Happy New Year and a change of pace (literally and figuratively)

First and foremost, happy new year to all of you. Andy and I have had a very mellow week off from work, with an enjoyable and relaxing Christmas spent with friends and a short post-Christmas excursion to Monterey, further down the California coast (where I was able to visit one of my favorite second-hand bookstores). I can't say that we're ready to be back at work on Monday, but at least we can't say that we're not rested and relaxed. And I can even report that Northern California has been chillier than usual during the entire holidays, which gave me a mild taste of longed-for winter (very mild indeed, compared to what many of you are accustomed to, but enough to put a little nip in the air).

And for the new year, I do have a resolution of sorts regarding this blog. It's one I've been planning to make for a while, but I've kept putting it off. I think now it's time to make it in earnest (though how strictly I will adhere to it remains to be seen—my other New Year's resolutions rarely pan out as planned, after all).

In fact, it's a little bit funny (to quote Elton John) and a bit ironic that a rather persnickety anonymous commenter on one of my recent reviews noted, with seeming disgruntlement (though tone is admittedly hard to convey in print and with so little context), that "None of her [Kate Horn's] books are available, same as 99% of authors mentioned on this blog."

When I first read that comment, I admit I was a wee bit peeved. I mean, by all means disagree with my opinions, or my recommendations, and certainly feel free to share your own ideas and opinions even when they're different from mine, and above all don't hesitate to correct any factual information that I have got wrong. But the implication in this comment—assuming it was intended in the way that it reads—is that the reader was irritated that I consistently focus on obscure authors rather than those he or she can easily order or download at the drop of a hat.

I felt that my response at the time was rather restrained, though I naturally felt like saying something along the lines of, "This is my blog and will remain focused on what I'm interested in. If it doesn't interest you, feel free to go and start your own damn blog." Ahem. But of course I took the high road (well, until now, I suppose).

At any rate, I did say that it was ironic that this comment was made just recently. Because, in fact, my resolution is to make a bit of a shift in my blog, precisely for the purpose of making it a bit more focused on the obscure authors I'm interested in (and probably even more irritating to my persnickety commenter).

First, I am planning to more or less do away with proper, full-scale book reviews. I know that some of you enjoy those—indeed, maybe that's the only reason some of you visit this blog in the first place—and I do really hate to disappoint you. But the purpose of this blog, when I started it (nearly three years ago now, believe it or not), was to share my research on British women writers that have been lost in the shuffle of time and the vicissitudes of publishing—some perhaps justly, others very much unjustly. It was never my intent to focus a lot of time or attention on reviews, but somehow that's what I wound up doing.

And that is entirely my own fault. I've been attempting for some time, actually, to scale back the length of my reviews, rather than their frequency, so that I can still share thoughts on some of the more interesting authors I unearth. But I started that "scaling back" over a year ago now, and it has never worked very well because, simply put, I am just far too much of a blabbermouth. If I'm interested enough in a book to write about it at all, I find myself compelled to share all the things I noticed about it, and a whole slew of my favorite quotations as well.  So reviews have continued to take up rather too much of my available time.

Then there's the question of that "available time." My previous job, though a classic dead end on a professional level (the firm is now in the process of closing down, so I clearly got out while the getting was good), allowed me the rather luxurious perk of being able—in between crises—to do research and writing while on the clock. My new job, while a much better long-term prospect and more interesting work overall, isn't quite so flexible, and doesn't have a lot of down time to begin with. So I have had to make a decision about what part of my blog is most satisfying and enjoyable for me, and what part I could live without. For better or worse, what I can live without (at least I think I can) are proper, full-scale reviews, and what I enjoy most is researching new authors for my Overwhelming List and highlighting interesting discoveries or interesting stories about these more or less forgotten women.

So, while I don't plan to pressure myself to post any specific number of times per month (and the number of posts are definitely likely to decrease), I still plan to add occasional new posts like my recent one on Molly Spencer Simpson, as well as update posts to share new information about authors, such as the ones I did (here and here) back in October. I'm also currently at work on a large new update to the Overwhelming List, which will add (unbelievably) about 400 more authors to the list, and I'll be reporting on some of those new additions. (I remember the time when it seemed amazing that I had 500 authors on the list—now it looks like I'll reach 2,000 before long.)

But in addition to adding new authors, my hope is also to begin expanding the information on the Overwhelming List (to make it even more overwhelming, but also hopefully more informative and more detailed), and perhaps even to add posts dedicated entirely to some of the most interesting lesser-known authors, not unlike the one I posted about Molly Clavering a while back. But (no doubt to the disappointment of my persnickety commenter) my priority will be authors who seem interesting but are virtually forgotten, and for whom available information online is scarce or nonexistent. It would seem like a waste of time to dedicate a post, for example, to the careers of Georgette Heyer or Agatha Christie, for whom plentiful information is already available elsewhere.

I also hope to still do an occasional new genre or subject list, like the Mystery List and the Grownup School Story List. I'll do these as inspiration strikes, but also feel free to let me know if you have ideas for lists you'd like to see. And who knows? And I'll also be expanding the existing lists when I finally finish the new update with those 400 new authors (and there are some interesting ones, believe me).

I might also still find myself doing some kind of monthly or bi-monthly post of capsule reviews, just to (briefly!?!?) share any interesting reading I've been doing. (And surely there will still be occasional book shopping posts—how will I ever be able to resist sharing any particularly exciting purchases?!)

By the way, I have to admit that I am also reluctantly considering removing the comment function from the blog. Mind you, I love getting comments from readers, and I assure you that my considering this move has nothing to do with not wanting your interesting comments and suggestions, and everything to do with the constant barrage of spam comments that are fired at my blog every day. For each of those, I receive an email (to alert me that a comment has been left and allow me to publish or delete it), so that my email inbox is always a bit like a city dumpster when the refuse workers are on strike. Turning off comments would solve that problem, but if any of you who are bloggers yourselves have sorted out a less depressing solution to spammers, do let me know. It's sad to let the spammers defeat me, but I am afraid I'm feeling a bit defeated at the moment. But even if I do end up deciding to disable comments, I will still always love to hear from any and all readers via email.

So there it is: a somewhat different Furrowed Middlebrow for 2016. I hope that most of you will still visit regularly to see what's new and to discover lost authors—even if their books are often not very readily available...