If the big number at the top of this post (and, I suppose, the title) wasn’t clue enough, here’s the news: this is post number 1,000 here at Sophisticated Dorkiness.
It took me exactly 1,768 days to hit that many posts (or 4 years, 10 months, 3 days). That’s an average of about 17 posts per month since I started blogging in May 2008. Of those 1,000 posts, 358 are categorized as book reviews, which seems about right. I don’t actually know how many books I’ve read and reviewed since I started blogging, but I think it must be more than 400 if you consider that many review posts cover multiple books.
In honor of this auspicious (to me) occasion, I wanted to share two lists of posts with you. The first is my top 10 most viewed book reviews according to Google Analytics:
- Review: Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh (11,918 pageviews)
- Book Versus Movie: The Blind Side by Michael Lewis(11,378 pageviews)
- Review: Random Family by Adriene Nicole LeBlanc(5,628 pageviews)
- Review: The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (4,655 pageviews)
- Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman(4,290 pageviews)
- Thoughts: If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien (4,090 pageviews)
- Review: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (3,938 pageviews)
- Book Chat: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (2,921 pageviews)
- A Sister’s Review: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen (2,515 pageviews)
- Review: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2,448 pageviews)
I think what we can take from this eclectic list is that the path to a blog with a high number of pageviews is to write reviews of books that are commonly read by students (grabbing the Sparknotes crowd) or books that have been turned into movies (catching the “I’m too lazy to read the book” crowd).
The second is a list of the top 10 most commented on reviews:
- Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
- Review: The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson
- Favorite Fiction Reads of 2012
- How Do You Like Your Travelogues?
- Review: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
- Review: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
- Review: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- Review: The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley
- Review: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
- Review: 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
I really can’t figure out what these particular reviews have in common, but there they are for your perusal.
I’ve got my five year blogiversary coming up in just a short time (exactly 60 days, if my calculations are correct) so I don’t want to spend much time waxing nostalgic about book blogging today. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that one of the only reasons to keep writing about books for this long — an exercise that feels more like homework than hobby sometimes — is because of the opportunity it provides to connect with other readers over the stories we love so much. Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll stick around for the next 1,000 posts.
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I get quite a few hits on required reading books too. I love lists like that!
Congrats Kim! Thanks for all your hard work…
Hooray, go you! I too find that the sparknotes crowd push through my most searched for items. 😀
Congratulations! Interesting results from that first list. The books-to-movies makes sense, but I never would’ve thought books that are being studied would be top. Definitely sticking around, here’s to 2,000 🙂
Congratulations on hitting the big 1000! You are one of my favorite bloggers and I’m so glad that you’re around. 🙂
Congratulations! Five years is real commitment but how wonderful to be able to see the numbers and see the number of conversations you’ve sparked. 🙂
Woohoo! Congratulations on 1000 posts! I at least will definitely definitely be around to see 1000 more from you.
Congrats on 1000! That’s absolutely amazing, talk about dedication! I’m currently reading Gang Leader for a Day, and not for class, and I’m surprised that was at the top of the list! I’ll have to check out your review too!
Reading your post made me look to see how many posts I’ve published and I just topped 200, so I have a long way to go to reach your amazing milestone. Congratulations!
“Kim of a thousand days”
Congrats!
I had to go see where my count is: 260.
Happy early blogoversary!
Love these lists and love your blog, conrats on your 1000th post!
WOOOOOO I made the top 10!
It also made me laugh that of all the sister posts we did it was the Sarah Dessen post that made the list 🙂 hee hee hee
Congratulations, that’s quite an accomplishment!
Congratulations!! 1000 posts is an awesome achievement!
Congratulations! I can appreciate what an accomplishment this is now that I’ve started keeping my own blog.
Yay, congratulations! I am so glad you are in blogosphere – you add so much to my online reading life 🙂
Congrats indeed! Your blog has always been one of my favorites! Please keep up the great work!!!
Funny that there’s really no overlap in “most viewed” and “most commented” reviews, isn’t it? Congrats on this milestone, and I’ll look forward to the next 1000 posts!
Thank you for all the kind comments, everyone! You all really are the reason to keep blogging 🙂