I had plans, oh how I had plans! I was so totally, absolutely, gonna open my own little online bookstore on this domain. I had done it—helped run an online bookstore—for the past decade for someone else, so why not do it for myself, now that I am no longer running theirs? Of course, it comes down to time and space and income, as do all things in this society. So, if I don't have the time or space (even if the income is getting better), what do I do with this, the best of all domains?

I USE IT.

Yeah, that's right! But… for what? I've just finished putting together a similar blog site for myself, as a catch-all place for my thoughts, and now I want to start another blog? How much time do I think I have? What sort of pressure am I gonna put on myself? I shall, let it be clear, endeavor to put exactly zero pressure on myself to ever post on any site. That way I will likely feel the freedom to post a hell of a lot more often than if I give myself a schedule. But, I ask myself again, what is this particular blog for?

It's kinda in the name. Fuckin' BOOKS, man.

I am a very bookish person. While I may not enjoy ALL books, I thoroughly appreciate the overall ur-concept of Book. They are fucking magic. A dictionary is literally a spell book. A grimoire? Fuckin' grammar. Language. Of the few deep-seated beliefs I have, the belief that books are a sort of magic is one of the most comfortably cushioned. There are endless things to discourse upon with books, because, you know, the whole point of books is that they are on every subject imaginable. Throughout modern history, if you want your thoughts to be widely known, you write them down and publish them in books.

But the internet! I hear you query. That place you're publishing this very blog. Yes, I know. Get back to me in 500 years and show me websites from this era preserved in their current state, where the experience of them is unchanged. That's unlikely, right? Will we even have the internet in 500 years, presuming humanity is still doing ok? Will we have moved past it? Whatever the answer to that question is, the reality is that books will remain. You cannot hack a physical book.

Be more specific, Patrick. What specific sorts of subjects do you want to tackle here? Well.

• Book reviews, just maybe. I've read more books this year than I ever have in past years (100 books—not years—and counting). What stops me on the big review sites is the whole rating system, which can go straight to hell.
• Thoughts on GoodReads, StoryGraph, Fable.
• The design of books, and all the myriad elements therein.
• Typography, for instance.
• Paper marbling, for another.
• Publishing books; I have my own little publishing business where I publish obscure and classic public domain literature, and do all the editorial, design, and technical work for.
• Illustrating; I do have some limited experience illustrating books. I also have a deep appreciation for great illustrators.
• The used and rare book business, which I was a part of professionally for a decade.
• Book collecting; the habit of it, and some of my most interesting finds.
• Researching books, for fun, profit, and education.
• Thrift stores and library book sales.
• Audiobooks and narration.
• The Classics.
• Comics, graphic novels, sequential art.
• Adaptations.
• Storytelling.
• BookTok, BookTube.
• Whatever silly bookish discourse is happening at any given moment (fueled, generally, by the two platforms above).
• Bookish fetishism. Books as aesthetic over content.
• Favorite books, authors.
• Upcycling old books.
• Hypotheticals in starting a quarterly weird fiction magazine.

There is plenty to write about.

Just possibly, there is almost too much to write about, and by the simple act of writing out this long list I am sabotaging myself (this is not a to-do list! I never finish my to-dos. I've taken to referring to those lists as Quests. I'm more likely to finish those). Or, to put it another way, how am I going to organize all these posts? It seems to call for more than a strictly linear blog format. How many sections do I have? Let me state upfront that this is very much a homebrew website hand-coded by yours truly and as such it does not have such handy features as a keyword search, or any of that shit. Nah, I gotta do it all manually, at the moment.

You might notice in that list up there a lack of anything regarding writing. I do write, I mean, from one angle that's what this blog is all about—my writing—but I have never written anything with intent of being published in any format, other than this sort of blog. I have never finished writing a short story, I have never got past a week in NaNoWriMo (RIP, effectively, after their inadvisable embracing of AI). I wrote some odd poetry back in college that I enjoyed writing, but that's my brother's thing, and at the end of the day I'm not that into the craft/headspace of actually writing poetry, regardless that one of my favorite comfort audiobooks is The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, narrated by the author, Stephen Fry full disclosure: that's totally an affiliate link to the print book on Bookshop.org. I would have directed you to Libro.fm, but for some reason the audiobook is not available to purchase through them if you're in the US. I want to write bits of fiction, and I have hypothesized directions in which I could go with stories I would tell, but it might end up being more of a wanting to want to write. Do I actually want to put the solitary hours in? Not to get too off-topic, but I think the underlying issue is a fear that I lack the imagination and empathy to create a world and characters to inhabit it, with a compelling story for those characters to enact. The few times I have tried I gain so much respect and appreciation for any writer capable of finishing anything, from short fan slash fiction to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell-length novels. Authors who sustain a world over multiple books, whether done well or badly, are operating on a level that boggles my mind.

I have a lot I want to write down regarding books. A lot of thoughts I'd rather not drift off into the winds of time. This is an excuse to indulge & keep alive my interest and curiosities about all things books, beyond just the solitary act of reading them.

I'll let you know when I let anyone know. Or maybe I won't. This might also be a pretty solitary effort, but at least it is theoretically available to anyone. They just need to find it.

Everything is at my whim and fancy; my indulgence.