Stats not bad

I've recently been spending some time looking closely at website stats at work, and it prompted me to have a quick delve into the stats of this here blog, whereupon I noticed that my musings had just passed 5,000 views.

This isn't a particularly large figure, especially for a blog that dates back almost four years, but it's not too bad either given the lack of self-promotion and indeed the fact that for the majority of the first year, when content was being uploaded on a far more regular basis, I largely preferred to keep it out of the public eye.

As I said at the outset, the entire challenge (including the blog) was primarily for myself, but that approach has changed slightly over the past year, which perhaps make the stats a bit more relevant. Indeed, they show that since the end of 2010, when the challenge (supposedly) finished, 80 per cent of the views have come in the past five months when I have been more actively promoting the blog.

The biggest surprise come from looking at which reviews or posts received the highest views, though, with the review of Thank You for the Days, Mark Radcliffe's entertaining sort of autobiography, streets ahead of everything else. In fact, it's got almost five times as many views as the third highest post, an assessment of Sex, Bowls & Rock & Roll, a lacklustre comedic turn that I had such little enthusiasm for I barely had the energy to write the review. Maybe people came for the 'sex'?

In second place is the tale of my exchange with an author, Tom Shone, who kindly got in touch following my review of In The Rooms, and completing the top five are two blogs uploaded as recently as October focusing on Malcolm Gladwell and a new book recommendation service, which were both quite topical - a rarity in these pages.

It's also interesting to note that there are two obituaries, for Dick Francis and Tom Clancy, in the top 10, while looking at the entry and referring sites and location of audience reveals some further oddities. But that's for another blog.

Colonoscopy: Why Titular Colons are More Prevalent in Modern Literature and How it Might Affect Classic Novels

Quick commiserations to Ed Hawkins, who this week just missed out on the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the Year (see earlier blog) - but the purpose of this posting is to pick up on something else I noticed in this year's longlist.

It struck me that it's remarkable how modern books, and modern sports books in particular, rely on the use of a titular colon. In fact, five of the six books on the shortlist contain further explanation within their titles, and the same is true of 14 of the 17 on the longlist.

From what would ultimately be crowned the winner, Doped: The Real Life Story of the 1960s Racehorse Doping Gang by Jamie Reid, to Hawkins' own Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Cricket’s Underworld (which contains a colon but omits any other form of punctuation!), it seems that using a colon has become the norm.

Although it's by no means a new phenomenon - look no further than Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character - what has been labelled by some as 'colin-isation' or 'title-rrhea' would certainly seem to be a growing trend.

Perhaps it's in part due to a greater acceptance of academic works, where the colon has long been more prevalent, or the greater competition for book sales and the resulting honed marketing efforts and use of terms that will more readily appear in search engines. Perhaps it's merely that the words that appear after the colon tend to be forgotten as time passes, as is the case with The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Whatever, the increasing use of titular colons has prompted some pretty witty reworkings of classic novels using the new format. Among my favourites I've found are The Grapes of Wrath, which becomes California Dreamin': Traveling Cheap in the Middle of an Economic Downturn, and Romeo and Juliet, which becomes The Teen Sex and Suicide Epidemic: What You Need to Know to Protect Yourself and Your Family. You can find more here if interested.

Is it something to get worked up about? Probably not. But I wonder if, subconsciously at least, there is anything in the fact that the vast majority of the 100 books I selected for my challenge were lacking in colons?

A review of progress

It's time to get back on the review horse, as no cowboy ever said in The Wild West.

Considering the fundamental reason for this blog's existence, to chronicle my efforts to read as much as I can, I've always found the reviews a bit of a struggle. When I was initially attempting to read 100 books in a year, the reviews got in the way of the actual reading, and then, since the end of 2010, I have proceeded with my life in the knowledge that some reviews from way back remain outstanding.

That said, in complete contrast to the sentiments above, finding unexpected literary links and writing the occasional non-review-based blog was among the most enjoyable aspects of the year, perhaps in part because it broke up those reviews. And thankfully, having re-read many of my reviews when I resumed this blog in August, I was pleased to discover that absence had indeed made the heart grow fonder and that I enjoyed going back to peruse my verdicts.

So, coming soon will be a veritable feast of literary assessment, analysis and opinion, including, at last, the final five books I've neglected for almost three years.
Those five books were: Road Dogs, by Elmore Leonard; Four-iron in the Soul, by Lawrence Donegan; Fevre Dream, by George RR Martin; Bush Falls, By Jonathan Tropper; and Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger.

What's more, because I've not given up reading over the past 30 months, here's a heads up of just some of the other reviews that will be coming your way in the foreseeable future: Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen; Bring Me Sunshine, by Charlie Connelly; Bounce, by Matthew Syed; How to be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran; The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstein; Trautmann's Journey, by Catrine Clay; Soccernomics, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski; Just My Type, by Simon Garfield; and Eleven, by Mark Watson.

