This is the very first blog I have ever written, partly because I've never found anything particularly compelling to write about before, and partly because I didn't know how. So far, the experience of setting up the blog has gone smoothly and has been more simple than I thought (although I suspect there must be some sort of pitfalls I haven't noticed yet). I may attempt to make the design more individual at some point, though at the moment I have no idea how to do this. I'm hoping (optimistically/naively?) it will be intuitive. At the moment I have kept everything as simple as possible, using default settings and such, until I feel at bit more confident about how the whole thing works.
In the meantime (on a non blog related topic), I have just ordered an Amazon Kindle and am interested to find out how much it will alter my reading habits. I'm quite excited about it, at the same time as feeling treacherous and as if I have betrayed the good old printed book. Even before it's arrived, I've been downloading books, and have become quite preoccupied with trying to think of books I want to read that will be available for free. At the moment, I only want to download free books, as I feel a bit dubious about the permanence of an ebook. I'd be dreadfully upset if my whole expensive personal library disappeared one day! (This is probably an unjustified fear.) My theory is that I will still read paper books most of the time (because I like them), but will use my kindle when I am travelling about. I found a nice quotation which I think illustrates some of the advantages of a paper book over an ebook:
"A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins" ~Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia, 1833
I hesitated slightly about the legality of including this quotation, but as the author died more than 70 years ago, I think it should be ok.
http://www.cla.co.uk/copyright_information/copyright_information/
Great first ever blog!
ReplyDeleteYou can change designs/colours etc by going to the 'dashboard at the top of your blog screen. From here pick the Design option and then the 'template designer' option. Do get in touch with the team if you need more help though.
Interesting to see how you find the kindle too.
Rowena 23 Things Team
I agree with Rowena, that's a wonderful blog post. You write much better than I do.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the blogosphere!
Hazel, your words are mellifluous and lucid. I, too, agree that books have that certain extra quality, a je nais se quoi.
ReplyDeleteHi Hazel,
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see how you find the Kindle. What will you be reading first? It's nice to see a bibliophile keen to experiment with Kindles.
That's a good quote too! I use quotes all the time and never worry about the legality of it... Perhaps I should. I'm currently half way through Reality Hunger by David Shields (http://library.city.ac.uk/record=b1487163*eng), which is a literary manifesto that seems to demand more cut&paste and unattributed quoting in literature.
I generally find that someone cleverer had said what I want to say already (and with much more erudition). I also like reading other people's favourite quotes - it allows me to find out about books and writers that I would not have discovered otherwise.
Thank you kindly everyone!
ReplyDeleteThanks Rowena, I will have a play about with that.
Hi Matthew, at the moment I am reading Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. So far, I'm enjoying the novelty of the kindle, but I have to admit, it doesn't feel as nice as a real book! I know what you mean about quotes often saying something you want to say. I also often find quotes which make me wonder why I never thought of that!
I like your quote. There aren't enough buttered muffin related quotes on the internet in my view...
ReplyDeleteLike your copyright link too. (There aren't enough of those on the internet either but I won't start off down *that* road...)
:-)
Have you had a chance to look at some of the Things from week 2? Interesting to see what you think about igoogle and google reader.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't have time for everything, then do some of them this week and the rest the next as there are only 2 Things plus the Cool Extra Thing next week.
Next week's Cool Extra Thing is very fun though!
Rowens 23 Things Team