Thanks for all your comments and emails which we enjoyed reading over the weekend – it’s good to know you’re all keen to see BookRabbit spring back into action. We’re all working hard here at the Warren to make it happen.

The design team have been busy re-designing the homepage, so when you guys arrive in your thousands on D-Day it will look and feel a little fresher with some cool little layout changes, but the hardened BookRabbit fans among you will still feel right at home. Ooh, and there’s been some tweaking of the logo, take a look, as we’d like to know what you think…

The guys tell me they are going for a slightly less stylised look with a more bookish, rounded font… and seriously, don’t say you can’t see the difference because that is one way to really rile a designer – creative types are often sensitive bunnies!

In an effort to get to know you all a little better, we’ve obviously been browsing your bookshelves, but also trawling through your past discussions. David Hope’s thread drew hundreds of responses; he asked: ‘As a matter of interest, what’s the average number of books in people’s ‘to be read’ pile?’ Well, who would have thought such an innocent question would have been so revealing?

Replies began normally enough with 40 to 60 being the average (!) but then the truth started to come out. People dropped their defences and began admitting to treble figures, there was talk of ’spreadsheets’ to keep your TBR piles organised, and one of you (no names) admitted to considering a barcode scanner to set up a proper TBR database (her husband put his foot down apparently, and saved their marriage, just). Heather Graham was finally announced the winner with something in the region of over 800 books awaiting her attention! Surely that deserves a medal? Or perhaps more helpfully, a bookcase?

Speaking of medals, are you the proud owner of a BookRabbit badge?

We’d like to hear from you if you received one of these in the past. These were given out randomly to those of you who were deemed to have made some particularly worthy contributions to the site. BuffySquirrel earned hers by slavishly writing 233 book reviews – we like that kind of dedication!

For those who missed her comment on last week’s blog, all those book reviews you lovingly created will be coming over to the new site, so fear not, your hard work has not been in vain.

Inspired by all your discussions, I conducted a quick straw poll round the office today to find out what was in our ‘to be read piles’ or what we’d just finished reading. Here’s what some of the team have been dipping into:

Simon

I’ve just finished a Charlie Higson book called King of the Ants It’s about a guy’s struggle to find purpose and focus in his seemingly mundane life, which leads him to a new more dangerous lifestyle with severe consequences. Although it was nothing ground breaking, I did enjoy it. I’ve just started

Any Human Heart by William Boyd, only 50 pages in but I’m hooked. It’s one of the Penguin Celebrations series. I’ve also just read The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and Horrid Henrys Underpants by Francesca Simon for my 6-year-old boy – both works of brilliance in their own right.

Tim

The latest book I read was Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Based on factual accounts of the infamous Glanton gang it’s an unflinchingly brutal tale of scalp-hunters in America’s Wild West in the mid-1850s. Next on my list is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – another cheery tale by all accounts!

Piers

I’ve just read Kill Your Friends by John Niven. It’s a dark twisted comedy about a sex and drug obsessed A&R man working in the music industry during the Brit Pop reign of 1997. Very similar to American Psycho, it’s crude, funny and dark. Highly recommend it. Currently reading an old Irvine Welsh book that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for the last seven years, Glue tells the story of four boys who all grow up on a housing scheme. Each chapter tells the story from each character, and these are split over four decades: from the 1960s to present day.

So there you have it – see anything there you like? Maybe you’ve got the same books on the go? The rest of the team will share their reading lists with you next time. Let us know what’s top of your TBR pile – we’d love to know! Keep your comments and questions coming and we’ll do our best to answer each and every one.

Happy reading, see you back here soon.

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