Thanks to kind help from Sue at Whispering Gums, I can now find out which of my blog posts have received most hits in the last year. It’s hard to know what these figures mean. Maybe a lot of people visited the post for a second or so, long enough to realise that there was nothing useful there about the subject of their interest. Maybe the post is on a school reading list somewhere, and has been semi-plagiarised by hundreds of students over the year. Maybe this is an indication of which of my posts is most brilliant. Maybe none of those. Anyhow here’s the list for 2023:
- The Book Group and Shirley Hazzard’s Transit of Venus (June 2018)
- Mary Oliver’s Twelve Moons (January 2019)
- Ocean Vuong’s Time is a Mother (March 2023)
- Mary Oliver’s House of Light (April 2020)
- Ellen van Neerven’s Throat (July 2020)
- Ellen van Neerven’s Comfort Food (also July 2020)
- The Book Group on David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue (February 2021)
- Robert Alter’s Psalms (September 2020)
- Ruby Reads 29: Gift (December 2021, about The March of the Ants, by Ursula Dubosarsky and Tohby Riddle)
- Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives at the Book Group (April 2020)
It looks as if my posts on poetry generate most traffic, though the one on The Transit of Venus, mysteriously to me, is way out ahead of the rest. The book group makes three appearances, which is probably an indication that we choose books that have a lot of social capital. I suspect the post on Robert Alter’s translation of the psalms is visited so often because it includes an embedded video of Boney M singing ‘Rivers of Babylon’.
Having learned how to find these statistics, I’ll try your patience a little by giving you the all-time top 10 posts:
- Travelling with the Art Student (November 2014)
- The Book Group and Shirley Hazzard’s Transit of Venus (June 2018)
- (Re-)reading Kevin Gilbert’s poetry (April 2012)
- Bran Nue Dae (January 2010)
- Mary Oliver’s House of Light (April 2020)
- The book group’s Harp in the South (February 2011)
- Jasper Jones at the Book Group (May 2010)
- Mary Oliver’s Twelve Moons (January 2019)
- Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (June 2013)
- Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings (April 2010)
Someone lifted a close-up photo of a painting by Brian Rutenberg from ‘Travelling with the Art Student’ and put it up on Pinterest, and hordes of people came looking for more – sadly it was the only photo in the post. Shirley Hazzard has otherwise been consistently in the lead, and Book Group books and poetry have pulled in the crowds. I think my post on Kevin Gilbert’s poetry was on a school reading list somewhere for a time – it gives a brief account of what can go wrong when a well-meaning whitefella edits a First Nations book.
I don’t know what to make of the absence of any posts I’ve written since 2020.
That’s it for my 2023 round-ups. Thank you all for swelling my statistics, for your likes and comments, and your silent, lurking presences.
Me fail? I fly! 
I’ve given up on tracking stats. It depresses me that the most popular posts are so obviously set texts somewhere. I know that some schools and universities link to the blog and/or a post so they must presumably be able to recognise whatever has been plagiarised, I hope so.
But I am charmed that Ruby Reads makes it into your popular posts. I usually read those posts in my email so I don’t visit the blog (another thing to bear in mind with stats) but I have enjoyed Ruby’s adventures with text, especially the last one, ha ha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jonathan,
Happy New year.
I’ve loved reading your blogs although I don’t comment.
I have a couple of books that might interest you and Penny for Ruby.
They are short novels, the Hannah stories, junior fiction, first one published in the late ‘90s.
I’ll give them to you next time we see you.
Have just been up to Katoomba for a night. Euan’s Xmas holiday from chemo and his regular dosages of medical marijuane meant he wanted a break from the house. A night at the Carrington was clearly worth it.
He’s back on chemo Friday with a scan a few days after that to see if the drugs are helping . Painting continues.
Love to you both,
Libby and Euan
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Libby. I’ll email you
LikeLike
I love seeing these lists Jonathan … obviously our tops are going to reflect what we read, so you have a lot of poetry there and I a lot of short stories, but within that, its still intriguing to wonder why certain posts jump ahead of others.
Love your Pinterest example.
Re Bran Nu Dae, my post on the book and film of Red Dog was in the top ten for years and years, but it has gradually slipped out now – from the annual and the all-time.
BTW I think you mean 2020 not 1920 in your second last para.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oops! Now corrected
LikeLiked by 1 person
These stats are always curious. Why this over that, etc. And then something catches the moment and off to the stratospere it goes irrespective of value, merit or relevance. Fun stuff.
LikeLike
Have to admit I’m more of a lurking presence than anything else, but I think I’m a pretty regular appearance in the stats. Always enjoy what you’ve written Jonathan, and just yesterday had to refer back to your 2023 tv shows to get a recommendation when we couldn’t get access to Apple tv for our next dose of Slow Horses. Dark Winds and Quartet both being sampled. Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha! Very interesting. But all of your posts are post 1920!!! In fact you weren’t even born then! People doing searches on the writers is probably the reason for the big hits I reckon. Will check mine too! Love you! Wina xx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Wina. A genuine Freudian moment. I clearly want to turn the clock back to a time before the Holocaust, Howard, Covid, Trump,Putin and Netanyahu.
LikeLike
yes please. I could do with some roaring twenties kind of fun! xx
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don;t read as much poetry as you do, but I also had four poetry posts in my top ten (I didn’t write up a post this year – I ran out of out mojo), I have to assume school texts. Although one year, one of the Nobel Prize poets that I featured a few years earlier, celebrated a cententary and google featured her on one of their daily images. Her stats went through the roof that year!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sadly, though, we have no way of knowing if those many one-off readers actually read the posts.
LikeLike
True. When I was on Blogger, their stats included one that gave you an average of how long each visitor had stayed on your page, and it was depressing brief!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just clicked on like, but I can’t say I actually like the idea that many of the clicks represent a quick dismissive glance
LikeLiked by 1 person
it is fascinating, Jonathan; I’m not sure what to make of these statistics either; I do notice, however, that Mary Oliver rates highly; she is one of my favourite poetry reads; and Pinterest — congrats for appearing on there no matter how briefly — is one of my favourite sites for poems and pics: that’s where I discovered Bukowski —
LikeLiked by 1 person