I’m always interested to find out how people who aren’t regular followers catch wind of my blog. The web searches documented in my WordPress statistics are often bizarre, but do point to what have been some of my most enduringly popular posts: reviews of The First Bad Man, The Girl Who Slept with God, and The Essex Serpent; and write-ups of events with Diana Athill and Michel Faber. I also get a fair number of searches for Ann Kidd Taylor, whose two books I’ve featured at different points.
Here are some of the more interesting results from the last six months or so. My favorite search of all may well be “underwhelmed by ferrante”! (Spelling and punctuation are unedited throughout.)
October 19: the undiscovered islands malachy tallack, the first bad man, ann kidd taylor wedding
October 21: prose/poetry about autumn
November 2: ann kidd taylor, irmina barbara yelin, the first bad man summary, diana athill on molly keane
November 6: michel faber poems, essex serpent as byatt, book summary of the girl who slept with gid byval brelinski
November 17: book cycle, james lasdun, novel the girl who slept with god
November 25: john bradshaw the lion in the living room, bibliotherapy open courses the school of life, barbara yelin irmina, 2016 best prose poem extracts
December 5: seal morning, paul evans field notes from the edge, at the existentialist café: freedom, being, and apricot cocktails with jean-paul sartre, simone de beauvoir, albert camus, marti, read how many books at once
December 23: midwinter novel melrose, underwhelmed by ferrante
January 6: charlotte bronte handwriting, hundred year old man and john irving
January 12: memorable prose on looking forward, felicity Trotman
January 24: patient memoirs, poirot graphic novel, first bad man review, he came beck why? love poems
January 26: reading discussion essex serpent, elena ferrante my brilliant friend dislike
February 3: what are chimamanda’s novels transkated to films, ann kidd taylor, shannon leone fowler, i read war and peace and liked it
February 15: “how to make a french family” “review”, book that literally changed my life, the essex serpent summary
March 13: my darling detective howard norman, the essex serpent book club questions, the first bad man summary
March 22: the doll’s alphabet, joslin linder genetic disorders
March 31: detor, louisa young michel faber
May 7: the essex serpent plot, rebecca foster writer, book about cats, gauguin the other world dori fabrizio
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Some searches are just bizarre. My favourite one that showed up on my stats today is “all nigerla’s video musicsi” . I dont even know what that means
LikeLiked by 1 person
“rebecca foster writer” is exciting though!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fascinating. I should do this too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“I read War and Peace and I liked it” made me chuckle!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, I like that one too. What’s funny is that I haven’t read it; I only watched and reviewed the recent miniseries!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Funny that you would have a post about this. I found your blog just now by doing a search on who the artist is of the cover of the Apollo Classics edition of The Stone Angel.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this! My two most amusing from recent times are “in september 2005 i read a review about bookcrossing i” and “i survived alone for years” (I have a book called “How I survived my first year of full-time self-employment” which must have brought that one). My oddest is “advencer choir inbook” ????
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] I should have another batch of summer books read and reviewed by Friday. To fill in until then, I’ve resuscitated a recurring post template that I haven’t used in over three years, looking at the random searches that have led people to my blog. (Previously surveyed in May 2016, October 2016 and June 2017.) […]
LikeLike
[…] random searches that have led people to my blog. (Previously surveyed in May 2016, October 2016, June 2017, and July […]
LikeLike