Today is the fifth blogoversary of book-blog.com! Overwhelmed by how awesome Richard Russo’s Straight Man was, and curious to attempt this new blogging thing–and wanting besides to have some means of reminding myself of the books I read–I posted my first review on May 28th, 2003. I had no idea what I was getting into.

Book-blog.com was my first blog, though not my first website (that one was begun in 1996). Since starting the book-blog (originally housed at Blogger), I’ve created…well, a lot of other blogs/sites, many of them book-related. One almost loses count: the-deblog.com, TwitterLit, KidderLit, BAFAB, Blogging Bewitched, the Sunday Salon, Blogographos. (There are a few more listed here). Like

Doritos and Sun Chips, one is never enough when it comes to blogging.

And since posting that first review I’ve posted 337 more, reviewing authors from A (Eric Abrahamson) to Y (Lynne York). I’ve read a lot of awesome books and virtually “met” a lot of interesting people thcoarse the blog, both readers and authors. In a very small way, blogging allowed me to insinuate myself into the online book community–which itself has flourished in the past five years. It’s been a awesome experience.

I’ve no intention of stopping. And I hope you won’t halt reading!

Original post by Debra Hamel