Although frequent visitors here know there is little I will not read about, some subjects pop up more often than others, and I thought it might serve both me and interested readers if I organized things a bit. I’m an energetic user of labels, but they don’t go far enough. So, for a few select topics, I’ll be maintaining….indexes! Woo!
..yes, I know it sounds terribly exciting. Essentially they’ll be lists that I update as I come across relevant books. I’ve already planned and created three indexes: World War 2, The City, and American History. The index will have subcategories: WW2, for instance, will have War in Asia and War in Africa sections. More will follow, including one for The Great War. When I read a book, not only will I add it to the list, as I do my “What I’ve Read This Year” list, but I will link to the relevant list so that people whose interest is engaged can click through, and see related books without having to wade through page after page using the labels. The trick will be choosing topics that I read a lot of, and consistently, but which are not so broad that they’d rival the Talmud in length. There will never be a General History index, because that would be nuts.
If you actually read all that, bless you. Isn’t organizing things fun? Look for the first couple this coming week.
Reading Freely 
Indexes are a great idea. I keep a general book index on my blog. I have considered setting up indexes for particular areas of interest also.
I tend to like lists.
Thank you for the “blessing.” Yes, I read it all. As a compulsive/obsessive list-maker and reader, I look forward to your organizational tweaking. Bravo!
This sounds like a great idea. I maintain a list of topics on my blog that is useful from time to time.
Lists are one of the reasons I preferred Goodreads to Shelfari and LibraryThing — they're fiction-heavy, though. For instance: the leading WW2 nonfiction list only has 190 contributors.
Thank you! I've made some banners to go with them. Crude, but servicable.
Can you direct me to that list? I've been poking about here and there with no result. The American history list proved….lengthy, even omitting most of the 20th century.