About

Welcome

I hope you enjoy browsing this site and if you wish to comment on anything you find here either use the comment box at the bottom of each post or email me from the information links on the home page

A Common Reader

A Common Reader is an independent book review site published from England.  The site contains an emphasis on literary fiction, biography, history and current affairs with a particular interest in 20th century European books in translation.

Biography

I live with my wife Margaret in East Sussex, having managed to return to God’s own county after many years in exile. A couple of years ago I managed to get early retirement after a lengthy career in I.T. and am now able to devote myself to many of my interests including reading, walking and playing the guitar and mandolin.  I retain a vestige of usefulness by running websites for a couple of local organisations and fixing computer problems for friends and family (a never-ending task!).

Why do I write this book blog?

I have always been unable to live without books and for example, the thought of a train journey without a book to hand fills me with anxiety.  Some years ago I realised that by reading so many books I was actually forgetting most of them within a few weeks (or even days) of finishing them, so I started to write reviews, firstly for Amazon and then for my own website.

Having now retired from a career in which I ended up writing reports for government ministers and H.M. Treasury on the latest I.T. debacles it is a pleasure to be able to write about one of the things I love – books – without needing to submit the results to consultation, quality assurance and political correctness reviews.

What do I most get out of it?

My latest venture is A Common Reader, which I feel is about as good as it gets in terms of what I at least can achieve in terms of presentation and content.  I love updating the website and watching the use it gets via Google Analytics.  I also enjoy the act of self-publishing, and get a great deal of satisfaction from narcisistically looking at my creation and the way I have developed it.

My tag line is “writing for my own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or to correct the opinions of others”.  I do this because I enjoy it and have few expectations that it will be of any great use to anyone else – if people find it of value, then that is a welcome bonus to me.

Technical details

This website is run on WordPress blogging software, which I host on computers in the USA owned by the highly competent and value-for-money GoDaddy, who also provide my domain registration services.  The appearance of the blog is largely governed by the Atahualpa theme provided by BytesForAll and allows me to customise the features of the website to my own specifications with the minimum of fuss.