Reviewing the Book Review Blogs – Again

Look!  That’s me being dragged.  Yes, I am kicking and screaming.

Last year when John Ottinger started his Book Reviewer Blog Linkup Meme, I conceived the entirely insane idea of doing a capsule review of each of the blogs.

At the time I was looking for something to write about that would generate unique content, as well as something that would fill those holes that inevitably occur when one commits to a daily blog.

Others print pics of LOL Cats, sunrises and sunsets, link to someone else who is more interesting that day.  Me, I chose to do book review blog reviews.

For some reason my mother still thinks I’m intelligent.

Before going on I have to say thanks to John.  “Thanks, John”.  I rode the coattails of his meme for close to a month last year.  And – “Thanks oh so much, John”.  Your brilliance gave me a headache for close to a month last year.

I made some mistakes last year while doing those reviews.  My first mistake was including the criteria of whether I was going to add a particular blog to my blogroll or not.

Unfair and completely unnecessary.  I got a few comments early on that made me realize the error of my ways and I attempted to correct in situ, but the damage had already been done.

The other mistake I made (beyond starting the whole thing of course) was that I went entirely on subjective criteria in my assessment.  I should either have opted for a straightforward, impersonal encapsulation, or a hard and fast grading system based on pre-defined benchmarks.

I shall correct that this time around.

So here are the rules, as it were.

My reviews will consist of an encapsulation of the general contents of the blog.  This will be based on a quick and dirty look at the contents, a few recent posts and the blogger’s own description, if one is provided.

IF something about the blog sticks out like a sore thumb (a post makes me laugh so hard coffee comes out my nose, there is stupidity so blatant I feel I must save the rest of the internet from exposure) maybe – MAYBE – I’ll stick a personal note at the end.

I will also be noting whether the blog links to ME – not whether I link to the other blog.  I link to ALL of the blogs on the list (updates on this site shortly), and everyone on the list ought to be doing the same.  That’s not the only point of the meme, but it is one of the points.  Points only for a link in the blogroll.

And, once again, when I’ve completed the reviews, I will construct both a page for my website and a file that can be imported into most RSS feed readers.

Finally – I’ll try to send off an email to the bloggers who’s turn it is in the barrel – but some of you make that very difficult to do, so if you don’t hear from me and think your turn is coming up – get in touch.