My name is Matthew, I am a librarian who writes in his spare time. My online persona is a lot more sensible than the IRL version. You're welcome.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog - I hope you will find something to make it worth the visit.

You will find that the majority of the content on this site is book reviews. I have no special qualifications as a reviewer, but I’m excited by literature and by ideas, and I’m developing my own writing all the time. I spend a lot of my life around books and I especially love discussing opinions with others, and arguing various viewpoints. With that in mind I hope my blog creates an atmosphere that inspires debate, and that readers will interact, disagree, and generally have a chat with me through comments, etc.

I’ve always been a very energetic person and as a kid I spent as much time running around outside as I could. Consequently, I came to reading later in life than some, and I feel like I’m still catching up – enjoying many of the classics for the first time. I read mainly fiction, and I lean towards the literary end of the scale. Complexity has always appealed to me, and I’m drawn to novels about big ideas, and those that approach subjects from an interesting angle. However, to help keep the blog fresh I will make an extra effort to pick up and review new, mainstream fiction as well as titles with a smaller audience. Beyond fiction I enjoy reading about art, psychology, economics, photography, sports, films, and a range of other topics that will pop up now and then.

I’ve always taken a scatter-gun approach to my reading in the past, picking up whatever catches my fancy and reading around particular topics as and when they interest me. One of the joys/pitfalls of working in a library is that you are constantly inspired to pick up new books, and I jump from one read to the next shamelessly.

About Bibliofreak.net

Bibliofreak.net has been running since 2011 so there is plenty on here to give you a sense of what interests me. I don't read in any structured way - I read what takes my fancy and I don't come at fiction from any particular school of thought. Consequently, I can be contradictory, confusing, or just plain difficult in my opinions. Humour me. Argue with me. But don't expect me to offer anything other than my deeply flawed opinion on this site. It is worth noting, however, that I try to adjust my expectations based on the book I am reading. If something purports to be a heavy, literary work, I am going to expect it to work on many levels; if it is Simon Cowell's autobiography, I'd be amazed if it worked on one (and would therefore consider it a success if it did).

Having suggested that this site is a place where I will express my own 'unique' opinions on the books I read, I should underline the fact that I try to bring a level of objectivity and that I rarely inject myself into the reviews. There are plenty of other sites out there if you want a personal blog with a few bookish bits thrown in. Here the focus is on books and not on their reader.

If you are inflamed by anything on the site and want to leave a comment, you should know that I have only one rule when commenting: don't be a dick.