I thought I would answer a question that has been spinning around in my head for a few days; why do I book blog? I thought this would be an easy question to answer but the more I think about it the more I realize there is more to it. This is why I thought I’d turn this into a post. The short answer is that I’m obsessed with books and like to talk about them but that is only scratching the surface.

I started blogging about in 2009; this was when I started becoming a reader. I was reading a book called Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! by Craig Schuftan which took half a year to read. Not because it was a hard, big or boring book but because it just sparked a passion in me and I spent so much time doing my own research and reading the books and poetry mentioned within this one book. With one book my passion for learning, reading and blogging was born. Knowledgelost was a blog that I still maintain (even though I’m slack with writing new posts) where I would take what I was learning and tried to explain it to myself in a post. I found this a really effective way to learn and enjoyed doing it, I was surprised that I was getting readers; I wasn’t catering to them.

As my passion grew, I decided I was going to start a book blog just so I had a place to talk about my interest more and it is sort of like a diary of my reading journey. While I did transfer some of my literary posts from Knowledgelost over my intention with the blog was just to document the books I’d been reading as well as any bookish thoughts I’d been having. I know that I did lose focus and ended up with (at one point) over 15 book reviews waiting to be posted. So I did have to play the catch up game, but now that I’m relatively up to date, I want to refocus.

My goal for this future will remain to be the reading journey model and while I would love to have other contributors to share their thoughts or books they enjoy; I don’t hold my breath. I consider myself a literary explorer and I feel like I’m still playing catch up with the people that have been serious readers most of their lives, but I like the path I’m taking with the blog and just have to remind myself what I’m doing so I don’t lose focus. There are posts like First Steps and Top 5 that might not seem to fit into the reading journey model but I like lists and if I’m thinking about a certain genre or theme it’s a way to talk about it. I write the First Steps post as if I was recommending books to someone asking about those topics. There are also literary news posts, that are not consistent but I do like to keep a record of them. Most news items are long/short list or prize winner announcements.

This is probably a boring post and there is no need to post this but I’ve been thinking about this and want to keep a record of my goals as a reminder of why I book blog. I know it might make this blog seem very selfish and me-focused but that is how I approach blogging. I write for me and what interests me and if people want to read that or add their comments, that is just a bonus. I hope this blog is still going in five, ten years from now and I hope the focus doesn’t change. I would love to be involved in a big book blog with multiple contributors and multiple bookish posts going up a day but I don’t know how that would work and personally I think that would be a completely different blog. But maybe that’s a post for another time.

Before I review William S. Burroughs seminal Naked Lunch I thought I would write about the historical significance of this extremely controversial novel. I know Adam from Roof Beam Reader did an interesting post (sadly it no longer exists) on Burroughs but I just want to talk about why this one book is so important to literature. Naked Lunch was originally published by European publishers Olympia Press as The Naked Lunch in 1959 and it wasn’t until 1962 that the book ever published in America. The US obscenity laws prevented this book from publication in Burroughs’ homeland until then.

The book was then banned because of obscenity in Boston, which was eventually repealed. The trial of Naked Lunch was the last significant obscenity trial in American literature. The ban was repealed in 1966 as a result of the trial which found that while there are mentions of child murder and acts of paedophilia in this book, it  not considered obscenity but has some social value. Among the people instrumental in fighting the obscenity charges include Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.

This was huge win for both free speech and the arts. While book banning and censorship is still a hot topic (especially in America); Naked Lunch was the last major obscenity trial involving literature. As another interesting fact, the title of this book was suggested by Jack Kerouac but apparently Allen Ginsberg misread the title on the manuscript which was originally Naked Lust. While not hugely significant to the history of this Beat novel, it helps with the overall understanding of where the name came from. Check out my post on the book Naked Lunch here.