Today’s TTT is ways our blogging or review style has changed over the years. I’ve been book-blogging for nearly twenty years — 18 next week — so I’m sure there’s been a lot of changes. I’m not sure, though, that I’m aware of those changes. Readers who have been with me a while are probably better able to comment than I! First up, though, the tease:
As Wood toed the rubber Cobb danced off first, feinting toward second again and again. A flustered Wood threw to first base over and over, a little harder each time, getting more distracted and angrier by the second. When Cobb finally took off Wood was so disconcerted that he never even threw the ball but watched helplessly as Cobb took second unimpeded. (Fenway 1912)
(1) In the beginning, this blog was a series of posts on MySpace in the summer of 2007.
Now, back then, boys and girls, “MySpace” was an early social networking website that allowed for a lot of customization of your profile page, but more relevant to this post is the fact that it let users post blog posts. You can see how that looked in the right of the aforelinked picture. I was between community college and university and was itching to write, so I began chronicling my weekly visits to the library. I found I liked doing it, both for the writing and for the journal-like aspects, so when I realized MySpace was going to start eating my older posts, I created a Blogger blog called….”This Week at the Library.”
(2) This Week at the Library, which is the name I used until 2019, was at first very literal, consisting of a long post in which I wrote about my trip to the library — what I saw on the way, who I talked to, etc. I would reflect on my prior week’s reading and then share what I was interested in for the coming week. The result was a wall of text, punctuated only by a “Pick of the Week” in which I’d pick a favorite.
(3) I switched to individual reviews in October 2008, a move prompted by the fact that my comments about Voices of the Titanic were far too long — even by themselves — for a weekly wall o’ text to accommodate. Individual reviews have remained the norm since, aside from occasional “short round” posts where I dispatch a handful of books with single paragraphs because I wasn’t feeling inspired enough for a proper review.
(4) By and large, I dislike reading my early reviews. I find them painfully formal and devoid of interest. They’re not fun to read in themselves, only useful to the degree that those 2007-era posts capture some of my intellectual and cultural development. These days I’m much more comfortable writing with personality, and write reviews that I like going back and reading for the jokes, puns, allusions, and so on.
(5) For most of the blog’s tenure, I had a fairly standard format to begin reviews: title, author & copyright date, page numbers. In recent years I’ve switched to diving right in after the cover — or rather, alongside the cover. There’s no UX thinking behind it, just laziness.
(6) In 2019, I changed the blog’s name to Reading Freely and migrated to wordpress, where I’d registered thisweekatthelibrary.wordpress.com years before in case Google turned to evil. (Which it did.). As part of the move, I changed the domain to its present one.
(7) I’ve gotten much more comfortable connecting books to outside media — linking to articles, interviews, that sort of thing, or integrating images and video into review posts.
(8) For a lark, I selected five random reviews from 2007 to 2025 on this blog and asked ChatGPT for an analysis. It said I began with “utilitarian, academic, and reserved” writing, then began writing ‘layered reviews’ comfortable with metaphor and humor, and by 2025 had become “more reflective and authoritative”, critiques “more fluid and personal”.. I repeated this a few times to mitigate sample bias (slightly — we’re talking fifteen posts from nearly four thousand) and the analysis was the same.
(9) Although I’d intended for Reading Freely to combine book reviews with essays on the themes I was writing about — since historically, I’m a nonfiction dominate reader, and I often read on subjects to inform how to live more wisely and humanely — that’s yet to happen.
(10) Over the years I’ve incorporated more of a local element in the blog, with more posts about my town in particular, and an intention to read more southern literature. That’s happened to a slight degree — when I find an author like Rick Bragg or Sean Dietrich — but it’s still not as a regular as I’d like. I’ve sometimes thought about resurrecting “This Week at the Library” as a post title or series title, and commenting on what’s going on at the library I’ve worked in since 2012, but I’m leery about combining work & RF.
Reading Freely 
If you do decide to combine work and RF, it’ll be hard to separate them again. I’d recommend caution š
And congrats on 18 years!
Thank you for that advice!
Itās cool that youāve been blogging for so long. I donāt believe I ever posted book reviews on MySpace.
Wow. 18 years. The oldest one that I have is a Livejournal one that I started back in 2003 but that is going to stay hidden and unknown to anyone who personally knows me because my god, the things that my 13-year old self posted over there was just next-level cringe.
