Like Hillary Clinton’s political career, 2016 is now a dim and distant memory; all hail 2017, destined to be marginally less shit than its predecessor. We hope. Aside from having escaped a year that seemed, at times, determined to off all our most treasured icons, I’m pretty excited for 2017 for its own sake. Even if everything else goes to hell, at least I will be able to say that I am making my vlogging debut. Doubtless this will be a great comfort to the people of Aleppo, god knows they need something to look forward to in 2017.

Entirely tasteless jokes aside, I am excited about what I have planned in 2017. It is difficult sometimes to feel enthused about these small things in the face of some pretty dark and troubling times but we must take comfort where we can and still find pleasure in life even as we fear horribly for what tomorrow may bring, in lands far off or on our own doorstep. So let me tell you a little about my joining the vlog lyf and becoming a #booktuber for want of a better explicatory hashtag.

As some of you will have the misfortune to know, I have been writing my blog here since 2011 and have yet to make the leap into videos. In truth, as a writer, it makes sense to me that my medium would be the written word but the more I peek into the world of Book Tube, the more I see it as a complement to a written blog. And so I am taking the leap this year (probably, assuming I’m not utterly shit at it).




Going forward, I hope to be able to film videos with different people, talking about books that matter to them and topics that might be of interest. Of course, we’ll see where I end up with my Bibliofreak Viddycasts (as I am calling them in honour of Anthony Burgess’s language in A Clockwork Orange). I hope some of you will join me and enjoy watching me ramble rather than just reading the ramblings of my muddle-brain.

Fear not, my foray into vlogging will not impact how often I get round to writing here, however. In fact, my intention is to up my reading and writing in 2017. Unlike previous years, I have cleared my schedule out a bit to hopefully allow for this and I am looking forward to my most literary year yet. As part of this, I have started to compile a list of books that I want to read this year and you can find this here: 2017 Reads. This is only a starter list and I’d be really happy to have more books recommended to me.

I’d love to hear what you’ll be reading in 2017 too – let me know in the comments below and have a lovely January!