Book networks

I've been thinking a lot about book networks. That Oprah book club article started me thinking about the topic, and then this article about Chuck Palahniuk's fan base drew me back to the topic of what I'm calling "book networks". Fan events, reader-review sites, book clubs, book blogs -- these are the new ways that readers are interacting and learning about books. That's a bit of the reason why book reviewing is in jeopardy and newspapers are scaling back their coverage -- these informal networks break up the authority of the bespectacled academic book reviewer, perched authoritatively in his desk chair, pronouncing a verdict upon the latest Philip Roth novel.

I'm intrigued by the phenomenon, and not entirely sure if I think of it as a good-vs-bad thing. On the one hand, the egalitarian, vaguely anarchic side of me celebrates the tearing down of the ivory tower (which I, as a descendant of blue-collar Southerners, never quite felt I could get into), but on the other hand, the labyrinthine world of book blogs and amateur reviews is something I don't have time to wade through.

For example, here is the National Book Critics Circle Links page -- possibly the most thorough listing of the best book blogs and review sites out there. Have I had time to go through all these sites yet? No. At best, I manage to sprint through a few sites each month, or I go searching for a review of a particular book. Sometimes I wonder if you could actually spend all the time you had available to read a particular book just searching for and reading all the blog and mainstream journal reviews of the book that are available. Information Overload, big time.

The nature of reading -- as a solitary activity -- and the type of personalities who tend to be avid readers often makes for a certain longing to connect with other like-minded people. People who read a lot, often from an early age, tend to feel solitary and isolated from other people, and to seek understanding and comfort from books -- I'm not stating an opinion here, that's a well-documented fact (anthropological studies, blah blah blah). So the idea that these people could connect with each other and enjoy nerding out over their favorite books would seem to be a no-brainer, right? I don't know, somehow I'm still skeptical.

I'm interested to see how the website GoodReads does -- whether it takes off or not. A lot of people have enthused to me about it recently, but that doesn't mean they're going to put in the time to write reviews and document their reading lists. My secret suspicion, which I'm hoping is proved incorrect, is that people who have historically felt isolated from others and took solace in books are not exactly going to succeed in creating a networking movement that is based on those books.

I'm very happy to be wrong about that, however.