Everyday book reviews

Many of us read book reviews of something we have just finished reading or are considering buying.  A Google search can yield a lot of commercial (e.g. Amazon) and promotional reviews. I’ve written before about Goodreads which is one good source for recommendations, if not lengthy analyses. But if you’re interested in finding full reviews by bloggers who do a substantial amount of reading and reviewing, Fyrefly’s Book Blog maintains a list of good sites, currently numbering over sixteen hundred. More importantly, Fyrefly also links to a search engine that searches only those blogs, so you don't have to wade through other sites.

On the subject of print versus online, January Magazine is running an excerpt from This Is Not the End of the Book, a transcription of a long conversation between Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière. They make the case that the book is a form that can’t be improved on, like a spoon or a corkscrew. According to Eco, “Perhaps the pages will no longer be made of paper. But it will still be the same thing.” Same, same but different.