Profile of Blog: Bookslut

The blog on www.bookslut.com is rife with personality and humor. As far as I can see there are three bloggers, two of which are males and the other is possibly a female (is Jessa a male or female name?). They do not have any profiles stating who they are or what they do. I have gathered that one of the bloggers is a teacher of some sort of workshop… perhaps writing? All the bloggers manage to do a pretty good job reviewing books and alerting other book lovers to publishing news. They just happen to do so under the reliable umbrella of humor.

I had never heard of this blog before working on my own. In fact, I had never heard of any book blog, I just assumed they existed. I found out about the blog on a “Top 10 Literary Blogs” list on Forbes.com (I, myself, would like to find the list of the “Top Ten Blogs About a Blog,” but nothing has come up yet…)

They depend heavily on linking within their blog post. An entire blog post may just be a sentence of their commentary that is referring to a link (such as this post: “I want to fuck this blog post so hard.”) They may not tell you where the link leads you to, but just rely on the fact that you will click on that link to better understand their comments. They link to articles, interviews, and even other blog posts that relate to books.

Each blogger has its own personality and specialty. They each mention little things about themselves as they are reviewing/mentioning a book. Often times, rather than doing a thorough review they just mention a book they are reading and that they are loving it. To me, this indicates that their audience is probably fast paced and young. (I don’t think older people, like my mom, would appreciate the cursing or fully comprehend how the links fit into the post). The readers don’t want a full out review, just little snippets of what the bloggers think. I have yet to read a negative review of/ shout-out to a book, so the bloggers probably don’t like wasting their time on books they don’t like.

They do try to hone in on specifics, so the reader can find what they are looking for. One blogger, Jessa, compiled a list for its readers:

“If you believe that cell phones are not just annoying but might bring down civilization itself, man, do I have some books for you.” (http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2009_08.php#015038 )

They don’t just refer to books, but also publishing news. The blogger, Michael, made this small post:

“Publishers love them some dead authors. Probably because they don't complain about being edited or freak the hell out when they get a late royalty check or a negative review.”

While this blog may not be particularly academic or feed exactly into what I am doing, I find it very entertaining and fun. It will help me in highlighting publishing news that I can probably use in my blog. Honestly, I’m glad that I haven’t found a blog that is exactly what I plan on doing because it makes me at least feel original (even if I’m not).

I will end this post with a small post from bookslut that just happens to be my favorite. The blogger, Jessa, is quoting the first sentence of an article and ending the post with his/her own quite humorous commentary:

Katie Roiphe is controversial. She's been controversial ever since she made a name for herself in 1993 with "The Morning After," a critique of anti-date-rape feminism.

As opposed to pro-date-rape feminism.