About

I Hate Your Book is a book review blog. The End.

Okay, there’s a bit more to it than that. While the primary focus of this blog is to write about the books I’m passionate about, I’ll also be using it as a platform to explore some of the more absurd, amusing, bizarre and downright frightening aspects of book publishing, bookselling, blogging and pretty much anything else that involves words and the people who write them.

I Hate Your Book started out life as an idea for a blog that would focus on scraping the bottom of the self-publishing barrel. Once I figured out that would mean devoting my life to reading nothing but crap books, I quickly changed my mind and decided to broaden the scope of the blog. Nevertheless, the occasional dig at those colossal egos who feel the need to unleash their terrible writing upon the world—and start throwing around legal threats and temper tantrums if someone dares to suggest they’re not shining paragons of literary genius—will still appear on this blog.

So what about me? Well, as the “about” section in the sidebar will constantly remind you, I’m a thirtysomething bookseller from the UK, where I worked at Waterstone’s (formerly Ottakar’s), who now lives in the States, where I work for a similar big box book retailer. Not the most glamorous of careers, but it involves products I’m passionate about, has me working alongside awesome work colleagues, and grants me the opportunity to meet all sorts of clinically insane interesting people on a daily basis.

When I’m not selling books, I’m pursuing a variety of hobbies, including writing, design, photography and music. I’ve written for a variety of publications, primarily Wired and The Guardian, and also had various works of fiction published professionally, including Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield short stories for Big Finish. I hope to build on that success in the not too distant future by exploring the world of young reader and young adult fiction.

Enjoy!