So, let's get to it...

A sporting chance of success

It's just turned November and in the sports book industry that means only one thing: the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.

I love a sports book. If that fact wasn't reflected fully during my initial year-long challenge, it's probably because I was deliberately trying to broaden my literary tastes and select books more diverse than what I might normally have chosen. In fact, the few I did read (Simple Goalkeeping Made Spectacular, Lennie, Mankind, The Best After-Dinner Sports Tales, Penguins Stopped Play, The Beautiful Game, Jelleyman's Thrown a Wobbly and Wodehouse at The Wicket) were generally among my lowest rated.

Actually, looking back, the likes of Netherland, Even Money, Sex, Bowls & Rock & Roll, Crossfire and Outliers all contained strong sporting themes, so perhaps I didn't stray as far from the path as I thought I had. Regardless, there is less than a month to go until the winner of this year's award is announced, and I've just realised that I haven't read any of them.

I'm not just talking about the six shortlisted books either. There were 17 titles on the longlist, and I'm struggling to reconcile how none of them have thus far made it into my bookcase.

It's a bookcase that already contains 95 sports books (it didn't take me that long to count), excluding reference books. Even taking into account that 15 to 20 are related to Charlton that were mostly accumulated during my time at the club, it's a lot more than I thought I owned and, having just checked, contains almost 50 per cent of the previous 25 winners of the Sports Book of the Year award since 1989.

Unfortunately, going back to review them all would take forever and require thousands of words. I might go into detail about those I'm particular passionate at a later date if the mood strikes me, but while I'm on the subject, it's probably worth a few recommendations.

Going on the contents of my bookcase alone, if you haven't read Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby; A Season on the Brink, by John Feinstein; Provided You Don't Kiss Me, by Duncan Hamilton, My Father and other Working-Class Heroes, by Gary Imlach; The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro, by Joe McGinniss (provided you can stomach the Americanisms); and Friday Night Lights, by HG Bissinger, then you're missing out.

The first chapter of Hurricane, by Bill Borrows, is also absolutely brilliant (the rest of it is perfectly fine but struggles to match the opening), while the personal nature of this blog means I should also mention Stamping Grounds, by Charlie Connelly, for which I was chief photographer and in the pages of which I feature, and Many Miles... , by the same author, which I helped to edit and lay out.

At this point, I should also probably declare a personal interest in the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, in that I know one of the shortlisted authors - Ed Hawkins, who has been nominated for Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Cricket’s Underworld (Bloomsbury). That I haven't read it already reflects poorly on me, although it's understandably taking me a while to get past the startling omission of any punctuation whatsoever in the title.

Anyway, the winner will be announced on November 27th, so good luck Ed. Until then, if you're keen to read some more recommendations about sporting books, look no further than this list (and the knowledgeable comments underneath) of the best 10 sports books you've never heard of.

The personal touch

According to the dictionary I have closest to hand, to recommend something is "to commend to the attention of another as reputable, worthy, or desirable". Someone should really tell the likes of Amazon that.

A recommendation is a personal thing, it carries particular weight and meaning between two parties because of the relationship that exists between them, which is why word of mouth is such a powerful marketing tool.

When I clicked on Amazon today, though, the first screen I came to contained no fewer than 29 recommendations while also informing me of five items 'other customers were looking at right now'. From "More items to consider", via "Related to items you've viewed" to "Inspired by your browsing history" there is seemingly a category to cover every eventuality, every click I've made on the site and a suggestion related to everything that I've ever looked at.

All that's not to say that there is no place for Amazon, which I quite like even though I'm not oblivious to the questionable morals of its tax policy and the effect that such a juggernaut of a retailer is having in innumerable industries and, given the subject of this blog, on smaller booksellers in particular.

I'm not actually completely against such suggestions, only that the quantity seems wildly excessive. It's a scattergun approach devised by computer programmers that aims to pique your interest and attract further purchases by using evidence gained from the one occasion when you were looking for a Christmas present for your nan.

Which brings me to a new Tumblr book blog I came across called Go Book Yourself.

Billed as "Book recommendations by humans, because algorithms are so 1984", to say that it's a straightforward concept would be an exaggeration. Each post merely suggests four other books readers might like based on books they may already love.

It's that simple, yet because it seems so personal, it's hugely effective. In fact, I recommend it.

Farewell to a friend

We all have authors whom we read religiously and whose books we devour insatiably regardless of widely held critical opinion; authors whose books we snatch from a bookstore's shelves as soon as they are released.

After cursory thought, I think I've got three: Dick Francis, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler (and my library of Cussler books only began when I read a recommendation on the dust jacket of one of his early tomes that "Cussler is the guy I read" by Clancy).

