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Posts from the ‘Blog Updates’ Category

Apr 16

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5 Comments

Back To The Basics of 101 Books

Happy Monday to all of you!

I thought I’d take a few minutes today to do a quick blog “reset,” if you will.

This thing is growing so fast, and I keep seeing more and more new commenters that I’m not sure if everyone knows exactly what 101 Books is about.

The tagline says it all. Yes, I’m reading through Time Magazine’s 100 ALL-Time novels, a list they created in 2005, which is comprised of English-speaking novels published since 1923 (the year Time Magazine started).

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Jan 17

7 Comments

Why I Won’t Be Posting Tomorrow.

Hey Friends,

101 Books will be blacked out tomorrow, as I’ll be participating in the internet blackout against SOPA, which will also include sites like Wikipedia and Reddit. And, as such, I owe you an explanation.

If you’ve read the news at all in the last few weeks, you’ve probably heard about SOPA, which stands for the “Stop Online Piracy Act.”

It’s a proposed bill here in the U.S.that was designed mainly as a way to stop online pirating of movies and music. But the vagaries and far-stretching dirty little fingers of the bill could drastically change the internet forever, which would have consequences outside of U.S. borders.

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Jan 2

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13 Comments

A 101 Books Review Of 2011

I had another post planned for today, but I thought I’d delay it until tomorrow after getting a cool email from WordPress.

Many of you WordPress bloggers might have received the same report. I’m not going to go through all of the stats–maybe that’s a little tacky?–but I did want to highlight one of the stats they gave me for 2011.

Last year, the top 5 commenters on 101 Books were:

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Dec 23

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11 Comments

Announcing Christmas Giveaway Winners And A Christmas Vacation

To start today’s post, congratulations to Notes from Rumbly Cottage (Karyn) and Evan, who were the randomly selected winners from yesterday’s giveaway.

Karyn and Evan, if you would like, post in the comments below which book you’ll be selecting from the first 34. Also, send me an email at rbrucewriting@yahoo.com with your shipping address, and I’ll get your selected book to you soon.

Now, on to the main subject of today’s post.

I’m about to hit pause.

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Dec 5

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6 Comments

Introducing 101Books.net

For the last 16 months, the 101 Books main URL has sucked. I realize that.

The URL has a thousand letters, including Lord knows how many “O”s, a bunch of periods. There’s like 38,000 different ways to say “One hundred AND one.” It’s just a pain in the butt to remember.

When I started the blog, all the obvious URLs under the WordPress domain were taken, so did the best I could–which means if you didn’t have the blog bookmarked, you’d have a hard time remembering how the heck to get here.

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Nov 24

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1 Comment

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you live in the States, here’s wishing you a happy Thanksgiving that hopefully includes football, a good book, and maybe a nap. If you live outside the U.S., well, Happy Thursday! I’ll have some turkey for you.

In honor of food and pilgrims, 101 Books is off the rest of the week. I’ll return live on Monday.

Now, off to fry a turkey. Have a great one.

Nov 18

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43 Comments

5 Things I’ve Learned About Book Blogging

So I’ve been at this for nearly 15 months now, and I’m still enjoying it as much as the day I started.

If you didn’t know (and why would you?)  this is my third attempt at a blog. The first was a rambling personal blog that I didn’t promote and really didn’t care to. The second one was a golf blog that I updated 1-2 times a week and, at least for awhile, felt like I got into a flow of niche blogging.

But I’ve never enjoyed blogging like I do now. I don’t think you can write posts 5 days a week unless you enjoy doing it. If you’re not having fun, you’ll burn out and begin dreading sitting down at the computer. Believe me, I know.

But even though the blog is just part of this project–the other, of course, is reading 101 books–I feel the blog is almost more fun, just barely, than reading the books.

And along the way, I’ve learned a lot about blogging–and, more specifically, book blogging. This isn’t life-changing stuff you’ve never heard. But experience really is the greatest teacher, and this experience has taught me a lot.

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Nov 14

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33 Comments

5 Ways To Make More Time To Read

On Friday, I was honored to guest post on Michael Hyatt’s blog. If you’ve spent any time in the blogging world or in the Twitter universe, especially in book and publishing circles, you might be familiar with Mr. Hyatt.

He’s the former CEO and current chairman of the board of Thomas Nelson publishers here in Nashville. He currently writes one of the most successful blogs on the planet, speaks all over the place, and generally just helps a lot of people become better leaders, writers, and speakers.

So it was an honor to be able to guest post over at Michael’s blog.

The topic: Five Ways To Make More Time To Read. I’ve learned a thing or two about that in the last 15 months.

Here’s an excerpt:

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Oct 12

FAQ
10 Comments

101 Books FAQ

Before I start today’s post, I’ll let you know that Watchmen and Lolita won the “runoff” voting yesterday. So that means the next five, in no particular order, will be Never Let Me Go, Animal Farm, Beloved, Watchmen, and Lolita. Thanks for voting!

Now, on to today’s regularly scheduled post…

After the Freshly Pressed feature on Friday, I’ve had a lot of new visitors and subscribers over the weekend.

And since I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, I thought now would be a great time to write a 101 Books FAQ–many of which are questions I’ve been asked, some of which are questions I ask myself when I interview myself. You don’t do that?

I’ll make this a new “page” at the top of the blog menu, if you’re interested in taking a look at it in the future.

So here you go:

What’s the point of 101 Books?

Other than reading through 101 books, all on Time Magazine’s list of ALL-TIME novels published since 1923? I like to read. I like lists. I like big projects. I like blogging. Why not? When I started the blog, I thought I’d simply write a “review” of each book, with a related post here and there, maybe once a week. But the blog slowly morphed into a 5-day-a-week deal, and I’m loving it.

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Aug 26

29 Comments

Blog Changes, Announcements, and a 1-Year Anniversary

So next Tuesday, August 30, will mark a year since my first post at 101 Books.

When I started this blog idea, I really had no idea what form it would take. All I really knew was that I wanted to read 101 books and write about them as I read.

I honestly never intended for this to be a daily (every weekday) blog. I thought I would post around once a week, with updates about what I was reading, then review each book after I finished it.

Then the freshly pressed feature came along, then it came along again, and the blog started getting all kinds of traffic and new visitors. So I picked up the pace with the posts–at first, three days a week. And eventually I started posting 5 days a week.

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