Let’s be real here, guys: It’s hard for a book blog not to be boring. A blog about the book industry at least still has the potential to get people fired, even if its visual interest is sometimes limited by how often it becomes necessary to illustrate a post with clip art of a pile of paperbacks. But how interesting can reading about reading ever be, even to people who are total nerds about things like book trailers and the ethics of book reviewing? The answer is: Intermittently, very — especially if you branch out beyond old standbys like Maud, Ed, and Mark. If you’re not already checking out the book-related content on these sites, you should be. That is, when you’re not reading GalleyCat.
Omnivoracious, Amazon’s book blog, is way better than you’d think Amazon’s book blog would be. One of their most useful features is “Old Media Monday,” a handy summary of all the major papers’ book review sections, for people who have something to do on Sundays besides read thousands of words about the same handful of titles.
The “books” category on Fimoculous reliably points to the best author interviews and other random fun bookish news on the internet quickly and economically.
The Times‘ book blog Paper Cuts is a ‘duh’ pick: Of course it’s good! What you might not be making a point of reading every week, though, is ‘Living with Music,’ where an author — most recently, A. M. Homes — is forced to detail her ITunes playlist, and we find out fun details about, like, the time she and David Rakoff sang the entirety of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ from memory while waiting for a locksmith.
New York Magazine‘s Vulture blog gets bookish from time to time. Their take is often sorta random and contrarian, which is all too rare on an Internet full of meh and redundant book-related content.
