At the start of each month, I highlight the best performing posts throughout the previous month. I only include articles I actually posted throughout that month and they’re written in order. I don’t do this to brag, it is to highlight what posts work well and which possibly don’t for those prospective bloggers. Here are the most successful blog posts from the month of October.
October has been a great month for the blog. I’ve brought back the Blogger Spotlights to highlight some of the fantastic blogs out there who want a larger audience, I’ve read and reviewed some truly fantastic books, and I’ve picked up some older books I read a long time ago and gave my verdict on them.
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5. Book review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
So the fifth most-read article I published in October was my review of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Considering this was one of the latter posts in the month, this isn’t a bad performance. This post likely did well for two reasons: firstly it has a big name as a TV series so some people may not have known there was a book and so decided they’d like to read about it; secondly, it may well have been that it’s a classic and people wanted to read my opinion.
I summarised The Handmaid’s Tale by writing: “After the hype around the tv show, I was quite disappointed by The Handmaid’s Tale. The plot itself is very slow and the characters barely have any interaction with one another and so don’t have any depth. This book reminds me a lot of The Man In The High Castle – there’s a great TV show out there based on some fantastic original material but the book from which they come aren’t as fleshed out and don’t hit the potential that the television shows reach.”
4. Luke’s Book Quiz Round 4
In October I posted the fourth book quiz of the year. Once again it features questions that I myself either know the answer to or feature books I think a lot of people will have read. It’s a quiz that’s meant to test your knowledge but not make you feel like a fool!
Here are some examples of the questions you can find in this quiz:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone goes by which name in the US?
Answer: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Which streaming service picked up Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series?
Answer: Amazon Prime
The novel All The Light We Cannot See is set in which World War?
Answer: World War II
3. Book review: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
One of the older books I returned to to offer up my opinion of this month was the first book in one of the best selling book series that has ever existed – Harry Potter. I looked at the book from the point of view of it being the first in the rest of the series. Is it a good standalone novel? Without the sequels would the series have been celebrated as it has based on the first book?
This post did well because of the name. Harry Potter is, without a doubt, one of the most popular names in modern literature and film and arguably the most successful in all of media history. I love to return to this first book and I think by writing a review of this, many people related to enjoying returning to it too.
I summarised Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by saying: “I would recommend Harry Potter to absolutely everybody. It transcends the fantasy or YA genres some would argue it fits into. The Philosopher’s Stone is a very solid first book and you can see why (after her many attempts to actually have it accepted by publishers – google it) J.K. Rowling hit a home run with this first novel.”
- Read my review of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone here.
- Pick up a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone here.
2. Book review: Animal Farm by George Orwell
Continuing my love of picking up classics that I’ve never read, I picked up Animal Farm in October and ended up absolutely loving it. It’s a book that everyone knows as an absolute classic and is one that almost anybody with an interest in books will recognise the name of.
I believe the success of this article was down to what I’ve mentioned above – its a name that everybody recognises in the literature world and an author that everybody understands is one of the best to ever do it. I absolutely loved Animal Farm when I read it and I imagine many others do too and wanted to see my opinions on it.
I summarised Animal Farm by writing: “Animal Farm is a wonderful book. It’s the first time I’ve read it and I can see why so many people hail it as such a fantastic piece of British literature. I can also see why it’s been studied in British academia – it’s a book about the power of propaganda and social control. It’s a book that puts into simple terms how your personality, intelligence, ethics and even physical build can affect where you end up in life and your importance to society. We’re very lucky in Britain to live in a society that isn’t centred around those mentioned above to allow you to progress in whatever profession or lifestyle you wish to progress in. However, it’s worth noting that Orwell noted that this book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union so its messages are very real.”
1. Blogger Spotlight: Benjamin X. Wretlind
And my most read article posted in October was my Blogger Spotlight on Benjamin X. Wretlind. Benjamin has a website featuring photography and art but also has a blog. His blog features short stories, amazon product guides and much more.
I’m very glad to see one of the Blogger Spotlights doing really well this month. It’s always fantastic to promote other blogs and give them some extra spotlight on the hard work they put into their writing and research.
So to summarise…
There’s a nice mix of different articles on this round-up this month. It’s definitely good to see a Blogger Spotlight reach the top as, as I wrote before, it’s great that they’re getting some limelight from these posts. There are three huge names in the book reviews list and this is great to see too as it shows my audience has good taste in books!
This month (November) I’m hoping to write more posts that offer up blogging advice as I’ve noticed a lot of these sorts of posts did well in previous months. This is the point of these top lists – to highlight what works well and what doesn’t work so well on my blog and then work to optimise the content to cater for what my audience likes the most whilst keeping blogging fun for myself.
