{"id":130162,"date":"2020-05-15T13:51:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=130162"},"modified":"2020-05-15T14:01:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T13:01:03","slug":"literature-blogger-spotlight-dane-cobain-socialbookshelves-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/literature-blogger-spotlight-dane-cobain-socialbookshelves-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Literature Blogger Spotlight: Dane Cobain, SocialBookshelves.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your social life has taken a downturn recently, make a new friend in Dane Cobain, the blogger behind SocialBookshelves.com<\/a>. When you can\u2019t peruse the shelves at your local library or book shop of choice, or all the options available on your Kindle are making your head spin, Dane\u2019s reviews and recommendations can help you pick the right paperback\/hardback\/digital tome to get stuck into. <\/strong><\/p>\n

How did you originally get started with writing about literature?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve always been a big book lover. I remember at secondary school, our English teacher told us that we had to write a book review for every book that we read. For most other kids, that had the effect of putting them off reading because they didn\u2019t want to have to write a review. For me, I ended up writing about a half dozen reviews each week in an attempt to keep up.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2013, I was working in social media marketing at a PR agency and about to start a new job at a creative agency. Seeing as I worked in social media marketing, I felt as though I needed to have a blog site to act as a kind of portfolio, and books made the perfect subject to write about. I resolved to review every book that I read moving forwards and to try to catch up on my old archive\u2026 and now here we are, seven years later.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favourite thing to post about and why?<\/span><\/strong>
\nSocialBookshelves.com is pretty much a specialist review blog, mainly because I read so many books that just staying on top of the reviews is difficult enough. That said, some of the most fun that I\u2019ve had while running the site has been when I\u2019ve been invited to attend and report on events. For example, I was taken to York Literature Festival to write about that, and I also got the opportunity to go and visit Latvia to learn about Latvian literature.<\/p>\n

How have you had to change your approach to blogging during the COVID-19 crisis?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI haven\u2019t had to. In fact, there\u2019s been very little that has changed really, except that my social life has dropped off. But I worked from home already and nothing has particularly changed in terms of blogging.<\/p>\n

What are your favourite books of all time, and why?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI always say that my favourite book of all time is Northern Lights<\/em> by Philip Pullman because that\u2019s the book that made me fall in love with reading. My favourite book of last year was Stoner<\/em> by John Williams because it was just a masterclass in writing, and my favourite of the books I\u2019d read the year before was The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> by Margaret Atwood, because it was excellent.<\/p>\n

Is there a book you just couldn\u2019t get into?<\/span><\/strong>
\nYeah, loads of them. The one that springs to mind first is Persuasion<\/em> by Jane Austen, which I read as a ‘bedtime book’ and which I\u2019m due to re-read this month via audio book. I\u2019m pretty sure at this point Jane Austen just isn\u2019t for me, but she\u2019s influential enough that I want to give her another chance.<\/p>\n

Which books would you suggest people read during lockdown?<\/span><\/strong>
\nIt depends! If you want some books that are eerily close to what we\u2019re living, I\u2019d go for The Stand<\/em> by Stephen King and Station Eleven<\/em> by Emily St. John Mandel, both of which I\u2019ve read myself during lockdown and both of which deal with what happens to the world after a super-flu breaks out. Of course, if you want something a little lighter and which doesn\u2019t remind you of what\u2019s going on out there, I\u2019d have to recommend my own books \u2013 in particular Driven<\/em> and The Tower Hill Terror<\/em> from the Leipfold series of cosy detective novels with a contemporary twist.<\/p>\n

If you could interview any author (living or dead), who would it be, and what would you ask them?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI\u2019d probably interview Stephen King and ask if he\u2019d adopt me. It seems as though everything he or his family touches turns to gold, and who wouldn\u2019t want to learn from him?<\/p>\n

How do you collaborate with brands and which kind of brands do you really like working with?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI take pitches from anyone, but I receive so many collaboration offers that I\u2019m only able to get back to those I\u2019m interested in. I think as above, my favourite brands to work with are those who are putting on events and who invite me along, but I\u2019ll work with anyone if they have something tangible to offer to me and my audience.<\/p>\n

For PRs looking to work with you and your blog\/website, how would you prefer they approach you and with what kind of content?<\/span><\/strong>
\nThe best way to reach out to me is via email, and the best thing to do is to not just send me a press release about a book and ask if I want to read it. You need to find a way to capture my attention!<\/p>\n

What other blogs do you check out regularly (whether literature-related or not)?<\/span><\/strong>
\nI actually don\u2019t read that many blogs, mainly because most of my friends aren\u2019t bloggers. I watch a lot of YouTube channels though and read a lot of reviews on Goodreads, etc.<\/p>\n

\"Reach-the-right-influencers-with-the-Vuelio-media-database\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your social life has taken a downturn recently, make a new friend in Dane Cobain, the blogger behind SocialBookshelves.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":323,"featured_media":130169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,4038,6980],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130162"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130170,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130162\/revisions\/130170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}