"In an age where more poetry, novels, and short stories are being published than at any time in history, it can be a bitter irony that a good bookish conversation can be hard to come by" (Scott Esposito, "Conversational Reading" blogger, at http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2005summer/blogs.shtml).
If you're a practicing readers' advisor, you may think you don't have time for blogging. You may have even tired of the professional dialogue about blogs, in articles that tend to dwell on what their massive proliferation means in our already information-overloaded culture, or how information professionals can bridge their "digital divide." This is not that type of article.
I have a much simpler proposition in mind: Skip reading about blogs and proceed directly to reading them. Reading blogs, particularly "litblogs" (literary weblogs), simultaneously improves your readers' advisory skills and allows you to indulge in refreshing and energizing "book conversations" without going any further than your nearest internet connection.
Litblogs, updated frequently and often deliciously opinionated, provide you with a fantastic way to stay current with the newest fiction and nonfiction releases. They also offer enjoyable, often irreverent book commentary and the "inside story" of book and pop culture news. Consider a recent post at Blog of a Bookslut:
Sienna Miller has revealed she loves to read poetry - when she's drunk…
She revealed: "It sounds so pretentious but it's one of my favourite things. I've got this group of friends who are quite Bohemian and we get drunk, get the poetry books out and read."
Oh, yeah! That is just so Bohemian! Do you think they wear berets? And play bongos? And say "dig"?
Who's responsible for introducing celebrities to poetry? Was it Ally Sheedy? Whoever it was, I wish I knew how to kick you. -Michael Schaub, writing at http://www.bookslut.com/blog/
The charges that blogs are typo-filled, unedited, or entirely too personal, miss the point. In fact, reading a few (often well-written and humorous) personal asides is at worst, a small price to pay, and at best an added bonus when you consider all you have to gain: Good litblogs offers you the best way to stay current, get inside stories and personal comments, and discover literary gems you might not otherwise find.
Much attention has also been paid to how to most efficiently streamline your blog reading (typically through "news aggregators," such as Bloglines and Google Reader, which will search blogs for you and deliver headlines to a personal web page you set up). I myself am happy to combine low- and high-tech approaches; eschewing the news aggregators I proceed directly to my favorite blogs (listed below) the old-fashioned way, by clicking on bookmarks I've set up in my web browser. I also use Blogger's (http://www.blogger.com) free software and hosting to create my book review blog, Nonfiction Readers Anonymous (http://nonanon.blogspot.com), rather than trying to figure out web programming and pay for hosting on my own.
The possibilities, not only for litblogs (including but not limited to my favorites, listed below), but library and readers' advisory blogs as well, are endless.
Blog of a Bookslut
Connected with Bookslut.com, a literary web site founded by Jessa Crispin, Blog of a Bookslut (http://www.bookslut.com/blog) is comprehensive, frequently updated, and always a pleasure to read. A post there about Edward Klein's The Truth about Hillary enabled me, not half an hour after I read it, to find that book quickly when a patron asked me for the "new book about Hillary Clinton." Blog of a Bookslut's main contributors, Jessa Crispin and Michael Schaub, are the first people I check in with every morning online, and the last people I consult before I leave the reference desk for the day.
The Elegant Variation
Mark Sarvas's litblog at http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/ , named ironically after an "inept writer's overstrained efforts at freshness," is a Los Angeles-based litblog with book news and events, author interviews, and a fantastic list of other litblog links. In the past weeks alone, Sarvas has posted comments about Serbian author David Albahari, Tony Judt's 800-page nonfiction Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1985, and a guest column by Iranian blogger and editor of We Are Iran, Nasrin Alavi.
Ann Arbor Public Library Book Blog
Ann Arbor District Library is the only library-produced litblog listed here (http://www.aadl.org/catalog/books), but it stands as a shining example of the genre and will hopefully inspire other libraries to create litblogs. Wide-ranging in the subject matter and type they cover (nonfiction, fiction, graphic novels-all appear here, and frequently), the staff at Ann Arbor offer a variety of synopses, reviews, and even smatterings of award and "book world" news.
Best of the rest:
The Comics Reporter, http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/ . Comics and graphic novels aren't my first love. I need this site.
Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, http://www.sarahweinman.com/ . "Crime fiction, and more."
The Mumpsimus, http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/ . All literary genres considered, with an SF emphasis.
The Reading Experience, http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/ . Thoughtful reviews, book news, mainstream news about the bookish.
In an era when many consider reading to be at risk, the existence of smart, literary, and endlessly useful blogs such as those listed above should, if nothing else, stand as evidence to the contrary.
Sarah Statz Cords is a librarian who works at both the reference and circulation desks of the Alicia Ashman branch of the Madison Public Library; and she teaches "Reading Interests of Adults" at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is also the author of the forthcoming The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests (Libraries Unlimited, forthcoming March 2006) as well as the blog Nonfiction Readers Anonymous (http://nonanon.blogspot.com); and she would love to hear your favorite book and readers' advisory blog suggestions. Please contact her at theend@merr.com.