Sunday Coffee

Questions, Conversations and Comments
Now that I'm getting my twitter mojo, I'm finding it interesting how the worlds of twitter and the blogosphere intersect. Comments spark conversations on twitter, and tweets drive traffic to the blog. Oh, and I finally started using tinyurl. Duh.

There were so many good questions floating around the blogosphere this week. For instance, the Literary Blog Hop over at The Blue Bookcase asked what place from a book or a story you would most like to visit. For days afterward I kept thinking about this question. As a child I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe over and over, and I would have loved to have walked through the wardrobe into Narnia. And having just finished Kate Morton's The House at Riverton I wouldn't mind walking into the world of Edwardian England.

Do you follow hundreds of blogs?  I do. And I've decided I'm not un-following anyone. I use Google Reader, and skim through hundreds of blogs weekly. There are a few book blogs I read all the time, and I keep discovering more. Kerry at Entomology of a Bookworm is a blogger who poses great questions, starts great conversations, and has taste on which I rely. Her post on How to Keep Book Reviews Relevant is worth checking.

Recently I found Robyn's blog You Think Too Much on the Literary Blog Hop. She's smart, and I like the way she thinks (too much). Her reviews always make me think (too much).

And at A Room of Her Own, Jillian has a wonderful post about reading like a reader.

I Love a Good Kerfluffle
Twitter conversations led me to an author's rant against the mediocre review her romance novel received from a book blogger.  Nothing like a good kerfluffle, especially one that is essentially meaningless.  It's hard to take seriously insults that are couched in pink prose.  I mean, literally, the whole blog was pink.  The writer seemed to be suffering from the impression that book bloggers are in the business of giving *good* reviews in exchange for free books. Advice to would-be authors:  read before submitting.  If you are submitting your book to a book reviewer (even a lowly blogger), better make sure you read the blog first. Don't send your book for review, and then make snarky judgmental comments about the blogger's writing skills after you see the review.

One of the comments the writer made (one that was seized on by the book blogging community) was that book bloggers are not writers; in fact, the writer asserted that book bloggers haven't written so much as a grocery list. So this writer asserts that blogs are not in fact written? Huh? And I think she is radically underestimating the power of the grocery list. For instance, after my first marriage ended, my grocery lists went something like this: toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, frozen dinners, 1/2 store-prepared apple pie. Poignant, isn't it?

What questions, conversations, comments or kerfluffles intrigued you this week?  Talk to me, readers.