Reviews

Durham, NS, Canada

I have long been searching for some higher purpose for my website beyond being yet another personal weblog. I can’t deny that has mostly been the purpose for the past five years that I have been maintaining some form of presence online. And why not? I have been at it long enough, enjoy doing it and it pleases those people closest to me to know what I am up to.

I guess my main problem at the moment is that I am at a lull. It is a hard act to follow two years of traipsing around in foreign countries and meeting some incredible people along the way. And despite my love for my “home and native land,” I feel a little anxious to move on. That is the plan—I will be moving to Bermuda within the month—but in the meantime I have been spending my time at home. It has been wholly relaxing and I have no regrets, but certain things suffer, like my motivation to write.

So in the course of my online travels today, I came across an idea to supplement the content of my site until such a time as I am on another adventure which will arm me with the ammo needed to blast away at my own material. That idea was to review other people’s writing. More specifically books, novels that I have read. Coming off a few months at home I have quite a few under my belt, and it might be somewhat useful to a hapless web traveler who stumbles across the site and has their eyes opened to a good book.

Despite the vast number of hours I spend in front of a computer, I do have a great love of a good book, I always have since before I could even read myself and my caring and knowledgeable parents would read to me. I shudder to think of the untold fortune my parents spent on books as I was growing up. It was an investment for sure, one that paid off fourfold for myself and my three younger brothers. An investment that I attribute directly to the academic success I have achieved thus far in life. From Dr. Seuss to the complete set of Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, the printed word has been a good teacher in my life. I was even caught as a child reading the phone book. Most if not all of those books still weigh down the large set of shelves we had installed covering one whole wall of our rec. room. So I will see if I can turn this longtime love into something productive for others.

Yet, before I begin, I will offer one warning:

I read books to escape. For the most part, my preferred reading would be a novel, more specifically one in the mystery, adventure or crime drama genres. I love a good who-dunnit, packed with twists and turns regardless of how predictable they may be. I am a pretty forgiving reader, one that any author would like because once I find one that I like, I tend to read as many of that author’s books as I can. That said, I am not without my limits, and I have been known to leave a book unfinished if it doesn’t capture my attention in the correct way. I’m also a bit of a sucker for a series, a collection of books featuring the same characters with the option of an underlying continuity to it, just don’t make me need to start with the first book in order to understand the others. Finishing a book should make me feel like I have completed something satisfying, and at the same time leave be craving more of the same. That will keep me picking up something else to replace it. So what you won’t see from me are reviews of classic “literature” or hard hitting memoirs. I read escapist fiction, I read popular books and usually love them. I read for enjoyment, not to impress people with my book list. Take from this what you will.

Written by Colin Bate