It's a real problem for the reading and book tracking obsessed: must you add books half-finished at the end of 2017 to that year's tally (post-mortem, as it were), even if you don't finish them until 2018, or is it morally justified migrating them to first reads of 2018? My Code of Ethics Regarding …
Category: Blogging

Live, from Scotland!
Coming to you live from Bonnie Scotland. I'll be reviewing for UK publishers and venues through the next few months, up and running here at Bluestalking. You'll find me at the Edinburgh International Literary Festival in August, attending events, standing very close to authors, reading and buying books, enjoying the roar of the grease …
On blogging and reading, past and present
When I started writing Bluestalking, it was a place to share my pure love of literature with other bloggers and readers of blogs. I wasn't a reviewer, hadn't yet known the sweet, sweet bliss of a steady stream of free review books in the mail. Book blogs were on the rise, but not nearly …
well, it’s like thiz…
I haven't been here in so long I've actually forgotten how to post. How to post. How to post. How to post. I've been blogging for what, a decade? And I totally forgot the steps it takes to go from letterz to wordz to a coherent grouping of said letterz in order to form wordz. …
Hang onto your hat, Lucille
I know I change themes a lot. I get restless, okay? But there's this new theme at WordPress, a premium theme you have to pay money to get. And I lust it. So, I think I'm going to switch. But this will be, I promise, my forever theme. Unless I change my mind. Which I …
I don’t want to clean house for the party
I'm chatty of late. But I need something to do, to stop my fidgety widgety. I also want to avoid cleaning house and take my mind off the creepy feeling I get when my piece (stop it) is back in the hands of an editor, after corrections. Know that almost unbearable feeling of exposure …
When critical impartiality fails
There comes a time reviewers risk becoming dangerously involved in an author's work, too involved to maintain impartiality without exerting great and conscious self-control. Without noticing it, you become slanted. Every now and then it's not a bad idea to remind yourself the integrity of professionalism demands lack of prior judgment - good or bad. …
Why author interviews?
I'm working on transferring my collected author interviews from Bluestalking's former Typepad location over here to WordPress, so if you're seeing a million tweets announcing each post, that's why. Sorry for that, in advance. I've been trying to close the Typepad site since last June; clearly I'm not moving very quickly on that resolution. I …
The future of book blogging: where we’ve been, where we’re going
We are, most of us, volunteers who provide a free service to writers, acting as their PR and/or marketing agents without the benefit of the title. Through rants, raves and simple mentions we raise the visibility of books and writers who may or may not need the help, though they generally do, unless their names …
Continue reading The future of book blogging: where we’ve been, where we’re going
I’m doing it… Finally.
I'm starting the process of hauling over old posts from the Typepad incarnation of Bluestalking, starting at the way back - of 128 pages of posts - bringing over what seems of use or interesting. To me, that is, because it's a journal of what I was reading and when, not always material that's scintillating …