11 replies to this topic

[Somniphore]

Hello, All.

Recently, I've been working pretty hard to maintain a literary review blog, and I wanted to get an idea of what you all thought.

Right now, the blog consists of book reviews only, but I'd like to eventually start adding the journals that I keep while reading, as well as any insights that I may glean from the work itself.

You can find the blog here:

http://belletristicerr.blogspot.com/

I'd love to hear what you all think, and I'm quite open to suggestions.

Thanks, everyone

[Imperial Arts]

Somniphore, on 04 August 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

I'm quite open to suggestions.

Book reviews are extremely important to me. I look for a well-written and insightful article that gives me an idea of what to expect from a book in terms of its depth and composition. For people who read a lot, it's very disappointing to find that an author has simply re-made characters from earlier works by other authors, or has employed tired plot devices without anything substantial added, so knowing that a reviewer has read the related literature is a key part of taking a review seriously.

My only suggestion is to remove the dendritic pattern from the background. The shaded areas conflict with the text and make your writing difficult to see.

[Somniphore]

Thanks for the input. I'm thinking of possibly lightening the tree in the background before doing away with it altogether.

[voidgazing]

I've gots a bit of feedback for you- and thanks for doing this, I can echo IA on the value of reviews (and the background).

I realize you probably used a template here, but: It has restricted your text to a pretty narrow column and wasted quite a bit of space. The pretty-much-empty div on the left can stand to get smaller, and the one on the right has no reason to exist at all aside from those three profiley bits at the top. Maybe try finding one that puts them at the top, horizontally laid out next to each other. Make the content a bit bigger and (personal preference here) use a sans-serif font like Calibri.

[Somniphore]

Thank you both for your help.

Working between a laptop and a desktop with a 20+ inch monitor has made it difficult to find an objective view of things, but I think it's starting to pan out.
The tree has got to stay - still working on getting it lightened up a bit, and I think that altering the text size has helped.

Often, I've wondered how I can create a better marriage between my love of reading and writing - this blog seems to be a success in that regard. Visual aesthetic aside, what are your thoughts on the content?

[Somniphore]

Alright y'all, I've given the site a major overhaul. What do you think?

http://belletristicerr.blogspot.com/

Also, I've just added a new review of an amazing book, Life of Pi. I really wanted to get a crack at it before the film's release later this year, and I'm so glad that I did!

Edited by Somniphore, 05 August 2012 - 10:44 PM.

[voidgazing]

Very nice!

[Somniphore]

http://belletristice...d-meridian.html - This is the latest one.

Additionally, the site has undergone some minor changes here and there. Tell me what you think!

[Somniphore]

http://belletristice...rican-gods.html - I know some of you all had been discussing this recently.

[Somniphore]

http://belletristice...book-thief.html Mark Zusak's The Book Thief.

[Somniphore]

http://belletristice...ht-eternal.html - Not my best effort, admittedly.

[Somniphore]

Newest review - http://belletristice...ew-lullaby.html