Pages

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

shameless blog adoration: Books & other thoughts

Since I've been a somewhat delinquent poster lately, but have made up for that by following something like a bajillion blogs in the meantime, I though I'd do another shameless blog adoration post. I've got a whole list of blogs I love to read, and so every once in a while I'll try to highlight one. Darla D's Books & other thoughts is a blog I've been following since I discovered RSS feeds.

I'd like to point anyone who hasn't read Books & other thoughts in that direction. There are a lot of things I like about it, but here are a couple: I love Darla's taste in books, I love that she reviews such a wide range of material (from audiobooks to children's books to adult fiction to manga and beyond) and I love that she puts a lot of thought into her reviews. They're well-written and interesting, insightful, never stuffy, and positive without being fawning.

I also really like that when she reviews a series, she lists the books in the series and points to her reviews of other books in the series. I've started using her blog to help me when I'm looking for whatever comes next, because it's simple to find. Her blog should come with a warning, though -- I've picked up so many new series from her reviews that I am never going to get through my TBR pile!

As a fellow librarian, I really appreciate her eye for organization. She's tagged everything effectively with categories that make sense and are useful, organized her reviews by author, linked to many other great blogs and interesting (and helpful) websites, and all in an intuitive way.

Finally, I love how generous she is to her fellow book bloggers. She lists other reviews and even provides excerpts of other bloggers' reviews, which is great for highlighting a range of opinions and thoughts on those books. I always look forward to reading whatever she has to write about.

3 comments:

Ana S. said...

Couldn't agree more :)

Jill said...

((Blushes!)) Thanks so much for your kind words, Kiirstin! You have totally, utterly made my day. :-) I have been thinking I need to do an overhaul of all my tags and things, that they were out of control. I'm glad you think they are useful! And that you appreciate the listing of books in order - I'm such a stickler about that, but I didn't know if it was helpful to anyone else but me.

Thank you! (And I adore your blog, too - in case you hadn't noticed.)

Unknown said...

Darla -- You are welcome!

I have the same problem with tags, and I've not been blogging as long as you have! They're not an ideal organizational system, I don't think, but I think given what we have to work with you've done a great job.

The books in order thing is so useful. I've even been known to use it at the ref desk if I remember you've reviewed something in a series a patron is asking about.

Glad I made your day!