Kinga at the Book Snob has a great post listing the 21 best sites about reading and writing. Along with well-known ones like Goodreads and London Review of Books, there are some that were new to me and look very interesting, like The Believer. The post also made me realise how many places there are to indulge in reading about reading or reading about writing, rather than actually reading and writing the books themselves. I probably do too much of that myself, but it didn’t stop me from checking out the sites and adding them to my monster list of bookmarks.
One site I’d add to Kinga’s list is Bookforum, particularly the blog section which gives a condensed daily list of interesting literary links. How about you? What sites would you recommend? How much time do you spend reading about reading, versus reading actual books?
There are 3 comments
I am guilty, Andrew, of reading about writing to the detriment of actually writing. Although after years, I am trying to mendmy ways, determined to complete the many stories I have started and a novel. They have not been hanging around for so long that I feel shame, but opening the day to an email such as yours, tends to seduce me to reading again. But a quick perusal of recommendations satisfies me till that later time when I might have time. I had not seen ‘The Believer’ before either, but now that I have, hmmm, another distraction. Thank you anyway.
Guilty as charged! I read about books more than I read books. It is a very bizarre phenomenon and I can’t really explain it.
I read about writing a lot too but that doesn’t even compare to how much I TALK about writing. As a result, I have very little time to do any writing.
Hey, Sarah and Kinga, don’t feel guilty – reading about writing and talking about writing are not bad ways of procrastinating. They’re very close to writing. You could even call it “research”! Besides, I think it’s infinitely better than trying to write without having done any reading first.