“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” ― Bill Watterson, The Calvin and HobbesTenth Anniversary Book.
And that is exactly what I did today. Because, obviously, I’d trust a Calvin and Hobbes advice with my life! (Does anyone else think that the comic strips cover a lot of deeply profound, existentialist issues, or is it just me?)
Needless to say, it’s been a beautiful and oddly fulfilling day. In the daily struggle of life and making ends meet, I’d forgotten what it felt like to sit down with a good book, a cup of coffee and relax. Simply stated, it’s exhilarating!
In addition, once the little grey cells had been thus stimulated, I got to thinking. I realised I’ve recieved a couple of offers from Authors and Publishing Houses for ebooks and advance copies of books in exchange for an honest review. On further research, I found that providing a review is the best way to help an author out. Amazon and all other e-commerce websites show preferential listings based on number of reviews. Even if you keep the commerical aspect aside, isn’t it nice to drop a few nice words if you’ve enjoyed reading someone’s work?
I know I’m beyond joyful whenever someone reads, likes and/or comments on any of my posts. Just imagine the amount of anxiety and impatience with which authors, who have devoted their time, emotions, energy and their life and soul into creating a book for our reading pleasure, must be awaiting our feedback?
Hence, I’ve decided I will set all procastrination aside, get down to reading the books that have so kindly been sent to me and write reviews for them. I’ve also decided to go ahead and not limit this activity to just Amazon and Goodreads.
I’ll shortly be opening an “All Things Book” section on my blog covering reviews, recommendations, genre based listopia, et al. (In case you were wondering what the news bit in the title was all about)
The purpose of putting up this announcement is single-fold. I want to assure all my lovely readers that all reviews and recommendations will be strictly honest. I’m not getting paid for doing this. I love to read, I love to share my views on the books I’ve read, and thus, I’d love to spread the word. I’d also be sharing book recommendations on old books (i.e., not the ones garnering publicity recently or the ones that have been released in the past two years) that I’ve loved reading, hence, they’d obviously be honest. Therefore, I hope to get your whole-hearted support in this venture just like you take out time for showering love on all my other blog posts.
PS- In case you write book reviews anywhere, I have a simple request. Please keep mum in case you didn’t like a book, don’t badmouth it. You can give your rating but please choose words carefully while writing your reviews. You see, any book, whether good are bad as per your opinion, is the product of a lot of love and work. If you like something, say it out loud, if you don’t, please don’t hurt the writer unless a constructive criticism has been specifically asked for. It can be very disheartening. The amount of vitriol I’ve witnessed people pouring out on Goodreads shook me to the core. It’s very easy to ascertain whether you’d like a book or not within the first 10-20 pages, so don’t call it a waste of time if you still went on and read the entire thing. Put it down! Don’t accuse the author for worsening your day. Just saying!
Thank you for reading! Please let me know your views on my idea and future plans in the comments section down below. I’d love to have your feedback!
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Moonlighting Scrivener 