Around the blogosphere
- May discusses lack of appreciation for book bloggers.
- Kelly discusses the importance of teen bloggers (and starts a directory).
- Ellyn shares her 10 step guide to growing your blog.
- Offbeat YA asks what misconceptions you had about blogging when you started.
- Dale writes about the “hidden lives” of George Eliot’s Middlemarch.
- Ellyn tells us how she feels about J.K. Rowling adding to Harry Potter canon.
- Margaret shares 6 things she learned in her first year of book blogging.
- The New York Times featured two authors’ thoughts on having their books called out on social media.
- Epic Reads lists places you can donate your books.
- Chasm of Books recommends 7 books from your backlist you should read this year.
At Pages Unbound
- Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean (Review)
- Emptying Library Shelves Because of Browsing Fatigue (Discussion)
- Aquicorn Cove by Katie O’Neill (Graphic Novel Review)
- The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonheoffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix (Graphic Novel Review)
- Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood by Nathan Hale (Review)
- 5 Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Book Blog
- Should Libraries Shelve by Genre? (Discussion)
Pages Unbound | Book Reviews & Discussions 
Thank you so much for mentioning my posts, I’m glad you liked them!
I’ll definitely have to check out all the other posts on your list! 💕
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You’re welcome!
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When I saw that NYT article, I raced for it. I’m not sure how much book bloggers and social media critics read dystopian literature from the past, such as Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Animal Farm, but the mob mentality that I see on Twitter over books scares me the same way those dystopian stories do. I’m especially scared of the people who won’t read a book but criticize it with the same hatred and anger as if they had been personally assaulted.
The first author to explain what happened to her wrote carefully and respectfully. The second author was pretty flippant, turning the conversation to that ho-hum story about coddled millennials that I find both rude and shallow for its lack of thought–not sensitivity, but thought.
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It sounded to me like she had a contract for three books. Unless the author does something to damage the reputation of the publisher, which would give them reason to break the contract, then they have to fulfill it (or possibly buy her out). I’m happy to grumble about poor representation on my blog, especially of fat people, but I don’t get what it means to stir up other people who haven’t read the book. I often wonder if it’s because there is a generation of people who were raised while the internet was used and popular, meaning they’ve been validated by numbers of likes their whole lives. If they have an opinion and no one “likes” it with them, does the opinion even matter. I don’t know, just theorizing.
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I think the Internet has made people believe that the way to effect change is to complain publicly. People who read ARCs and think there are problems have the option of contacting the author with their concerns or contacting the publisher, but they frequently choose to start tweeting, which makes the concerns public and gets other people to chime in with their complaints (the people who have not read the book….) I imagine they hope that LOTS of people complaining will cause the publisher or author to act in order to avoid more bad publicity, and perhaps they fear if they handled the issue by writing the author or publisher privately, they would be ignored. It seems similar to how people will tweet that their McDonalds fries were cold or their flight was delayed or whatever, instead of contacting the company directly. They hope complaining publicly will lead to action.
I don’t necessarily agree with it and I would write the publisher privately myself and maybe go public if I thought I was being ignored, but I get the impetus. I understand less why people who have not read the book start chiming in with “Yeah, this is terrible! Change it! Pull the book!” The educator in me is really nervous about people who agree with opinions on books they have not read. Even an excerpt is not the same as having read the book. I think anyone who really knows about reading and interpreting books should know that an excerpt is not the full story and you often need the rest of the book to understand it.
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Briana, I don’t think I knew you were an educator (or if I did it has slipped my brain). What do you teach, and what school level?
I’m with you on the educator perspective: the shouting masses are scary; I don’t care what side of the political spectrum they’re on.
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I taught while I was in grad school (mostly expository writing for undergrads) but don’t currently.
It also makes me think about sources and credibility. You just…should never form an opinion on something without having read the primary source. You wouldn’t (shouldn’t) write a paper on Romeo and Juliet having just read scholarly articles about the play and not the play. You certainly shouldn’t have an opinion about the play having just read someone’s tweet about it. Schools talk about credibility and the source of information all the time, yet people are still willing to simply take the word of some unknown person on twitter about how to interpret a book. It’s depressing. But then people also tend to think the things you learn in school are only for school, and evaluating the credibility of the source “shouldn’t matter for this because it isn’t school.”
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Well said, Briana. I also no longer teach; I just felt “over it.”
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It’s hard to balance caring without becoming too invested, since you can’t fix everything/everyone.
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Thanks so much for featuring my post among such amazing others! 😄 I don’t think I’ve ever been on a list with the New York Times before 😉
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That’s a great way to think of it! Now I can only hope that one day I will be on a list with the New York Times! 😀
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Thanks for mentioning my post! I’m gonna have to check out some of these others ones!
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Aww thanks for including my post here, love! I really appreciate it! ☺️
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You’re welcome!
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Thank you so much for sharing other posts with me! Such a good collection.
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I’m glad you enjoyed them!
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Thank you very much for including my post! And also thanks for pointing me to the NYT article – thought-provoking and a little disturbing.
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I don’t really know much about Jonah Winter or his book, but there’s something about him that feels a little off with the way he scoffs at white privilege screams white privilege… but, again, I don’t know much about him. I like the way Keira Drake has approached cancel culture; sensitivity readers are a great way to approach your writing and ensure good representation and that she acknowledges that the main character is a white saviour even though she hadn’t intended to be it – that shows sensitivity. If we look at Game of Thrones as well, Daenerys could be considered a white saviour (I do think this), but I’m sure George R. R. Martin is well aware of this, I think it helps massively that he’s created characters and cultures from real history which better ensures accuracy, but unless you have sensitivity readers, it would make accuracy a difficult task. Though I do also agree that certain things should be left as it is so as to encourage discussion… but, I don’t believe this is something that should be done in children’s book as they’re impressionable compared to the more capable mind of an adult, so I have to, again, disagree with Jonah Winter.
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