David Sexton writes in The Scotsman on literary blogs:
The most intriguing literary event last year wasn’t the arrival of Harry Potter No5, or the waste of the Booker Prize on DBC Pierre, nor even the potty elevation of JRR Tolkien in The Big Read. It was the rise of the literary weblog.
…..
A year ago I rarely looked at blogs. Now I do most days – not only are they highly informative, they also create a sense of odd community across continents and time zones. Reading is a fundamentally solitary activity, which is why readers seek other readers, trying to create a sense that they are participating in a shared activity.In the last year or so, literary bloggers have begun to take the place of the little magazines and have subtly tilted the entire critical climate.
Sexton goes on to comment on both the pluses and the minuses, as he sees them, of book blogs and he also has links to some of those he has found most interesting.
A ‘sense of odd community across continents and time zones’ – yup, I’ll certainly second that.