Check Out These Blogs

I’ve decided to update my blogroll (on the right side of the screen) to better reflect who I am reading. I tossed out some of the bigger books blogs, like The Elegant Variation and Books, Buzz & Hype. I figure they don’t need any more promotion, while less popular blogs could use some hype.

These are the blogs I’m enjoying:

GalleyCat is hardly a small blog, but it’s become an indispensable locale for all the gossip of the publishing world. It is written by Ron Hogan, who has another blog, Beatrice, and Sarah Weinman, who covers crime fiction in her popular blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. (I just deleted their personal blogs from the list in favor of this one.) They post several times a day.

Critical Mass is the brand new blog from critics of the National Book Critics Circle board of directors. Rebecca Skloot, a terrific science writer and critic, appears to be doing the heavy lifting of the blog, but there are many other contributors as well.

Rejection is my middle name is a blog written by Peter Handel, a Bay Area publicist. Handel did a lot of book reviewing for the Chronicle when Pat Holt was the paper’s book editor, and he represents many interesting authors. He speaks frequently around the Bay Area on ways that authors can publicize their books. (In fact, I am planning to hear him May 9 at 7 p.m. at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism)

Not a soccer mom is a blog by Tracey Taylor, a Brit who recently moved to the Bay Area. Taylor, a freelance journalist for various British newspapers, like the Financial Times, shares her observations on Bay Area life. She’s got a dry wit and a discerning eye.

ReadingWritingLiving is a beautifully written blog by Susan Ito, a versatile writer who is comfortable writing fiction and non-fiction. Susan was an editor of A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption, and she frequently comments on the difficulty of combining motherhood and writing.

Don’t forget to visit some of my other favorites: California Authors, which focuses on literature of the west (Please post more, though) and LA Observed, one of the best blogs anywhere on the Internet.

I would be remiss by not pointing out that one of the Bay Area's best independent bookstores is up for sale. The owners of A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books on Van Ness Avenue blame lousy foot traffic for a steep decline in sales. (It costs a quarter to park for 6 minutes outside the store.) Heidi Benson wrote about it in the Chronicle.

I