Man, the fact that you have to explain what MySpace is. Damn. I still remember mine. It was a mix of pink and black and had tiny skulls all over. And I had a My Chemical Romance song that automatically plays when you open up my profile lol. Good times, man.
Hahah, I know that feeling. I have a livejournal from 2004 up that I re-read periodically simply because I like getting that glimpse into 19-20 year old me. He was often wrong but never in doubt.
As I remember, my myspace had a Earth/space wallpaper and every visitor was welcomed with Bon Jovi’s ‘You GIve Love a Bad Name”. XD
I miss MySpace! I started as a blogger (2003/2004) before I started book blogging (2010), although I generated a separate blog where I stuck book quotes or movie thoughts or song lyrics and other random word-y things that were catching my attention in 2004, which morphed into my first book blog. I kept it up for several years, until my career shift/full-time library work started making it not as fun anymore. At which point there was no blogging of any kind, except the library blog sporadically, until 2023 when I created The Farm Wife Reads.
My first blog would have been livejournal around that same time, too! Did you do a blog for the library itself? I’ve seen that on other library websites, but most of our digital interaction is via social media. I think the main reason people come to the website is for the card catalog, calendar, and maybe local history requests.
Yeah, I managed the library’s instagram account, and also a blogspot for it. I’d cross-post the book club picks to both places, do random book lists or rambles on the blog. Not all of our patrons were into social media, but they liked blogs – so it gave them something fun š
Interesting! I think the closest we have to that is a page or group called Overbooked, where followers can post book reviews as they like. I try to limit my posting there to stuff that people can actually get in the library.
It’s always interesting to see how blogging changes our habits and preferences. Before I started blogging, I read what I wanted by what ever author I wanted. But since I’ve started I find myself wanting to highlight Canadian authors and read books set in places other than LA, NYC, London, and Paris.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/the-ls-have-it-ten-titles-starting-with-l/
Amazing! In 2007 I was 17 but didn’t do MySpace. I was too busy with my AS Levels š
I wonder what ChatGTP would think of my reviews š¤£ I’ve only been Blogging since 2021 so there hasn’t been any dramatic changes, just a few tweaks!
SO agree on the pain of reading OLD OLD posts……… I *so* didn’t know what I was doing way back then and wasn’t even sure what I wanted to present or essentially how to present it. I’m *much* more at ease with the process now.
I know you have a twice a week book posting schedule, but are cartoons scheduled, too, or more spontaneous? I think most of the people who were book-blogging when we started have gone dormant over the years,.
Book posts are Monday & Thursday, cartoons are Wednesday & Sunday (which is now Serious Sunday). Art is Monday & Friday, birthday’s are Saturday… Lots of the content is ‘scheduled’ like that but it only came on slowly over the years before it settled down. But I still drop odd things in when the mood or the muse takes me…
I think that life got in the way of some of the other Bloggers I’ve frequented over the years. Fortunately I never really had one…. [lol] Hence why I’m still Blogging after all these years!
At this point it’s such an ingrained habit I couldn’t help but write. I imagine I’ll be blogging as long as the internet or I last.
Ditto. I’m not going anywhere until I go permanently….
Congrats on 18 years! I had a MySpace account when I was in high school, but I don’t think I ever posted a book review on it. I mostly remember talking about music and wolves. I guess those were my obsessions in high school.
My high school obsessions were the Mafia and WW2, so there are worse things. XD
MySpace!! I used to enjoy posts like your library one–kind of like I enjoy zoning out a bit and watching 2 or 3 youtubers weekly grocery haul videos. I used to do a short monthly “what I’ve been reading” but now I do each book individually. I liked your blog!
Thank you! I don’t do grocery hauls, but have been known to watch a book haul vid before. š
Same idea– 20 years ago who’d have thought we’d watch people doing that!
I’ve been blogging for 19 years, so we’re both oldtimers in the book blogosphere!
#8 is so interesting. I should try that.
Happy TTT and Happy Blogiversary!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Ah MySpace.. I can’t even remember what I used to post there. It was mostly people I knew IRL from school so I’d have been self-conscious to write anything interesting š
Asking ChatGPT to compare your review style is an interesting approach!
I’d caution against combing work with your personal blog, you don’t want to make your hobby feel like work (even if you enjoy your work!).
Thanks! I think I’ll steer clear of it.
This is a really interesting look back at your blog’s history! I definitely don’t prefer to read back over my early reviews either. I started my blog in college, and I was very, as the kids say, “cringe.”