The Bookworm: 'The Globemakers: The Curious Story of An Ancient Craft'

The Globemakers: The Curious Story of An Ancient Craft, by Peter Bellerby. 222 pages. Bloomsbury. 2023.

I’ve always believed that whatever you do, at whatever level, you should endeavour to improve on what has been done before, or at least do the best job you can, otherwise what’s the point? I’ve also always thought that if you put in extra time and effort, people will notice. (p. 50)

I read The Globemakers but don’t want to write about it.

My apathy has nothing to do with the book, which is very interesting and inspiring. (It is Peter Bellerby’s first-person account of how his quest to make a globe for his dad turned into a globemaking business.) I just don’t feel like writing about it or any other book right now. I want to read without the added hassle and personally imposed obligation to write about it, so I’ve decided to stop writing about the books I read—at least for now.

The ol’ blog turned 20 this year (which I should write about) and it might be time for a reassessment of my series. I feel like I have a few good ones but blogging about books interests me less and less. I don’t want to write about writing (which I may be doing right now). I don’t feel like it is productive to write about someone else’s writing. It feels like cheating—or at least I don’t feel like doing it anymore. So much of what is online is reactionary and critical, criticism and review for the sake of content. That’s what the Bookworm series kind of is. Much as I feel about election and campaign coverage by the media, reviews are low-hanging fruit, something really easy to write.

But I love and enjoy books and want to share that love and enjoyment. Blogging about it has been a part of that love and enjoyment for about 20 years. Sometimes I don’t feel like doing it, like now, but other times I can’t wait to write about a book, pore over my notes and check off the things I have written in my draft. It can be exhilarating! But that’s how I feel about writing I love in general. So maybe I shouldn’t write about every book, like I have done in the past; maybe I should only do it when I want to.

Blogging about the books I read will be a hard habit to break. Will I miss it? Probably. Will I stop taking notes? Maybe. I may keep taking them just to take them. I have a lot of empty notebooks to fill. (Honestly, I will not be surprised if I change course about not writing reviews and keep doing it for the sake of the habit. I love habits and routine.)

We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, this bookworm has some books to sit back and enjoy.