My book review site and first blog, which I started in 2003. I started it because I was lamenting that while I read so much, I could hardly remember any of it. People would ask me what good books I'd read recently, or what I thought of a particular book, and my mind would go blank. At the same time, I'd just heard of blogging and found the idea interesting and thought I'd give it a try.

Research is all well and good, but I definitely enjoy writing the most. I will happily sit at my computer and work on a single paragraph for hours. And there's no better feeling than when your writing is going well.

Every now and again your life's course can turn on one simple thing, some small decision the import of which isn't at all obvious at the time.

My book review site and first blog, which I started in 2003. I started it because I was lamenting that while I read so much, I could hardly remember any of it. People would ask me what good books I'd read recently, or what I thought of a particular book, and my mind would go blank. At the same time, I'd just heard of blogging and found the idea interesting and thought I'd give it a try.

What did it for me was a blurb on the back of a book I was reading. The blurber wrote - I just looked it up - that "Trials have provided some of the best examples of 'micro-history' or the 'new narrative'...." And that was it.

If you neglect your blogs they don't take up much time.

What I find amazing is how sometimes ideas will just click, seemingly without effort.