Spreading Some Mid-Summer Book Blogger Love

I love writing about books — and The New Dork Review of Books has been an endless source of fun and intellectual challenge. It's also created an opportunity for discovering others passionate about reading and writing about books, and that's something I hadn't really expected at all when I started this blog back in October 2009.

It's been as much fun to find other great book blogs, and learn about novels and authors that hadn't crossed my radar, as it has writing about books myself. So I thought I'd take a post to pass on a quick Top 5 list of my favorite "amateur" book bloggers.

All of these blogs have a few things in common: They mostly focus on contemporary literary fiction. They're incredibly well written. And they consistently make me laugh, think and go scurrying to amazon or BN to find the book they've just reviewed.

Enjoy!

1. The Reading Ape — Consistently witty and fun to read, the strength of The Ape's blog is challenging his readers to think and read beyond his posts, no matter whether he's reviewing a novel or explaining his take on some literary happening — like the dearth of male book bloggers or the e-reader wars. His take on the Book Expo America was one of the finest blog posts I've read. 

2. A Home Between the Pages — Rachel's style is a nice mix of humor, a great conversational tone and review rigor — which gives her blog a really unique, fun flavor. Plus, you can always count on one thing at A Home Between the Pages: You'll have no trouble figuring out where she stands on a novel. A good example is her review of the The Help.

3. The Ken — This fellow Chicago blogger is a whirlwind. Simply take a peak at his multi-part review of Roberto Bolano's 2666 to discover that for yourself. Ken is a very smart writer and an excellent reader — and both qualities are always on full display in his posts. One of my favorite features of his blog is that he frequently points out stupid reviews on amazon — and takes quite a bit of pleasure in dressing them down.

4. Primo Reads — Janna and I seem to have similar taste in books — like me, she's recently discovered the joys of Jonathan Tropper and, also like me, she's a big Richard Russo fan. Her well-written reviews are short and to the point, which makes it easy to get a gist of the book and her opinion of it quickly and simply.

5. Entomology of a Bookworm — Kerry posts on a wide variety of book-related topics, including reviews, quotes, and general musings about her reading life. I loved her recent post about "to-read" lists. She's quite the prolific blogger — usually posting several times a week.

So, there you have it. Who is on your list of favorite book bloggers?