2006 Is DONE!

January 23, 2021 ~ Bookstooge ~ 34 Comments

I know, you probably think I’m a little late to the party. Admit it. In my defense, it’s only been 15 years. And besides, 2006 was a good year. Tennant was the Dr and Billy Piper was his lovely companion. Good memories!

Anyway, this is just a little note to myself that I’ve finished down to 2006 in my Blog Construction Project. Every time I get to knock another year off the To-Do list is a good moment for me. 2005-2000 is looking more and more doable. So be happy and rejoice with me!

Oh Hurray!

November 14, 2020November 14, 2020 ~ Bookstooge ~ 23 Comments

I just finished editing the blog (for today, not as in “It is Finished”) and have gotten 2007 done. This was a huge step, as 2007 was when I started recording the volumes of manga that I read alongside the novels, which meant that my numbers exploded on a monthly basis. With 2007 and up done, what I still have to do back to 2000 is much more manageable.

I’ve been working on this Project for the last 2 1/2 years and I must admit, there are times I wonder if it will ever get done. Then there are the times when something like the Block Editor happens and I wonder if I’ve wasted my time. Thankfully, little milestones like this keep me going. It is also a milestone in that I have now passed the 3400 post mark.

While the end of this project isn’t exactly near, it’s a LOT nearer than it was 2 1/2 years ago 😀 I guess I should probably start thinking of what my next blog project should be.

Anyway, this just felt good to accomplish this today and I thought I’d share. Cheers!

Why I’m Working on the Blog

October 17, 2020 ~ Bookstooge ~ 52 Comments

When I’ve posted about the fact that I am Working on the Blog, I didn’t think of some of the smaller reasons that have recently come to my attention. The following is one of the unexpected benefits of doing this fiddly kind of work.

I keep my reviews in a program on my computer called Calibre. It’s an ebook manager but has the capability of being a database for reviews. Instead of just using a spreadsheet, I use calibre so I can include covers, etc. Anyway, today I woke up rather early and decided to get another month from 2007 out of the way, so I began creating reviews. When I do this, I also double check what is on my blog against what I have in my calibre database just to make sure I’ve got the complete picture. 99% of the time they agree. It’s that bleeding 1% you have to worry about 😉

Sure enough, today was a 1%’er of a time. I was putting up the review for Down the Long Hills by Louis L’Amour and was copy/pasting my review and when I checked in calibre, my review there stated “no original review, here’s a blurb”. My guess is that I had a record of reading the book from my time at Devilreads but that the review got lost in the transition to Booklikes and when I tried to search my blog for Down the Long Hills, since it was in a monthly post and not it’s own, it didn’t show up. You wouldn’t believe how many books I’ve read, that are in my monthly posts, that won’t come up in a search. It is one of the reason I’m doing this. This time I was able to update my calibre library with an actual snippet. That is always a good thing.

All of this to pretty much say that today’s been a good day so far and it’s only 5am. It’s either going to turn out to be a great day or a really baaaaad day 😀

Happy Sabbath all.

Dombey and Son: I’ve read 28%

October 4, 2020September 19, 2020 ~ Bookstooge ~ 38 Comments

One of the things I still miss about Booklikes was their Update style of posts for the books you were reading. It was easy to add a bunch of info that looked good. I don’t do many “Currently Reading” posts because I haven’t found a good style that I like and that “fits” my sense of style. But this was just too much to hold inside and I needed to get it out.

I am currently reading Dombey and Son. One of the side characters, a Captain Cuttle, is trying to help one of the main characters, a young man named Walter who works for Mr Dombey. Captain Cuttle has the best of intentions but sadly, every time he opens his mouth he is making things worse. I am literally cringing as I read the current couple of paragraphs.

We all know people like that, I’m sure. Good hearted folk who really are trying to help others and everyone wishes they wouldn’t.
Ok, that is vented. Thanks for listening.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make a classy “Book Update” post, please, let me know. I’d love to have a template so I can do more of these when I end up with lots of feelz whilst reading a book. Here’s a prototype picture of what I’m hoping to use as the header for all my update/currently reading/quote posts:

Construction Continues

September 27, 2020September 5, 2020 ~ Bookstooge ~ 28 Comments

If you’ve started following me in the last 6 months or so, and you get my posts by email, you might have noticed there are times you get a TON of emails. Short story, I’m working on Phase II of my Blog Construction plan.

Here’s the post I originally wrote in 2018 that goes into more detail than you really ever wanted to know. But it adequately explains what is going on and what to expect:

Bookstooge Under Construction

To My Recent Followers…

March 26, 2020 ~ Bookstooge ~ 11 Comments

under-construction

If you’ve started following me in the last year, and you get my posts by email, you might have noticed there are times you get a TON of emails. Short story, I’m working on Phase II of my Blog Construction plan.

