A few weeks back, some asshole broke into the server hosting this here blog and it got deleted almost entirely. Fuck. Luckily the server had back up and I’ve managed to put it mostly back together including over ten years of reading lists. In having to put the humpy dumpty back together, I realize how much fun I used to have writing about books (and sometimes food). The more I wrote the more I began to worry about sounding professional, as if I was writing for the Times Book Review or The New Yorker. Do I like those publications? Hell yeah I do but I don’t need to sound or write like them.

My other concern is my kind of dumb blog name. Back when AOL IM existed and I signed up, I joked with a friend about picking the nerdiest sounding name, something that included D&D and books. Bookgnome was taken. So I became Bookdwarf. Does this name still serve me well? Is it offensive in any way? It’s meant to refer to LOTR and D&D so hopefully not. I’m keeping it for now. I’ve had it since maybe 2004? Remember the Lit Blog Coop? I was part of that too.

I’m writing all this to say that it’s time to get back to what I do best: talking about damn books. Yes, I work for a publisher but those that know me know that I wouldn’t recommend a book here that I hadn’t read and loved so I’m going to stop worrying about coming across like a shill for Penguin. They do publish some really fine books (read Whiskey When We’re Dry please). So time to resume especially as it might serve to distract me from our crumbling democracy. I’ll try to write something once a week, okay? We’ll see where this goes. Thanks for reading!