105 Ways to Give a Book

Blog Reading

Holy Brother of Todd!!! The Kidlitosphere Conference is only one week away!!! I’m going to meet all these people, like, in Real Life!

Realizing that I’d see these blog buddies soon made me get back to blog reading and commenting. I do read through JacketFlap, but I haven’t been commenting as much. I think, honestly, it’s because I’ve been reading the blogs too quickly. I haven’t allowed myself time to digest the writings enough to want to add something.

I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling, since I’ve noticed comments going down in general and more people noting that they aren’t keeping up with their blog reading. Further evidence that everyone is writing in their blogs and not reading blogs is found in a post from Bottom Shelf Books. Check out this paragraph, in reference to the book Millions of Cats:
For those of you who are skeptical about the connection between advertising and religion, I present you with Exhibit A: Jesus. Regardless of your religious affiliation, there is no denying that Jesus is, by far, the most successful spokesperson in history — followed at a safe distance by Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, and the late Anna Nicole Smith (the former spokeswoman for both TrimSpa and Giant Boobs... may they rest in peace).
How could the comments on this concept not go crazy? We aren’t paying attention. This guy’s walking the line. Taking chances. Putting it out there. To think that I might have missed it.

It’d be hard to miss John Green, especially when Brotherhood 2.0 is talked about in the Wall Street Journal! The online edition even has the liquefied Happy Meal video. To be fair, the subject of the article is the online campaign contributions collected by Daniel Biss, but there’s a lot of the Brotherhood in it too.

Also, a John Green Experience is described over at Miss Rumphius Effect. (Apparently, the experience is like a dolphin encounter at SeaWorld. Amazing and over too fast.)

From Original Content, I learned of a post at BookLust referencing amazing works of art where the artist carves out of a book. Really, you have to see it to believe it.

Miss Erin wrote about the very creepy book Coraline. But it was this quote about the book that caught me off guard:
I suggest that you step very slowly away from this book and go find another source of amusement, such as investigating an unsolved crime or making a small animal out of yarn.
— Lemony Snicket
Yarn animals? How did he know?

In other personal news, it looks like I’ll be changing my desktop wallpaper. (Totally kidding. Totally. Well, probably kidding.)

8 comments:

AMY T said...

i think part of the shift is seasonal. lots of folks have major schedule changes that begin with schools starting back up. I found myself "unsubscribing" from several blogs today, but thinking I might add them again next spring, or summer, when I have more time to wander.

Tricia said...

Hi MR,
So right you are about John Green. We didn't have enough time with him, and I was lucky enough to have dinner with him and just five others. He was friendly, smart, funny, and very willing to talk about his work. The poor guy never got to touch his meal!
Can't wait to see you next week!
Tricia

Gail Gauthier said...

It's interesting you should raise a question about whether or not people are keeping up with their blog reading. My webstats have been plummeting since August. They had been going up ever since I put a counter on at the beginning of 2006 (I'd had the blog since 2002 and the website it's connected to since '96 or so). They started going up dramatically this past winter and reached a very satisfactory high in June and July. They've been in a death spiral ever since.

Minh said...

Sweet! Finally, I have something in common with Johnny Cash (besides a raging love of metamphetamines).

From this day forward, I will strut around telling people that "I Walk The Line" and use you as a reference if people question said line-walking.

Charlotte said...

It would be nice to have more comments...but it is so easy to click away without leaving them. I just did this, and then came back, darn it, to comment (for what it's worth....)

Jennifer Schultz said...

I'm not the only one? OK-I feel better. I usually read my Bloglines when I get to work in the morning (after I've read my email). However, with summer reading program and with a reduction of staff, I fell out of the habit of reading blogs.

My summer posts to my own blog were short and not as lengthy as my previous posts. Now that things have calmed down, I'm a more regular poster (getting back into the habit before the Cybils reading frenzy begins in earnest).

Kelly said...

I'm with you all in all respects. Slightly falling stats, much fewer comments, and less reading on my behalf. I do wonder why this is happening, but I think you point out some great things here, MR. Maybe we can talk about it at the conference?

Saints and Spinners said...

As I am catching up on blog-reading this weekend while others are away at the Kidlitosphere conference, I am gladdened to know that others have noted the dearth of comments and blog-reading these past few weeks. I think at some point it would be a good idea for each blogger to collect into one blog entry their favorite few posts from the past two months that they think people overlooked/didn't read, etc.