Wednesday 16 September 2009

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Spreading Some Love

I HATE awards and praise-giving, and love-sharing sessions. Most of all I hate #followfriday on twitter. Not because I hate heaping praise on the countless people who do amazing things online. But because I know there'll always be someone I forget; and that someone will feel AWFUL. And possibly take it personally.



So I HATE Book Blogger Appreciation Week, because I want to throw my arms around the whole book blogging community and give it an enormous hug. So I want to apologise in advance for everyone I've missed out. Somewhere there's a loaded gun with a bullet for every one of you to fire right at me. And I want to make a policy statement. my blog roll is full of amazing book blogs on blogger. Anyone who's already there, please consider yourselves bigged up already (as I believe they say). I want to use this week to give a shout out (as I believe they also say) to a couple of non-blogger sites that really deserve everyone's attention



Loudpoet

Guy Le Charles Gonzalez is a former slam poet (can one be a former slam poet? Does that make one a gentle slap poet?) who writes with passion, compassion, wit, and intelligence about writing and social media. He not only cares about the future of literature; he knows a thing or two as well. He also asked me to guest blog for him earlier this month :-)



Phillipa Fioretti

Most of you already know Phillipa. That doesn't mean she shouldn't have another big plug because she's the most articulate, intelligent polymath writer you could hope to meet. She also brilliantly bridges the art and literature worlds.



Eudaimonia For All

Lisa Kenney is another artist who writes about books. She's one of the most thoughtful, erudite readers I've had the pleasure of meeting online. She's simply inspirational for anyone who really loves books. (This is a blogger blog, but I can't get it to appear on my blogroll so that's OK!)



Smelvillewrites

Sarah E Melville designs my covers. Which makes her a goddess of some kind, because they're just amazing. She's an artist, poet, and novelist. And The.Next.Big.Thing



Farm Lane Books

I came across Jackie's blog by accident on twitter. It's very rare that you come across a reader whose tastes seem to click with your own. Jackie is a voracious reader and intelligent reviewer; and I can be fairly sure that if she likes something so will I. Whcih is about as big a recommendation as it's possible to give a reviewer!



Charlie Atlantic

Charlie's the lead singer of InLight, one of my favouite bands, and technically this is a culture blog rather than a writing one. But I don't care, because he's the funniest man on the Internet. And insightful and poignant to boot.



Banana the Poet

How could I not include everyone's favourite alternative poet



Gingatao

Paul Squires is a quite brilliant poet and observationalist. Much like Sulci (who IS on my blog roll), he can take words to places you never imagined possible.

Left Under Books
Charles Dickey is someone who not only cares about books and culture, he's someone who's passionate about raising the uncomforatable issues so many blogs gloss over in their back-slapping and "aren't things wonderful" ness. A blog for anyone truly outside the mainstream

12 comments:

  1. Wow, thankyou. I'm honoured to be included in such esteemed company.

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  2. Miaou! I have already cut my nap time to a minimum and you are suggesting I should do more prowling through another lot of potentially more than interesting places? I am supposed to be writing not reading!

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  3. I'm with the antipodean feline on this one :-) I love to follow recommendations like this list from people who have no axe to grind, no web site to fund; just praising those who deserve it.

    It'll take me a while but I'll get through this list...

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  4. Word up Dan and thanks for putting me on your posse. For posing me on your poesis. For, oh well, just cheers ta anyway

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  5. Cat, Sulci, you are both of course, already included because you're on my blog roll.

    I would like to give a big nudge in Buck's direction. He does with photos (Schenectady photographs in my blog roll) what Paul (gingatao) does with poetry. Every day he manages to post something absolutely beautiful

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  6. Hi Dan,

    We met via Nathan's blog discussing who will be the gatekeepers of the future if traditional publishers collapse and the whole world moves online.

    It seems apt to consider your point (that it will be the readers)on a post celebrating book bloggers!

    Even with the best reader blogs - someone controls how we find them. So, will google or SEO experts take over the gatekeeping/ publishing role of the future...or will love-sharing sessions like this keep that role for readers?

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  7. Hi Abi, thank you for coming over!

    My intuition is that technology will enable (I mean that in an active way, as in empower, not just "let") readers to take the lead and to build their own bottom-up communities. I think that will begin a cycle that will see the communities that grow really big in turn being gobbled up by the tech companies. I think thats' kind of the life-cycle of these things, and marks the stage when something new will evolve bottom-up. I don't think we're in a place where these things can be LED by companies any more - i think companies need to be more savvy about the way they go about things, or readers will just go somewhere else.

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  8. I am honored to be included and I'm delighted to find all of these excellent blogs I didn't know about. Thank you Dan!

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  9. You're welcome, Lisa. It's a pleasure tyo have discovered your blog

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  10. It's great to have some new places to explore. Thank you for this terrific list.

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  11. Hi Deb, yes, BBAW has been a wonderful experience - so many fantastic new places - alas not one of them offering extra time :-)

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