So where have you gone, bibliobibuli?

I apologise for not having kept up this blog. I know quite a number of you were disappointed.

A number of things happened. I was going through a bit of a rough patch and hit a bump in the road as far as reading is concerned. I simply couldn't read for a while. I came back to reading via short fiction and have been enjoying many writers I've discovered Robert Olen Butler, Ron Rash, T.C. Boyle, Cynthia Ozick. I also got pulled back to reading by Tan Twan Eng's gorgeous The Garden of Evening Mists, which I read slowly, a chapter a day, really savouring it. Now I'm reading more than ever and thoroughly enjoying myself again.

I think that one of the pleasures and problems with being a blogger about books is that you keep getting manuscripts and books passed to you. I ended up feeling guilty about those I wasn't enjoying and they ate into my reading time.

Perhaps there is such a thing as "blogger burnout". Several things came together. I found it hard to summon up as much enthusiasm and time and energy as I had formerly - especially as I was so busy with my classes. I realised that the blog which had started off as being something I kept for me to think through certain issues was being kept more for other people than for me. I got a bit upset when Facebook came along and everyone started commenting there rather than on the blog, even if I asked them not to. The party had clearly moved elsewhere, something that I've now come to accept.

I also watched with horrified fascination as the comments on this blog got taken up with personal agendas and ding-dongs. I never wanted to censor the comments on the blog, but I should have reigned some of the excesses.

I felt too that there were always too many thing to blog and not enough time to put them up.

The worst thing that happened though was most of the pictures suddenly disappearing from the blog after I started using Google+ and accidentally pulled the plug on them. (I thought "What are these pictures doing here when I haven't posted them?") So I have to slowly replace them or get rid of the gaps where the pictures used to be.

Then too, I felt the blog had become a bit of a  mish-mash with all sorts of content about book,s writing, publishing, live events, reviews, mixed up.

So my solution - yes I'm on Facebook and Twitter. I have also started using Scoop.it - and am "curating" (silly word!) literary-related content across a number of boards which you can follow if you are interested in literary news.

I will keep this blog here because the archives are important and keep it for reviews and opinion pieces rather than every day news.