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The Book Lady Turns Three!
2011 at 9am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Three years ago today, while having a very boring day at work and knowing basically nothing about blogging in general or book blogging in particular, I closed my office door and took the plunge to click “publish” for the very first time. More than a thousand posts, hundreds of book reviews, and god knows how many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of words later, this blog has gone from passion project to part-time job and has led to more exciting opportunities and—more important—more amazing friendships and partnerships with incredibly smart, talented people than I ever imagined.
And really? I never imagined it. I love books, and I love the people who love books, and I wanted to know more of them. We can’t remind ourselves often enough that blogging is about community, and I think this is especially true for book blogging, which creates an open public discourse about the very solitary pursuit that is reading.
So here’s a big bookish thank you to all of you who have read, commented, tweeted, linked, and talked books with me for the last three years. You are incredible, and you teach me something every single day. There’s no community I’d rather be a part of.
Mistakes Were Made [Or, in which I respond to a preposterous "critique" of bloggers]
2011 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
I don’t usually publish new posts on Fridays in the summer because, well, nobody is on the internet on Fridays in the summer, but I’m making an exception today to respond here, in my own sandbox (as Raych would say), to mistakes that were made elsewhere, on a site I won’t link to because it doesn’t deserve any more traffic (and because I, unlike the writer, trust that you are intelligent enough to find it on your own should you want to), by a writer who denigrated Book Expo, publishers, the state of literature, and book bloggers in an impressive feat of unfounded ridiculousness. When my comment finally appeared on the offending post some 24 hours after I left it, they’d excluded all of the formatting. So here it is as I intended it.
**********
[To the writer],
The truly disappointing thing is not the turn BEA has taken but the fact that you managed to attend and, instead of focusing on the myriad interesting and exciting developments, air what appear to be your personal grievances about the changes the industry is experiencing and the fact that your status as a writer no longer automatically entitles you to more cultural authority than anyone else.
I’ll allow the publishers and Book Expo organizers to respond to your problems with them, as I know they are more than capable of doing so. Because I am a critic (one accepted by the National Book Critics Circle, at that), I’ll opt for a close reading and critique of the points you attempt to make about my community: book bloggers.
First, you state that the attendees of Book Blogger Con were “mostly women between 20 and 50 years old, often known as “mommy bloggers” because they are housewives who blog about romance novels, horror/vampire stories and paranormal novels.” As my colleague Ron Hogan has pointed out, mommy bloggers blog about motherhood. Are some book bloggers mothers? Yes. Are some of them even stay-at-home mothers? Yes. (By the way, the 1950s are calling and they want the term “housewives” back.) But most book bloggers work full-time jobs outside of their homes and maintain their blogs in addition to developing their careers and nurturing their personal and family relationships. And many of them are damn good at it. Read more
The Sunday Salon 5.29.11—1,000th Post Edition
2011 at 12pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
So, I sat down to write a post about my week at Book Expo America, Scott Westerfield’s super ‘rageous hidden talent (dude can sing in Donald Duck voice IN HARMONY WITH HIMSELF…yeah), finally meeting Adam Ross, and the undiscussed problems with Margaret Atwood’s new and supposedly exciting remote e-book signing thingamajigger (about which I will become eleventy billion kinds of ranty), and then I saw this:
And that means that THIS is my thousandth post. That’s a lot of blogging, y’all!
Now, not to say that Book Expo, Scott Westerfield (you’re dying to know how he does it, aren’t you?), Adam Ross, and Margaret Atwood-inspired ranting aren’t important, but I want my thousandth post to be significant…reflective of what I’ve accomplished in nearly three years and 999 posts…representative of my approach to blogging and my reasons for doing it.
I could write a crazy-long post about all of that, and about the impact and (often unexpectedly) awesome results of being passionate (and LOUD) about books online, but really, I can sum it up quite handily. What have I gotten from writing 1,000 posts? Connections, friendships, a TBR list that is at least seven lifetimes long, and the satisfaction of knowing I’m contributing, if even just a little bit, to helping bring attention and readers to terrific books and the writers who create them.
Also? Totally amazing book inscriptions and the satisfaction of knowing that one of my favorite authors knows me forever as “the panty girl.” What more could I want?
What It Is Like to Go to War is coming from Grove/Atlantic in September, so you still have plenty time to get to Matterhorn first. And you should. Because it’s amazing. And also because Karl Marlantes deserves more groupies. I mean, Jenn and I are totally holding things down (she’s the “kool-aid girl” to my panty girl), but make no mistake: we are recruiting!
So there you have it. My 1,000th post. Panties. A fabulous author. And one of my favorite, most bookrageous friends. This blogging thing might be crazy, but it’s pretty freaking great, too.
I’ll tumbl(e) for ya…
2010 at 11am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Which is to say that I started a Tumblr blog…because, well, sometimes I need to say things that are longer than tweets but not quite as long as full blog posts, and the whole Tumblr community thing is fun, and I wanted to try it, and what can I say? I caved to the pressure.
And now that I’m over there, I need fun people to follow, and since I know my readers are pretty much the best bookish people around, who better to ask than you all? So, do you Tumbl? Do you follow tumblrs? Who do you loooooove?
While you think about it, here’s the Culture Club to entertain you:
Celebrate Reading with FridayReads!
2010 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
With the exception of my notoriously lazy Sundays, Friday is my favorite day of the week. My work is wrapping up, the weekend looms with the promise of rest, relaxation, and hours of reading, and Twitter explodes in a maelstrom of book recommendations and bookish conversation thanks to the phenomenon known as FridayReads (or #fridayreads, if we’re referring to the formal hashtag).
FridayReads was created by Bethanne Patrick (@thebookmaven), and it is beautiful in its simplicity: tell the world what you’re reading. Books, magazines, work papers, cereal boxes, inscrutable personalized license plates—it’s all good. And it’s all about celebrating and promoting literacy.
For a little over a year now, participants have shared their real-time reading selections on Twitter using the #fridayreads hashtag, and Miz Maven, as I call her, recently launched a FridayReads Facebook page so even if you don’t tweet, you can participant. And now the fun is going to continue because…
*drumroll*
The Book Lady’s Blog is now the official blog partner of FridayReads!
So if you aren’t on Twitter and you don’t use Facebook, but you want to participate in this weekly celebration of books and reading, you can do it here by leaving a comment telling me what you’re reading.
Here’s why you should do it:
1) FridayReads includes everyone: readers, authors, writers, librarians, booksellers, critics, bloggers, editors, publicists, salespeople, publishers. (See this piece in Shelf Awareness for more details.)
2) YOU CAN WIN STUFF (every week, randomly selected FridayReads participants receive a variety of books and bookish prizes, and this week, the prizes include a Kobo e-reader)
3) Because, as Bethanne says, “it bands us together in the shared joy of reading and encourages us all to read more.” And in a world where Justin Bieber is regularly a trending topic on Twitter, what’s not to love about that?
And now, a special offer for bloggers:
Invite your non-tweeting readers to join the FridayReads and share their FridayReads selection here at The Book Lady’s Blog, and you will be entered to win one of five book & tote-bag bundles from HarperPerennial, not to mention the satisfaction you’ll have in knowing you were part of helping FridayReads reach the monumental 5,000 participant mark! Drop your links in the linky to be entered.
