've been meaning to read. I can introduce off-the-beaten path finds later.

These classics tend to be long books, so to introduce a little variety, I've decided to review short books for February, the shortest month of the year. Occasionally, I'll pick a month and do a theme for that month, like science fiction or mysteries. I'll also start throwing in a short story review at irregular intervals in addition to my weekly book reviews.