Well, that was a long silence, wasn’t it? I have moved my site over from Blogger. I took the first steps a couple of years ago but didn’t follow up on the maintenance/correction issues necessary until now. I am on the last page reviews of correcting or updating posts. I plan on posting on books I’m reading and hopefully catching up on some of the books I’ve read the past (silent) years. You would think with something that has been going since 2006 I would have some certainty on where I’m going with this project. Diversion. Passion. Eccentricity. However you want to describe it. I’m still working on that since it constantly seems to be changing, but I want to get things up and running first at the new site before I plot a definite course. Which will, of course, change down the road.

I do want to mention Ian Johnston and his site johnstonia as an inspiration for what I wanted to do. He was the first one on the internet that I ran across that demonstrated to me what could be achieved with such a website. Unfortunately I’m without the intelligence, education, or insights, but hopefully with the passion for reading that comes across in his links. There have been many other sites since then that have inspired me, too, and you’ll see them in links and mentions. I want to put a shout out of gratitude to the intrepid bloggers that have inspired and befriended me over the years, many of whom may be long gone from posting but are still fondly remembered. It was a loose-knit group that encouraged me and others over the years. Many thanks to all of you reaching out to me over the years.

The switch to a new site was painful, having to review each post (>1300) and each link within them. None of the internal links (which were numerous) updated correctly. I tried to check the external links as well, making sure they were still active, changing the links to those that were easy to find which had changed platforms, too, or finding other links that had the same information. Too often, links were dead, but what do you expect over 18 years? Picture sources were probably the greatest casualties, where I kept the image but wasn’t able to provide a live link for the source. I deleted many links that were to websites that no longer existied, which made me sad because of the wealth of information once available there. I only deleted a few of my older posts that had to do with my online reading because I got tired of searching for articles that don’t appear to exist online anymore. If you read through the posts and know of something that can be re-linked to an original source, please let me know because I want to acknowledge the work someone has done. I’ve seen too many posts that assume just because it’s available online it is fair game to rip off. I’ve seen my own work ripped off that way and I understand the frustration. I want to give credit where credit is due.

A few last words on what I learned in reading back through every post of the blog… The first word would be “humbling.” I reluctantly chose that over “cringing.” I recognize that feeling is going to be consistent through the years as I realize I posted things that I (or others) will find cringe-worthy. A major reason I started the blog was that I realized I read a work differently if I knew I had to write or talk about it to someone else, trying to convey what I experienced and what was impactful for me in the work. Also, I found that reading a classic work a second time (or multiple times) yielded something different on repeated visits. One goal I stated early on in this blog was that to make writing about a work easier the more I practiced it. On that goal, I can say I’ve been a failure. I still struggle on what to say, how to say it, etc. But…and hopefully this is a big but…I have found it easier in approaching writing about them.

So welcome to the new site! I hope to provide some posts that interest you and inspire you to visit some of the works I post about. Feel free to explore the old posts, too. I’m probably going to change how I approach posting, but hopefully you’ll find them useful as well. And I will continue to post personal stuff that won’t appeal to anyone but me. And hopefully to my family long after I’m gone.