Category: Discussions

  • How Many Books Can You Read in a Year?

    How Many Books Can You Read in a Year?

    A while back, I made a post about pacing yourself to achieve your yearly reading goals. It was aimed to be a realistic and practical breakdown of what is feasible for the average person, and roughly how much weekly time they would have to dedicate to reading in order to hit their yearly goal. But…

  • What Is the Ideal Book Length?

    What Is the Ideal Book Length?

    We all know books can vary in size, but their length is often much more important than their dimensions. Whilst there is no clear-cut answer to what the ideal length for a book is, you can still create a rough overview and estimation based on your preferences as a reader. So let’s go through an…

  • Will A.I. Be Used to Make Book Cover Art?

    Will A.I. Be Used to Make Book Cover Art?

    We’ve already seen A.I. ‘artwork’ beginning to infest a lot of media, including physical items like print clothing, posters, mugs, and even colouring books. Take this post as an extension of one I wrote not that long ago, where I wondered about how A.I. could aid in translating books and what the potential caveats are….

  • Paperback or Hardcover?

    Paperback or Hardcover?

    When it comes to physical prints of books, some people hold a preference for whether they read from a paperback print or a more durable hardcover version. Some people couldn’t care less. But why do we sometimes lean towards one or the other? And what are the advantages and drawbacks of either format? Paperback Given…

  • A.I. and Book Translation

    A.I. and Book Translation

    Let me get one thing straight: I essentially hate artificial intelligence. I don’t hate it for what it is, nor am I ignorant to the many positives it can introduce into the engineering, healthcare, IT, and business sectors. I simply fear and resent its advancements and endangerment of the arts—namely illustration, photography, writing, and potentially…

  • The Strange Appeal of Violent Novels

    The Strange Appeal of Violent Novels

    Whether it be crime thrillers about catching a murderer, or sadistic romps like American Psycho, the simple reality is that we readers generally enjoy a good bit of violence in our novels. Of course, there will be some who absolutely despise novels with violence, but go and find me a horror, thriller, or crime novel…

  • The Ideal Weather for Reading

    The Ideal Weather for Reading

    What is the ideal weather for reading? It’s a question all readers can respond differently to, because the answer is rooted deeply within our personal preferences and circumstances. To first decide what your ideal weather for reading is, you have to imagine where you are located. Is it indoors or outdoors? Well, if it’s indoors,…

  • Bad Book Tropes: Incredible Detectives & Contrived Plots

    Bad Book Tropes: Incredible Detectives & Contrived Plots

    As my scathing review of I’m Travelling Alone implied back in the middle of 2023, I’m not keen on the detective/crime/thriller genre—or at least that’s what I thought until I read Tokyo Express earlier this year. Then I realised it was less about the genre and more about the ability of the author. Whenever I…

  • A Bookshelf Is a Must

    A Bookshelf Is a Must

    Regardless of how ‘into’ reading you are, a bookshelf is a must for everyone’s home, even if it is mostly for show and decoration purposes. You might question why you should have a bookshelf, especially in this age of Kindle and digital media. But the reality is that no matter how paperless and fully digital…

  • Bad Book Tropes: Enemies to Lovers

    Bad Book Tropes: Enemies to Lovers

    As a genre, enemies to lovers has really picked up in recent years. Maybe I’m not the right person for the genre, as it not only seems to be more popular with female and younger readers—but I prefer romance as just another element of a book, rather than its whole personality. This is my reasoning…