Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Sunday, July 7, 2013

In Observation of the Fourth Anniversary of The Reading Life

Four Years!




I started my blog on July 7,2009. I never dreamed it would last four months, let alone four years. In my personal reading life, I am in complete isolation. The vast network of worldwide readers I have connected to through my blog has greatly enriched my life. I want to thank all those who have ever made a comment on one of my posts. I know without you I would have stopped posting a few months at most after starting. I thank the many, well over 100, writers who have done Q and A sessions with me, contributed guests posts or short stories. If anything on my blog has lasting value, I think it is the Q and A sessions with Irish writers.

Many of my blog visitors are what I call "homework help seekers". All are welcome but I am not a scholar or an "expert" so read the works yourself.

My blog has taken me places I never dreamed I could go. I am on the board of a Mumbai, The Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Art, based literary journal and was asked to write an article for the journal of the Katherine Mansfield Society. I never heard of her before I started blogging. I made a trip to Ireland with Max u and met a number of Irish writers, visited the grave of William Butler Yeats, and walked the streets of Dublin. I am now reading Ulysses for the first time in decades and it helps so much to be able to visualize Bloom's walk. I have also received many free books from publishers and writers.

My readership is increasingly Asian. The most common cities of residence for a blog visitor are Manila, Mumbai, London, New York City, and Delhi.. The most viewed of my 1700 + posts are all on older short stories of the Philippines. On a typical day I have visitors from about 75 countries.

On a good blogging day I have 4000 visits, on a slow day, 2000. I follow my blog stats carefully. I am now satisfied with my readership volume and am very proud of the high literacy of my readers. I know something about a very small percent of my readers. For example, there is someone from a small town near Hanoi has logged on over1000 times, normally just for a few seconds, they probably pay by the minute for their Internet time.

I think of all my readers I most hope I am helping isolatesbookish "nerds" with no one to share their passion for readingfeel less alone. There are millions and millions into the reading life.

I will shortly do a post on my plans for The Future of The Reading Life. I will say if March 1, comes around one year and I do not start Irish Short Story Month, something is wrong and I ask someone do at least a week in honor of this great reading area.

My thanks to all my readers. I claim no expertise, I am not a book reviewer, I just read stuff and post on it.

Mel u




5 comments:

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

Mel, many congratulations on the fourth anniversary of The Reading Life. The dedication, the passion, and the discipline with which you edit your blog is an inspiration to bloggers like me. I'm not surprised with the impressive statistics of your blog. You have earned every hit and visit over the past four years. I wish you and your blog every success in future and hope you'll continue to enrich me with your keen insight into the world of literature.

Carole said...

Congratulations, Mel. 4 years is a fantastic achievement.

Billy O'Callaghan said...

Congratulations, Mel, and well done. I look forward to reading many more great posts.

Jessica @ a GREAT read said...

Yay! Happy Blogoversary! I also celebrated my fourth blogoversary earlier this year! Yay for us!

Hope you have many more happy years to come!

Anna said...

Happy blog birthday! 4 years is a major accomplishment, and I hope you stick around for many more.