Saturday 19 October 2013

Breaking America

Now here's a thing. For the past month (and for the first time in this blog's short history) I have had more readers in the United States than here on my dim little island.  

This prompts two questions. Should this blog reflect such a this demographic shift, and if so how?


The Times Literary Supplement apparently sells more issues in the U.S. than the U.K. and this is to an extent reflected in the choice of books under consideration and the style and content of the reviews. So for instance, when writing in their pages about Gerald Kersh recently I avoided references that might baffle a non-British reader, while at the same time striving to write in a style that one admirer once described as 'readable'.

Perhaps any appeal this blog has for American readers, whoever you lovely people are, is that it's essentially British, like Monty Python or The Avengers or Downton Abbey - all those PSB series that attract small but discriminating Anglophile audiences and which have nothing whatever in common with Britain as experienced by those who live here. 

But here's another thing. Looking back over past blogs I see that the lowest-ever readership was for something I posted on (and indirectly about) the Fourth of July. I really hate to repeat myself (as I've said on countless occasions) but to mark this demographic watershed there's a three-minute clip here. Enjoy!






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