On Sunday, I spent the entire day
reading. The. Entire. Day. Can you hear the angels sing?
It’s really not uncommon for me to spend
a good portion of the day reading. I
read fairly constantly – articles on writing, web design, work-related such and
such. I peruse websites, check fb, and,
yes, I do open up a few books during the course of the day – both reference and
whatever novels I happen to be chewing on.
But on Sunday, I opened up a new novel,
fell into the first chapter, and didn’t come up for air for the entire day
(except when I absolutely had to). I’ll
be writing a review of that novel to post on the blog sometime this week… I’m
still savoring it.
Just that simple joy, of being able to
read for the enjoyment of the story, got me to thinking about the old Book Club
Blogs. Back in my early blogging days, I
hosted a few book club blogs, and they were a lot of fun. I hosted one on the book, Lottery, by
Patricia Wood – and the awesome author stopped in for the conversation. Prior to that, I’d hosted ones for The Mists
of Avalon and, on my first blog back on a community blogging site that’s now
defunct, I hosted Willa Cather’s, My Antonia.
Blogging, as a medium, has changed
considerably in the last few years. I
think that may be one of the reasons that seasoned bloggers have moved on to
other platforms. There just isn’t the
same discussion that blogging once encouraged.
Now, people check in at blogs on their readers or through their
email. They page in but don’t
participate in the same way. The
standard blogging principal five or six years ago was to encourage comments you
should always end your post by posing a question or asking for feedback. We looked at it as a way to start the conversation. Today, the standard is to approach each post
as an article. Some bloggers even turn
off the comments, so readers don’t see the glaring “0 Comments” attached to
every post.
So, I’m going against today’s common
rationale to pose this question. Would
there be any interest in resurrecting a book club blog? I could easily just choose my own books and
post reviews, but I’m wondering if any of the other bloggers still tooling
around the blog-o-sphere might like the group discussion.
Thoughts?