Sadly, following news on Wednesday that Clancy had passed away, aged 66, Cussler is the only one of my triumvirate who remains alive. Dick Francis died during my original year-long book challenge and I wrote about it here.

At this stage, I should clarify that I'm only referring to Clancy's 'proper' work - his books rather than the many films (don't get me started on Harrison Ford's age suitability) and video games, In fact, I'm referring solely to those books written entirely by him, and not the money-spinning series for which he contributed ideas but which were largely diluted Clancy.

Given the amount of literature that exists in the world, I am appalled when I think of the number of times I must have read the likes of The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games, my personal favourites. My copy of Patriot Games is but a mere tattered memory of what it used to be - indeed, I must write a piece on the particular enjoyment of endlessly re-reading books.

The Hunt for Red October, a claustrophobic tale of a defecting Russian submariner, was Clancy's first novel, and probably his best. An author who clearly loved being meticulous about his research, he was obsessed with detail and crammed in as much as possible, sometimes to the detriment of the story.

For The Hunt for Red October, his publisher reportedly convinced him to cut 100 pages of such technical knowledge and - judging by future bloated works after The Hunt for Red October had established his bestselling reputation and started garnering him substantial advances - as Clancy's clout in the industry increased, the quality of his work suffered as you tried to locate the merest hint of the plot within 10 pages of the in-depth make-up of an atomic bomb or the strategic importance of a missile defence system.

Let's be clear, though: I loved it. In main character Jack Ryan, the marine who became an investment broker who became a teacher who became an intelligence officer who became a spy who became vice-president who became president (and did so in a manner convincingly enough that you accepted this career path), he created a hero who combined intelligence and bravery with a clear moral compass.

Clancy's thrillers may have reflected his conservative Republican nature - Ronald Reagan apparently called The Hunt for Red October 'my kind of yarn' - and been the polar opposite of my own views, but it made for a thrilling ride and he will be much missed.

Glad all over

Any cursory examination of the books I have reviewed will reveal that Malcolm Gladwell was among my favourite authors of my year spent on the 100-book challenge. I read three Gladwell books - Outliers, The Tipping Point and What the Dog Saw - in quick succession and a further (Blink) soon afterwards, and
promptly wished I hadn't because it resulted in a near three-year wait for his next opus.

Thankfully, the wait is almost over with the release of David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, what's been billed as a study of the balance of power between the weak and the strong, and how the small outwit the mighty.

I've been following the pre-release publicity, and it's clear that there has been a backlash to Gladwell's work; complaints that his anecdote-led arguments are too simplistic and that one of the ways he profits, through large scale seminars that regurgitate his work, take advantage of those who hold him up as a modern guru.

Indeed, there is a revealing Guardian interview with Gladwell that addresses those very points here - while an extract from David and Goliath can be read here.

For my part, I have no issue with Gladwell's easy-to-follow style of writing; in fact, I would argue that it's his main strength. As a reader primarily of fiction, particularly in my leisure time, if you'd told me in January 2010 that by the end of the year I would have read four largely sociological studies, and gone so far in the evangelical stakes as to recommend and even buy them for friends, I wouldn't have believed you.

Furthermore, it's prompted me to seek out similar work that I have hugely enjoyed over the past few years, such as Incognito, The Secret Lives of the Brain, by David Eagleman and Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed (both of which are highly recommended). So, I can't wait.

The blog is back

My name is Matt Wright and it's been two years, seven months and five days since I last blogged.

I suppose the immediate question is 'why?', and I'm afraid that an escalating workload is the mundane response.

Without wishing to shine too strong a light on personal matters, it's been a difficult many months, and now I find myself with some time on my hands and an ever-burning desire to keep writing something, anything, I suppose it's natural that I have returned to this blog.

I should point out that I did indeed read the 100th book of the one-year challenge (it was Catcher in the Rye) in early January 2011, and I have continued to read over the intervening months and years, but I never felt the urge to commit any thoughts to screen, partly due to the time involved.

Now though, the library is my oyster - or something like that.

I've mentioned previously (if you've forgotten, that's completely understandable, so check out the links to the right) how books can lift your spirits. So in that vein, I'm returning with a couple of tales/links I've come across in recent months.

The first couple are heart-warming stories of how art, once created, can take on a life of its own - Mind the Gap  and The Best Author Letter Ever.

This, meanwhile, is a terrific obituary of the sort that is rarely written in modern times where the hagiography generally rules - Hypocrite.

So, the blog is back. I've updated the 1-100 list, including links, and I do intend to go back and blog the books I passed over on as part of the challenge, if not those I've read in the meantime. But because you can't live in the past, I'm keen to read and post some new stuff, too.

I'm looking forward to it.