Still here

By on April 3rd, 2006

I’m still here, in case any of you were wondering. Life (specifically,
where I’m going to be next year) is still uncertain, and I’d
rather not post about it until things are a lot less up in the air. And
plans for next year constitute a lot of what’s been on my mind; hence, fewer
posts. But blogging is good for cutting through both the dullness-of-brain and the anxiety of times like this. So, a few things I’ve been looking at and bookmarking lately:

LibraryThing is a perpetual source of things to post about. On the LibraryThing blog, Tim Spalding suggests a bunch of topics, including books you share with only one other person, books only you own, and the top X books you share with others. Happy to oblige! Here are my top 10 most-shared (numbers in parentheses are how many people share the book):

  1. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (it’s translated into Italian, but it still counts, right?) (2172)
  2. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1686)
  3. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1374)
  4. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1064)
  5. Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere (917)
  6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (900)
  7. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (893)
  8. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (890)
  9. Strunk and White, The Elements of Style (869)
  10. Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon (817)

"Lonely books" are harder to list. A search for them led me to spend way too much time combining separate copies with slightly variant titles. Tinkering with works is nearly as addictive as cataloging my collection was, and fills my bibliogeekish heart with joy.

43 Folders’ "Inbox Zero" series has inspired me to get rid of several hundred outdated messages, and I feel much lighter every time I look at my inbox.

Jane Dark‘s Rome blogging is making me miss Italy so much it hurts. Next year I’m going back there, come hell or high water.

BibliOdyssey, a gorgeous visual blog on illustration, book arts, and book history, is a brand-new favorite of mine. Check out the cyanotypes. (Did you ever have one of those home cyanotype kits? I did, but my results never looked that good.)

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One Response to “Still here”

  1. Harrison says:
    April 4, 2006 at 1:01 pm

    Great to see that you’re still around! I am too, though blogging has been very irregular.