Last May 1, I officially started Rebecca Reads. I had been tinkering with a site for a few days and I post-dated some pseudo-reviews that I’d written for a personal site, but it wasn’t until May 1 that I opened the site to Google and started linking to it when I commented on your sites.  I hoped to have a few books reviewed a month, and some meme answers. I hoped someone would read it.

Sentimental Thoughts on Blogging

The first site I found in the book blogging world was Maw Books, followed by Dewey’s Hidden Side of a Leaf. I copied Dewey’s blogroll so I had a place to start, and from there I’ve branched out into hundreds of blogs. (I am subscribed to more than 200 book blogs now.)  When I first started blogging, I joined the memes (especially Booking through Thursday and Weekly Geeks) on a regular basis.

Then I found myself reading at least three times more than I did prior to blogging. I began struggling to keep up with the reviews from the books I’ve been reading, and I am still struggling. Maybe this is a phase of blogging that will pass: I am usually about three to six books behind in my reviewing! I personally think this means I need to stop reading quite so much.

At any rate, that first month, I had an average of 10 visitors a day. (Trish was my very first visitor.) Now I average between 200 and 300, with more than 130 subscribed to my feed. And I keep writing and posting my posts because I want to hear your thoughts: I love discussing books.

But I also write my posts for me. I want a record of my feelings when I read this book this month. Each time I read a book the experience is different. I want to remember the impression each book left with me. I want to learn from my reading. Rebecca Reads is helping me do that; thank you for your encouragement with each comment.

A Contest with a Giveaway

Would you like any one of the books I’ve reviewed in the past year?

I’d like to giveaway any one of the books I’ve reviewed – a new copy from Amazon shipped to anyone in the world.

Here’s the riddle:

There is a post on Rebecca Reads that is viewed over all other posts. It is about a book that is searched for more than any other book. In the keyword searches, this book shows up in nine of the top ten slots in various different keyword combinations. The post about this book has had the top number of views every single month since the day I posted it.

What book is it?

You can search my Reviews by Title database or the general archive. Please submit your first guess in the comments. If more than one person gets it, I’ll select a winner using random.org. If no one guesses it, I’ll select a random winner using random.org.

I will send the winner a new copy of any one of the books I’ve reviewed on Rebecca Reads. If you want, you can mention in the comments which book you’d like to get if you win. But you don’t have to choose now: you can simply be thinking about it as you browse the archives!

The deadline to enter your guess is May 22.