There’s something of a Secret Santa for book bloggers over here.

I don’t quite understand the rationale for working on a list like this, but the result is good: The Ten Commandments of Blogging.

“You shall not covet your neighbour’s blog ranking. Be content with your own content.”

True.

Hunter Baker, a friend and supporter of my writing career, (such as it is), whose writing you’ve doubtless seen at Southern Appeal, RedState, and other places I’ve lost track of because he does so many (and my brain is full of holes), has a blog of his own now, here.

It has my coveted endorsement.

I have been away lately. Not physically away, because I am just as close to you as I was before, but I have been away from the blog this week. That is, I’ve been busy–not necessarily fun-busy either. No live sword combats. No book shelf collapses. No visits from brilliant people challenging me to get off my b—. Just busy with non-blog things.

Today I notice that Brandywine Books has been overlooked again for the top 100 list of undiscovered websites, organized by PC Magazine. It may be because we aren’t cool enough, but it more likely that we have been deemed not entirely undiscovered. We’re mostly discovered. Perhaps pre-discoverable. Of course, it’s also possible that we rank 101 on the top 100 list.

Maybe I should have reviewed those Harry Potter books after all.

The Diary Junction provides a sample of what we can anticipate from George Orwell’s blog:

From 13 February 1936: ‘Housing conditions in Wigan terrible. Mrs H tells me that at her brother’s house (he is only 25, so I think he must be her half-brother, but he has already a child of 8), 11 people, five of them adults, belonging to 3 different families, live in 4 rooms, ‘2 up 2 down’. All the miners I meet have either had serious accidents themselves or have friends or relatives who have. Mrs H’s cousin had his back broken by a fall of rock – ‘And he lingered seven year afore he dies and it were a-punishing of him all the while’ – and her brother-in-law fell 1200 feet down the shaft of a new pit. Apparently he bounced from side to side, so was presumably dead before he got to the bottom. Mrs H adds: ‘They wouldn’t never have collected t’pieces only he were wearing a new suit of oilskins.’

Frank Wilson points out the Guy Lit Wire.

Movies fascinate me. I rarely actually go out and spend a double sawbuck to see one, you understand, but I’m always interested in what’s being made, who’s making it, who’s in it, and what it’s about. Regular readers will have already noted that I write about movies quite a lot on this book blog, even though we don’t even have a Movies category.

So for a long time, one of my must-read daily blogs has been Libertas. Started by Jason Apuzzo of the conservative Liberty Film Festival and his wife Govindini, Libertas passed, for the last couple years and up until very recently, into the stewardship of an independent director who called himself “Dirty Harry.” I liked the blog even better under Harry, who admits to being a Christian, and therefore (until a few weeks ago) kept his identity secret for fear of blacklisting.

Then he suddenly disappeared from Libertas, and Apuzzo returned. It was unclear for a while what had happened, but it finally was explained that Dirty Harry was gone, Apuzzo was back, and Dirty Harry was now blogging over at Dirty Harry’s Place. Which I accordingly bookmarked. I then followed both blogs.

No details were given, but clearly there’d been a falling out.

Today Apuzzo announces that Libertas is going on hiatus for the summer.

Excuse me?



Phil, if we ever decide to drive a stake through this blog’s heart, that would probably be a pretty good template to follow.