Help this lonely bookworm find a virtual community.

May 19, 2006 11:41 AM

Please recommend a good book blog where I can hang out. Because heaven knows I don't fritter away enough time on the Internet.

I'd like this hypothetical blog to be both fun and intelligent with a nice community feel, and have an intelligent and sensible moderator. Since I read widely, I'd like the blog to be generalist rather than only for a specific genre. In short, it should be like Metafilter, only for books.

I used to hang out at the book section in the Fametracker.com forum before it was shut down and I enjoyed it in a way, though the level of discourse was not high enough and Wing Chun's assholish "we'll do it my way or you'll shut up" moderation style always did annoy the living shit out of me. But it's become the loser ex I think about because I can't find a replacement. Fix me up with an eligible new site, MeFites!

posted by orange swan to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

I have heard barbelith.com is the place cool book nerds are hanging out these days. I'm not a member, cannot vouch for moderator habits, etc, but it's been recommended at AskMe before.
posted by junkbox at 12:04 PM on May 19, 2006

I imagine some of the Fametracker people moved to Chicklit as Deborah who runs it is part of TWoP. (Despite the name, it's a site for all sorts of books: I think the point of the name was that it was for women interested in books.) I haven't visited those forums in ages. Good literary blogs: Bookslut; Robert Birnbaum; the Elegant Variation; Maud Newton; Sarah Weinman. These are all personal blogs tho' not communities.
posted by boudicca at 12:17 PM on May 19, 2006

Readerville might be up your alley.
posted by gnomeloaf at 12:53 PM on May 19, 2006

Try I Love Books. No-frills site, smart people and good discussions.
Try the Blog view if you like, somewhat easier to follow. .
posted by cushie at 1:12 PM on May 19, 2006

Well if you like genre fiction at all I hang out at the SFFWorld boards.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 2:14 PM on May 19, 2006

Wing Chun's assholish "we'll do it my way or you'll shut up" moderation style always did annoy the living shit out of me.

Heh. She and the rest of the mods at Television Without Pity have run off a lot of great contributors from that site, too, for the exact same reason.
posted by scody at 2:18 PM on May 19, 2006

I just checked out this I Love Books site on the above rec, and it's interesting but haven't these people heard of the SHIFT key?

Or is that old-fashioned of me?
posted by exceptinsects at 2:28 PM on May 19, 2006

you're old fashioned.

i'm a big fan of bookslut as well.
posted by kendrak at 3:59 PM on May 19, 2006

Bookninja is a fun Canadian book/poetry site that rawks. Those damn silly Canadians. Also love bookslut too.
posted by alteredcarbon at 4:45 PM on May 19, 2006

I also love Bookslut.
posted by bim at 5:53 PM on May 19, 2006

Not strictly a book blog, but wood s lot is great for generally literary / artistic posts. Sadly, no discussion, though.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:02 PM on May 19, 2006

It's not quite what you asked for, but I suspect that you might also find things of interest at Arts & Letters Daily.

And a little more off the beaten path, I'm rather intrigued by UbuWeb lately.
posted by bim at 6:47 PM on May 19, 2006

You may want to check out LibraryThing. It is primarily a service to keep a track of the books that you have on your physical bookshelf, but you can derive some community feelings from it. For example it can analyze your own book catalog, compare it to other users' catalogs, and let you get in contact with them to discuss bookishness. I also believe that there are places to comment on things everywhere.
posted by naelyn at 8:24 AM on May 20, 2006