http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100909/ap_on_bi_ge/us_wall_street_journal_book_review

To be honestly, I haven’t read a newspaper in some time so I can’t really comment too much on their lack of reviews but I do think it is a good thing that they are adding more.  My hope is that they cover a wide range or things.  Along with that, hopefully they don’t just got for what is selling well.  There is a place for reviewing those but it would be awesome to see some underrated writings getting more visibility.

The question that actually came to mind when reading this was where are people getting book reviews these days?  I don’t know that I have read a single one written by an actual journalist in years.  Without many exceptions, the book reviews I read are online from regular people. 

My favorite site to get reviews from is Shelfari. 

http://www.shelfari.com/

This website is awesome.  It is basically sharing what books you are reading, talking about them, and all sorts of stuff pertaining to books.  Everyone on their is definately a proud book nerd.  I like that when I read a review, I can see what else the person has read.  I can see if they read and liked the same books as me and therfore can tell if their taste is similar.  It was actually through reading some stuff on a group page (Vampires, Witches & Were’s and all that………….Rated NC 17 ) that I came across a couple people talking about the Succubus books by Richelle Mead.  I also decide to read the Weather Warden series by Rachel Caine based on reviews.  Most people on their really seem to think out their reviews too, even if they are only a sentence or two long.  On Amazon I sometimes get the impression that people are just writing stuff to be annoying.  I haven’t ran across much of that on Shelfari.  Plus you can put your bookshelf on your website (scroll to the bottom of my main page to see mine) which is super awesome.

I also like when I came across people doing reviews on their blogs.  I need to start linking more of those on here because I also forget to make note of blogs I like so can’t find them again.  If someone takes the time to blog about books, I take their opinion seriously.  Sidenote to this, if you have a book blog, let me know! Now that I’ve mention making a link’s page, I really want to do it.

Besides that, when I do pick up magazines or newspapers with book reviews, I read them.  I always love to hear about books no matter what. 

So where does everyone else get reviews from?  Do you even read reviews before reading books?  Do you read them afterwords?

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/06/29/novelist-hoffman-apologizes-for-blasting-a-book-reviewer-on-twitter/

What does everyone think about this?

Personally I think it is completely out of line what she said. You are in a career that your work is going to be reviewed. If you were working a desk job or something and your boss gave you a poor review would you put an email out to everyone in the company calling your boss an idiot? I really don’t think so.

I think in general she should not have commented at all about the bad review but if she really felt the need to she should have done it in a way that did not make her sound like a child spitting off insults at recess. She used very poor judgement.

I know some people are just saying she made a mistake not realizing how much the internet would blow things up but I don’t agree with that. No matter who you are, you can stop and think for a minute before you write anything online. We all know by now how public the internet really is.

The story made me think of this video I watched earlier today…

I LOVE the Green brothers.