This blog may become less polite..

Two things have indicated it is time for a change of direction in The Lost Colophon.

First, I've upgraded my personal book reviews site at Richard Thwaites' Book Reviews so that the full text of reviews is easier to find.  The new pages present concise summaries and a dated list of links to all past reviews, which is easier to navigate than this public blog's format that hides everything in dated archives.  Who ever browses by dates???

So there's no more need to post extensive texts of my published reviews here.

Second, there are certain constraints and conventions in writing reviews for an established print medium such as The Canberra Times, the newspaper of Australia's national capital.  An a priori respect for the author, and  an attempt to be fair to the  written work, are reasonable premises from which to write a non-fiction review.  A reviewer should avoid grandstanding and self-promotion, while providing readers with the best possible understanding of the qualities and limitations of the work under review.

But this virtuous commitment to balance leaves little room for the reviewer to share, with his own readers, the essence of the reading experience: how did this book affect me?

So, as of now, The Lost Colophon will record the personal aspects of the book-review task as I experience it, stepping through current non-fiction works of authors who are trying to say something that is worth taking seriously.

I'll be talking about all the books I review, and referring interested readers to the reviews themselves at  Richard Thwaites' Book Reviews.