The complete review is now well into its teens -- the first review was posted back in 1999 -- but today is the ten-year anniversary of the weblog part of the site, the Literary Saloon.
I'm not sure that there's much more than continuity to brag about here (and a bit more change would probably be a good thing ...), but it's always served my purposes well enough and I hope readers have gotten something out of it as well.
Back when I started, Dennis Johnson's MobyLives -- very much still all his back then -- was still at mobylives.com (its latest incarnation is now at the empire he and Valerie Merians have built up at Melville House); the inspiring Laila Lalami was still plain MoorishGirl; and, in those pre-This Space times, 'Britain's first book blogger' Stephen Mitchelmore was posting at Spike Magazine's splinters . Among the few forerunner blogs that inspired me -- and there were very few others, back in that day -- that can still be found at the same URLs as back then are Maud Newton and Bookslut (though disappointingly neither has archives that extend back this far -- Maud's only seem to go to November 2002 and Jessa's only to June 2003 (though the Bookslut weblog has been going strong since the first entry, of 26 February 2002; the first few issues of the monthly magazine also seem to have fallen into the archival abyss). (Two other worthies from the first the Literary Saloon blogroll have also withstood most tests of time, but they both have an ambit beyond the merely literary: Arts & Letters Daily and the wonderful wood s lot.)
Others have come and gone (and sometimes come back again) in the meantime, many have reinvented themselves (and, as frustratingly noted, pretty much everyone seems to have fiddled with their URLs -- if not the main one, so then with their archives). If nothing else, the Literary Saloon has been reliably present and unchanging (beyond even just the page-URLs ...) all the while. I hope you've enjoyed being along for the steady ride as much as I have enjoyed leading this small part of the way.
Certainly the literary weblog heyday -- the time when it was the most fun, when there was a real, constantly interacting community but not yet so many voices as to lose track of and/or be overwhelmed by it all -- was ca. 2003 to 2005 or so. Not that I'm complaining about the countless new book blogs -- focused on reviews, commentary, news -- that have sprung up over the years; I try to keep up with many of those on the Links to Literary Weblogs-page, and I'm always coming across useful and interesting new ones. But, yeah, as I and the blog are getting old, I do feel a twinge of nostalgia, too -- but then part of what keeps me going is also the excitement of what else will come next. These are still pretty exciting times, as far as literary coverage (and its potential) in all its forms goes.
The formula -- insofar as there is one -- at the Literary Saloon still suits me just fine. It was pretty clear to me from day one what I could offer here, and it's stayed pretty much the same over the years; readers surely know fairly exactly what to expect (and, despite that, at least some of you continue to insist on coming ...). Reader-traffic is hard to gauge: direct page-views have declined very slowly but perceptibly over the past two years or so, but there's clearly been a great increase in the number of people who read via RSS -- as measured, for example, by Google Reader subscribers to the feed. (There are also a tiny number of users who access the material via their Kindle subscriptions .....) In any case, even if it is not that large, there seems to be some sort of fairly devoted and interested audience out there -- many thanks !
I don't expect much will change in the coming months (or years ...) either. Sure, the whole site needs an overhaul, for the sake of appearances, but as far as the substance goes, I'm afraid you're stuck with this and my continuing variations on the same old themes. (You'll probably get tired of them before I do .....)
In any case, thanks also to all of you readers out there, and all your support and criticism and encouragement and help over the past decade -- much appreciated !
I'm not sure that there's much more than continuity to brag about here (and a bit more change would probably be a good thing ...), but it's always served my purposes well enough and I hope readers have gotten something out of it as well.
Back when I started, Dennis Johnson's MobyLives -- very much still all his back then -- was still at mobylives.com (its latest incarnation is now at the empire he and Valerie Merians have built up at Melville House); the inspiring Laila Lalami was still plain MoorishGirl; and, in those pre-This Space times, 'Britain's first book blogger' Stephen Mitchelmore was posting at Spike Magazine's splinters . Among the few forerunner blogs that inspired me -- and there were very few others, back in that day -- that can still be found at the same URLs as back then are Maud Newton and Bookslut (though disappointingly neither has archives that extend back this far -- Maud's only seem to go to November 2002 and Jessa's only to June 2003 (though the Bookslut weblog has been going strong since the first entry, of 26 February 2002; the first few issues of the monthly magazine also seem to have fallen into the archival abyss). (Two other worthies from the first the Literary Saloon blogroll have also withstood most tests of time, but they both have an ambit beyond the merely literary: Arts & Letters Daily and the wonderful wood s lot.)
Others have come and gone (and sometimes come back again) in the meantime, many have reinvented themselves (and, as frustratingly noted, pretty much everyone seems to have fiddled with their URLs -- if not the main one, so then with their archives). If nothing else, the Literary Saloon has been reliably present and unchanging (beyond even just the page-URLs ...) all the while. I hope you've enjoyed being along for the steady ride as much as I have enjoyed leading this small part of the way.
Certainly the literary weblog heyday -- the time when it was the most fun, when there was a real, constantly interacting community but not yet so many voices as to lose track of and/or be overwhelmed by it all -- was ca. 2003 to 2005 or so. Not that I'm complaining about the countless new book blogs -- focused on reviews, commentary, news -- that have sprung up over the years; I try to keep up with many of those on the Links to Literary Weblogs-page, and I'm always coming across useful and interesting new ones. But, yeah, as I and the blog are getting old, I do feel a twinge of nostalgia, too -- but then part of what keeps me going is also the excitement of what else will come next. These are still pretty exciting times, as far as literary coverage (and its potential) in all its forms goes.
The formula -- insofar as there is one -- at the Literary Saloon still suits me just fine. It was pretty clear to me from day one what I could offer here, and it's stayed pretty much the same over the years; readers surely know fairly exactly what to expect (and, despite that, at least some of you continue to insist on coming ...). Reader-traffic is hard to gauge: direct page-views have declined very slowly but perceptibly over the past two years or so, but there's clearly been a great increase in the number of people who read via RSS -- as measured, for example, by Google Reader subscribers to the feed. (There are also a tiny number of users who access the material via their Kindle subscriptions .....) In any case, even if it is not that large, there seems to be some sort of fairly devoted and interested audience out there -- many thanks !
I don't expect much will change in the coming months (or years ...) either. Sure, the whole site needs an overhaul, for the sake of appearances, but as far as the substance goes, I'm afraid you're stuck with this and my continuing variations on the same old themes. (You'll probably get tired of them before I do .....)
In any case, thanks also to all of you readers out there, and all your support and criticism and encouragement and help over the past decade -- much appreciated !