The panelists at this Housing Works Used Book Cafe event spend hours each day reading online and print publications. Then, they write about what they read on their blogs. What motivates Maud Newton, Ron Hogan, Laila Lalami, Dennis Loy Johnson, George Murray and Michael Othofer to dedicate a significant part of their lives to their websites? I don’t know? Why am I a political junkie who doesn’t write about politics on the Net?
I attended this event with brooklynvegan, who has some pretty damn good photos of this event on his site. The panel discussion will air on C-SPAN’s BookTV, which is really interesting because I listen/watch it almost every weekend. I listen to C-SPAN, cable news and talk radio as a supplement to my reading. I like listening because it is entertainng and because I just can’t read 24/7.
Literary bloggers are like other bloggers in many ways, but are different because many were already writing their commentary before blogging technology became prevalant and because their writings are a little more snarky and negative just by the very nature of writing book reviews.
Here is my quick analysis of the panelists:
— Dennis Loy Johnson is an excellent moderator and very telegenic.
— Maud Newton is OCD.
— Ron Hogan distinguishes himself by writing up reviews of public readings by authors.
— George Murray is funny and has an appealing personality.
— Laila Laima and Michael Othofer fill niches by writing about international and foreign-language authors.