The banner is oversized, it practically overshadows the content. By the time that i could get caught by the content and start reading, i get interrupted with booksales and adsense, this continues throughout the site.
while the blog topic itself may not be a bad one, the way its visually presented is not exactly helping your cause.
Start looking around at other blogs and templates and try to arrive at a stylish and driven solution that you can adapt for your purposes.