Citizen Reader

One of my favorite things about people who read a lot is how good they often are at writing about that reading. It's been a particularly rich week in nonfiction about books and reading in the virtual world, so I thought I'd share some of my online reading haunts from the last week. Can you start to see why it's so hard to get any work done on my computer, with all this good writing just a click away?

Brandon at Bookstorm is always an enjoyable reading stop for me, but I particularly enjoyed his link to author Mary Gaitskill's interview in The Believer and the discussion that has ensued about marriage and writing in his comments. (The interview itself is also pretty interesting.)

Tripp at Books Are My Only Friends has been putting up a ton of great posts the last couple of weeks about his eclectic mix of reading. I tend to stay away from the big historical and WWII fiction and nonfiction books, but in reading his reviews, I feel like I've learned something about them and I don't have to.

Cindy Orr over at the Reader's Advisor Online always offers a ton of great book and reading news every Monday. Full disclosure: I work for the Reader's Advisor Online. And yet their product is so good I actually don't feel like I'm whoring it up to link there. Wait a second--is this what it feels like to have pride in your work (or, more accurately, Cindy Orr's work)? Wild.

The Daily Beast, which is my second favorite time-waster site after OMG Yahoo, is now offering books coverage. My third favorite site, AustenBlog, has also been livelier than usual the past month. And, a shout out to the Lesbrarian, with whom I have been duking it out over literary fiction in last week's comments. Madam, I salute you.

Last but not least, for your viewing pleasure, a short clip condensing the subpar movie Becoming Jane, which I wasted two hours on last week. Let's hear it for lovers of Jane Austen who stand up for their heroine!