This is my sixth blog. The others dealt with topics that are well-mined by everyone who blogs: a photojournal of my son (target audience: grandparents), contributions to other people’s, more well-known blogs (mostly of the tech variety), and personal observations (target audience: me).

I have flailed, trying to find a topic that engages me. Although I can write a fair amount my work (and I do believe there is something interesting to mine there), I spend my late nights working on book reviews. It seemed clear that if I wanted to feed, care, and grow a blog, writing about books should do the trick.

Well, they aren’t so much reviews as they are notes on what I have gained in reading the book. I think treating reviews as recommendations, or some referendum on the quality of the work, presumes that one can influence others. I take the view that if books are supposedly so dear to me, I should treat them with a little bit more respect. Thus, I will resist encapsulating reviews in some form of a ratings system. I hope that these reviews help pair books with readers, for whom the themes, characters, and ideas will resonate.

In addition to reviews, I will probably post notes and thoughts, as I am reading a book. I think the most interesting books should spur more than a single summation; I am already spending too much time thinking about what I read anyway. I hope readers find the posts interesting.