My gosh. This post makes me feel like picking up a phone and chatting.

Caitlin's words are so touching, so honest, so valuable. As hard as it can be, I think it is essential to live first, to live best, to reflect, afterward, on a moment, as opposed to provoking a moment for the sake of a blog (or a memoir). I think a reader can always tell when a blog (or memoir) arises from the real, as opposed the preordained. The Soloist, for example, stands out for me as a book in which the story felt (to me) provoked, as opposed to lived.

As for ARCs — I typically don't receive them. I buy all my books. I write about the ones I love. I learn from the ones I don't. Blogging helps me clarify, for me, what is right in literature.

It is that element of sincerity that you mention Beth that I think everyone has to reach for....which is true in pretty much any NF writing to a certain extent. And I think folks are having thoughts on how to find that.

As to the ARCs - I could not do the job at Bookslut without them and that's the truth. I couldn't afford to purchase the books I need over there volume-wise and also finding them at the library would be hard (I guess I could go alphabetically through the YA section but it's not that big and forming themes would be dicey this way.)

So I need them - I use them as a book reviewer. Now to convince others that having ARC means nothing in terms of how I review said ARC.

Honesty and sincerity are my new buzzwords! ha!

Ah, yes. I wasn't in any way criticizing those who receive ARCs — believe me, I'm glad they circulate (where would I be without them?). Just saying that I am grateful not to have to face this issue. I think it's a very tricky one.

Honesty. Sincerity. Goodness knows. They matter.

(But you don't need those buzzwords as guides; you already are those things.)

No worries...I didn't see any criticism :)

It's just so....complicated I guess is a good word. And annoying and crazy how it is so easy to get out of control. Some folks at Roger's have mentioned a blogger's code of ethics and he rightly responded that print reviewers have never been asked to sign one. Plus - please. I'd love to see how that draft that when can't even agree on what wave we're each surfing...

Back to writing. Much calmer!

Edi, over at Crazy Quilts wrote a great post the other day, that's in line with this topic.

http://campbele.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/bobbt-flays-latest-throwdown-book-reviews/

i may be atypical in this respect, as i began blogging about kidlit as the beginning of my serious education toward becoming an author of kidlit books. at the time i began my knowledge was fairly general; i'd worked in a chain bookstore in the past but wasn't allowed to work in the children's books because of an unwritten policy about male employees around children (seriously).

the personal part of blogging was to discover kidlit in an informal way. i had done movie reviewing for radio in the past where it was a given that bad reviews were part of the territory. the idea that reviewing as a public service, if you will. i maintained then (and still do) that people should read/see/hear everything and judge for themselves, but here's my take on things in the meantime.

so it surprises me when people thank me for my more honest, critical, and negative reviews. also get thanks for reviewing older books as well. both of these comments strike me as odd because i feel that there's no way to really determine a reviewer's taste in books or quality of their criticism without seeing a breadth of their thinking.

there is this sense in kidlit of being too genteel, that children's books are above criticism, that there is a perfect audience for every book, whatever. and who would deliberately read a book they dislike and then review it, what's the point in that? but I would argue that by having to define what you don't like, or what doesn't work, you learn to see things better. when you get down to the nitty gritty of what doesn't work, and begin to see patterns, you become better able to define what does and doesn't work. i do at least.

blogging and the internet isn't supposed to be about consensus, its about democratization. the idea was to have more diverse voices, not some great flattening of criticism into worlds of agreement. we shouldn't be agreeing on codes of ethics, nor should we suffer the hand wringing of trying to define or justify ourselves within the same boundaries of traditional gate-keeping editorial review processes. i sometimes wonder if far too many people are involved in blog reviews simply so they can have access to books before anyone else, not so much to gloat as for the rush of feeling like an insider.

and I think bloggers should review more older titles. i am reminded of the high school senior i once met who wanted to become a film director. having studied film in college i asked him what his all-time favorite film was, his touchstone classic, if you will. "goonies," he said. he had never seen any movie made before he was born and rejected black and white movies as being "uninteresting and inferior" to anything made now. he didn't see the point of looking backward or knowing (much less understanding) the work of previous generations. sometimes i feel there are a lot of blog reviewers out there just like this kid.

i'm not saying i think bloggers need to have credentials, or that we can't have a community with some general ground rules. we can't be head-down and not mindful of our audience, however we define that, but at the same time how good can our reviews be if we're looking over our shoulders constantly, worried we might offend a publisher or feeling obligated to writer about everything sent our way?

i'm sorry for hijacking so much space, colleen.

Colleen,

I haven't been blogging long. I don't promote myself a book blogger or reviewer even though I clearly focus on books at Color Online.

It's taken me a long time to get to a place where I think I have a balance of what I want us to be. It was much easier deciding what I didn't want to be: a space reviewing the same books, a space where I was requesting or drowning in unsolicited ARCs, a space where I sounded like I was speaking from an ivory tower, interested in audience worship and lastly a blogger content with her own island, who failed to actively see what's out there and to support others. I had one clear advantage: from the onset we were different from the majority book blogs because we focus on women of color. We don't ocassionally promote people of color, our purpose is to focus on a group of writers that are underrepresented. Often I feel we're invisible and inconsequential and at other times, I am grateful that I don't feel pressured to keep up with trends or to obsess about how to break away from the pack.

I'm pretty sure is was at Roger's that he or someone said everyone is clamoring to speak but who is listening. After a very short time binging on blogs, this is exactly how I felt about many bloggers. I come from message boards, and discussion forums have a very different tone and sense of community. Blogs are islands. And often the inhabitants behave as if you have to come to them because they are not leaving their island.

I don't think I'm better than so before anyone gets a wedgie, what I'm trying to say is that coming from a different online experience, it was an adjustment finding a place in the blogosphere.

I'm babbling (I should be getting ready for work). What I really want to say is that I hope bloggers who have been caught up in this recent debate think hard about what they want to accomplish, how are they supporting their peers and what they're really contributing to the literate world.

I love coming to your space. You inform, entertain and provide an example for me. Thanks for being here.

I second Doret's recommendation. Do read Edi's post.

I read what I want to read. Which isn't to say that I don't get influenced by pitches, I do and I'm grateful for the way blogging about books has expanded my reading horizons, but in the end, I read YA, romances, Christian fiction, memoirs, literary fiction, books featured on the television show LOST--all of it. So sometimes that might mean I'm reading the latest hottest title, I don't know.

All sorts of thoughtful comments here - and proof that everyone has to sort things out for themselves which is probably the only thing everyone can agree on.

It's what will make life more difficult for publishers though - as they keep trying to figure things out with a group mentality.

Amy, I do pretty much the same thing - which oddly means that sometimes I'm blogging on the exact same thing as five others but hopefully means I'm blogging on something different.

And Susan - yes, sometimes folks are not more talking than listening but I guess that is mostly the human animal. We all do it a lot - heck you should be around my family at a big gathering! ha!

David - lots to think about in your comments and I do wonder about motives sometimes but that is not something anyone can control. We can wonder....but we can only change the stuff we take part in.

One of the best things about GLW to me is that so many of the books are older - it gives our readers a great opportunity to learn about what they might have missed.