Conversations About Books

A Roundup of Literary Blogs

By Allen M. Jones, 4-15-05

Beatrice leads the day’s posting with a “blatantly promotional� spot for Toby Leah Bochan’s The Badass Girl’s Guide to Poker (a charity event provides the excuse) while yesterday's content continues an “Author2Author� conversation between Helen Ellis and Booksense darling Joshilyn Jackson. He also provides a link to Poesy Galore, yet another worthwhile blog on writers and writing. (You just gotta love the blogger names.)

Bookslut starts off an April installment with a Camille Paglia interview – “Paglia spoke to Bookslut.com about, among other things, the sorry state of academia, the ‘cowardliness’ of Seamus Heaney, and whether it’s important that a poem is ‘self-contained.’� – and goes on to include a profile of Temple Grandin, the autistic animal rights worker.

Bookdwarf’s posting for the day is a link to AP coverage of the Litblog Co-Op (still generating excitement in the community, or at least the idea of excitement – seems like the folks most revved-up are the participating bloggers). Scroll down a day or two and you have advance notice of a new Umberto Eco novel as well as an extensive overview of the Boston Globe’s most recent review session.

Conversational Reading gnaws around and about the notion of Amazon’s entrance into Print on Demand, with an original (albeit, longwinded) article on POD technology. A few days ago, they also provided a useful link to if:book and its coverage of the Amazon aquisition of BookSurge.

The Millions (A Blog About Books) opens with a notice of the Litblog Co-Op attention before moving on to a discussion of Amazon’s redesign. It’s most useful posting, however, is a link to Rake's Progress and a discussion of Cormac McCarthy’s upcoming novel, No Country For Old Men.

Finally, ending on an optimistic note, Grumpy Old Bookman draws attention to the inception of a new reality TV show, Book Millionaire. “Eight of the applicants (‘people with dreams of seeing their book ideas become published and being the next author launched toe best selling and celebrity status’) will meet Book Millionaire’s Publishing Committee during July 2005 to start the filming of Book Millionaire Reality TV Show.� They’re currently inviting people to audition (looks a little fishy from here, but you never know)...

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