THE YEAR IN REVIEW - 2007
By Alex Good
January 1, 2008
Instead of looking back on the year that was, this year's
"Year in Review" takes the form of an announcement. After years of complaining about the various factors that have
made running this site a "tough slog," I will be taking 2008 off. What
this means is that I won't be updating the site with daily links, or running the
Anthology, or posting a
monthly Trivia Challenge, or making any comments on the latest Book
News. Since I will continue to write reviews I will be posting them (or
linking to them) here, but don't expect a lot of activity. Perhaps a couple of
reviews a month, if that.
Here are the reasons for this - hopefully temporary - hiatus:
(1) A combination of burnout and the sense of being overwhelmed by
the amount of stuff I have to read. I've mentioned the mounting pile of material
I have to get through before, but it has now reached a critical mass. I probably
have enough books on hand now to keep me happily reading until the end of my
days. Meanwhile, a lot of the stuff I end up reviewing isn't what I want to
read. There are only so many hours in a day for
reading (if you can even manage an hour a day), and the opportunity costs of
only reading new releases are terrible. It makes a lot more sense to spend my time
- or at least more of my time - reading (and re-reading) books that I'm pretty sure
I'm going to
enjoy rather than just rolling the dice with the new stuff.
(2) After eleven years on the beat, I think I've started to
repeat myself. I find this happening especially with the news briefs I write.
When Amazon's Kindle came out this year I thought of saying something, but the
fact is I've written about e-books at least three times in the past eight years
and I didn't think I had anything more to say. For the record (again), I think
some sort of digital reader will become popular in the future, probably starting
off with students making use of reference books or textbooks in this format. But I don't
think we're there yet, especially in terms of functionality and price. People
made a big deal about the Kindle allowing you to download bestsellers for $9.99.
For a file you don't even own? I would have thought a dollar sounded
right.
Alas, however it happens I think the transformation of literature into mere
content, books into files, will diminish our experience of the
written word, making it seem all the more disposable.
(3) The Internet sucks. Well, maybe that's a bit strong. But you
know what I mean. So much of it now just seems to be the latest and
greatest way to deliver ads. As with television the ads have become the real
content, with the extreme attention-deficit style of content only something to
catch eyeballs. Of course it's not all bad. I'm grateful for things like
Wikipedia. But then there's all the malicious code and adware and spam you have
to cut through. And the
bottom line is that more and more I feel like time spent on the Internet is
wasted time. It's always a relief to turn the computer off last thing at night.
I even have fantasies of being totally Internet-free at some point in the future.
Right now being online is still a necessity, but I am starting to make plans . .
.
(4) All those personal and professional obligations that fall under the
general heading "Life." This include work on several book projects. If I'm going to get these done I'm going to have ration my
discretionary time, which means less time spent on book chat.
Best wishes for a safe and happy New Year,
Alex Good
alex@goodreports.net
