Going Forward…

So now that I am back into the world of blogging, what is the plan? The fact of the matter is that I don’t really have one. I know I want to keep it bookish, I mean obviously that isn’t even in question really – although someone did once say to me ‘why do a book blog and a book vlog’ and I think having been away from blogging for a while the answer is ‘I miss a bit of depth’. No, I don’t mean that I think all BookTube is shallow, quite the opposite I actually think it is brimming with some of the loveliest, most thoughtful and intelligent people I know. What I mean is that here I can really get into the depth of single books and my thoughts on them, something I find easier on paper than I do in speech. Partly because I really like a good tangent when I talk, also because to me there is a real craft in writing a review. I find them much easier than writing about a day trip out for example, which interestingly I find easier in a vlog. Anyway, this isn’t about blogging vs vlogging as I think they can complement each other or work for different audiences, same with The Readers podcast, not everyone likes every medium or even wants me on every medium. Throw in Twitter and Instagram and that is rather a lot of Savidgeness I have to admit.

So there will definitely be lots of reviews. That said I don’t think I will review everything that I read anymore, which I used to do. Why? Well, in the house I have a set of shelves on the landing which is all the books I have read but not yet reviewed for the blog since 2016 and to be frank a good third of them I don’t feel the need to tell you about because I either feel a bit ‘meh’ about them or I have nothing to say. This does mean I have a whole host of books I can talk about from those two years (and I will be doing so with some favourites if I haven’t sporadically whilst on my mini unofficial hiatus) though I won’t think about them too much as it might give me stage fright. Going forward though, I want to talk about both the bad and the fab (IMHO) books and why I loved them or not. Hopefully those books I love you might want to give a try, you might also want to give some of the ones I don’t because if I do reviews as I want to (and have always tried to) you might see something in them that piques your interest. I do not want to be someone whom if I loathe a book you should all damn it too, just as I don’t think you HAVE to get your mitts on every book I love however if you want to how lovely. I hope that makes sense.

So that’s books. Onto ‘bookish’ stuff. I think I will still do some prize stuff. I love reading the Women’s Prize longlist every year and have already roped my mother in to read them with me in 2019 which will be fun. I will of course be looking at the Costa Book Awards, I have seen this year’s judges getting parcels on social media and it has made me really nostalgic and miss it. The Wellcome is always on my radar and recently the Walter Scott Prize has really got my attention so I might go back to both their shortlists and have a mooch (might, I am not saying it is a definite). Plus Man Booker season is almost upon us, though my thoughts on Man Booker have become complex in the last year – maybe that is another post in itself.

I would also really like to do some ‘thoughts on reading’ kind of posts. They can selfishly be quite therapeutic. Speaking of selfishly, I would also love to do some posts on reading retreats, bookish places and bookish holidays – mainly because it would make me do more of them. I really enjoyed the Literary Trail with Northern Rail and would be excited to do that. On top of all that now I am working at a library, and such a stunner (see below, sorry not sorry that there may be lots of picture of it on this blog from now on) I would like to write about that in some way, if there is anything you would like to know let me know. We have some great projects coming up, so maybe behind the scenes around those and the library in general could work?

Then there is non-bookish stuff and here is where I am torn. On the one hand I loved how I felt there was a connection between readers of this blog and myself (and I suppose my life in many ways). I loved how you took my gran to your hearts so much when she made an appearance. However there have been struggles when times have been hard, like when she died or when my marriage broke up and I got divorced, that whilst it was lovely to have this community there it sometimes also felt like it was hard to escape or just put it all to bed. Yet at the same time in hindsight I wish I had written more about grief or a marriage break up as it might have helped people should they have come across it. So for example I could share the doing up of the house, though I am not sure if I want to, or will even be allowed to, share how there may be little Savidge’s coming into my life. Yet to write about the process could be helpful for other people. Hmmmm. Tricky. This all probably sounds very grand and I don’t want it to. I am just typing out loud 😉 I would be interested in your thoughts.

I do know I would like to write about some of the cultural things I get up to. Visits to castles and stately homes, concerts maybe, days out to beautiful parts of the North West etc. The things I am interested in that you might be too – so no politics, I promise, in fact no big world troubles as sometimes we all need escape from that. I might also bring back some series and maybe get some contributions going now and again.

What do you all think? What would you like to see in terms of books, bookish bits and bobs and non-bookish Savidge stuff? I would be really, really interested to know. So spill…