Here’s the post I originally wrote in 2018 that goes into more detail than you really ever wanted to know. But it adequately explains what is going on and what to expect:

Bookstooge Under Construction

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Currently Reading: Valor (and it’s not looking good)

June 8, 2019June 7, 2019 ~ Bookstooge ~ 45 Comments

valor (Custom) Even after my abysmal start with John Gwynne and his arrogant debut with Malice, I was the bigger man and decided to give the rat a second chance. The book hadn’t even started and the (what can I use as a pejorative that isn’t a profanity? I need a word that adequately describes my dislike of the man, the author, the style and in fact, every single thing about him) son of a ghuhn was already rubbing my face in his sickening, overwheening pride. The Cast of Characters was right at the beginning of the book and if you remember (and if you don’t I’m going to remind you), my first big complaint was that Gwynne debuted a first book in a series with over 45 named characters. Well, that rat ghuhn listed 94 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (I know, because I counted them) characters in his cast of characters. I stuck my tongue into the corner of my mouth, calmly closed my kindle Oasis and didn’t read another word for over 24hrs.

I had to think. So I turned to the series of books that I consider to be the most dense, the most depressing, the best written and the most awesome of storylines, the Malazan Books of the Fallen. In Reaper’s Gale the Cast of Characters is 153. However, that was Book 7 of a series of 10, where each book was actually a double novel. So I checked out the second book, Deadhouse Gates and it clocks in at around 84 characters.

Honestly, I can’t figure out why I have such problems with Gwynne doing this when I’ve seen it done already. Maybe because I now associate Malazan and Erikson with 1000 page nihilistic existentialism soap box preaching and complete and utter authorial disregard for actually telling a story? And I’m concerned Gwynne is going to go down that road? I already know this is grim stuff, so that strikes against it but I can’t figure it out. That bugs the living daylights out of me.

Right now, the following is ME and what you can’t see is John Gwynne prostrate at my feet as I decide if I’ll swing the axe or not.

I started reading again last night and I’m still on the fence. If you don’t see a review of this next week you’ll know I stuck to it.

bookstooge (Custom)

ps,

I found the perfect term. Dirty Louse.

To My Email Followers…

March 23, 2019March 11, 2019 ~ Bookstooge ~ 21 Comments

email-alerts-update

While I mentioned this in passing in my last Roundup&Ramblings post, I figured I’d better do a separate post so there wasn’t any confusion.

In January I completed Phase One of my Blog Construction Plans. As such, now I am moving into Phase Two, which is a much bigger undertaking and more intrusive, IF you happen to get emails from me. As I will be creating new posts for each review that I formerly lumped together in monthly posts, even though they are backdated, WordPress still considers them new posts and sends them to everyone on the email list.

This is just a fair warning post to let you know that while I’ve toyed around with this Phase Two, I am hoping to really start things in earnest next month. So be advised you could be getting an additional 5-20 posts emailed to you each month.

That is all.

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A Side Project

August 21, 2018August 20, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 41 Comments

side project

Back in April I ran across this post about 100 Books. I’ve finally started working on my own version, which I’ve divided into books I hate and books I love. I’ll be linking each title to it’s review here on wordpress. As such, I’ll be having to create whole new posts for about half the books as they were simply in my monthly posts from years ago.

What this means is that those of you who are subscribed to get an email every time I put up a new post will be getting a small flood of emails over the next few weeks. You might have experienced it already this past weekend. Thankfully, this still advances my overall Site Update plans, so I don’t feel this is taking away from that project. That is already going slow enough, sigh.

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Just wanted to give you all the heads up. Once the Project is done, I plan on making the list one of the static pages here on WP, along with “About”, “Star Ratings” and “Review Policy”.

Carry on.

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Site Update

May 13, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 48 Comments

I have decided that it is time to clean this dump up. While my book reviews number in the 1000’s (currently just under 3000), they aren’t all nicely posted one book to a post. From 2000 until 2009 I did monthly posts where I just lumped them all together. It makes searching here on WordPress a nightmare and linking to previous reads or mentions of older books? Forget about it!!! Matt’s Post about him working on his blog inspired me to get my backside in gear and to begin making this place workable.

I’ve got two main phases of construction that need to happen.

First, posts from Mid-2012 through the present need to be cleaned of all links to my old GR account that no longer exists or has covers & links to Booklikes, which I can’t count on staying alive much longer. I then need to add updated data. This includes covers, series information, maybe links and appropriate tags. This is the easiest as each book is still its own post. For the most part, this level of work won’t affect what you see here at all, even if you are email subscribed, unless I come across a discrepancy between wordpress and Calibre. I’m hoping this should be all taken care of by the end of this year.

The second phase is going to be the most intensive and will affect anyone who subscribes to “new” posts by email. I’ll have to go through each monthly post from 2000 through 2012 and write a separate post for each entry in the monthly post. So anywhere from 10-20+ new posts for each month. That is a phracking lot of writing. I’m guessing this phase of construction is going to take years. I won’t be bothering with adding covers to those posts, but there will still be all the prerequisite data that needs to be entered. So once again, series, rating, tags, links, etc. This is the main reason for this post. Any of you who subscribe by email will be getting inundated with emails once this starts up. Obviously, that time is a ways off, but if you have it in the back of your mind, it won’t come as a complete surprise.

I’ve been working on Phase 1 for about 2 weeks now. I can do a couple of months worth of the Phase 1 work each weekend. I pushed it last weekend and did almost 9 months worth of data. That caused me to just be completely “worded” out. This weekend I’m limiting myself to a month each evening, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Seems to be working out ok without burning me out.

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