{"id":1633,"date":"2012-01-01T21:38:43","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T01:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/?p=1633"},"modified":"2012-01-03T00:30:53","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T04:30:53","slug":"ultimate-blogroll-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/01\/ultimate-blogroll-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s In Your Ultimate Blogroll? (2012 Edition)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"XKCD's
Randall Munroe’s XKCD<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a post for GalleyCat<\/i> called “What’s In Your Ultimate Blogroll?<\/a>” I was riffing off a book called Ulimate Blogs<\/i><\/a> where Sarah Boxer laid out some info on her 27 favorites. (The book’s still available, though as far as I know it’s never been updated; I wasn’t convinced by all her selections, but the attempt was certainly commendable.)<\/p>\n

Then, a few weeks back, I was talking with a friend about some projects that I’m lining up for 2012 when I mentioned a post I’d recently read at one of my ultimate blogs, John Scalzi’s Whatever<\/a>. My friend had never heard of it, so I started telling her who Scalzi is and what his site’s about; back in 2008, I’d described it as “a perfect example of how a writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blog can be a promotional tool without being uselessly annoying about it,” and that’s basically how I put it that night, too. (If you’re looking for a more detailed introduction, you’re in luck: Scalzi just wrote one<\/a>.) Afterwards, my friend said something along the lines of how she wanted to know what the blogs I read every day are, which is why I’m revisiting (and revising) my ultimate blogroll and sharing some of those links with you tonight.<\/p>\n

(Of course, I haven’t actually used a “blogroll,” in the sense of a list of blogs that I access through an active web page, in years—instead, I use Google Reader to keep up with blogs through their RSS feeds. But the metaphor still holds up.)<\/p>\n

I follow a lot fewer book blogs than I used to, but I’m always interested in what Maud Newton<\/a> has to say about literature and culture (and literary culture), and the romance fan blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books<\/i><\/a> continues to teach me how to write about genre fiction with an authoritative passion. That’s actually the same reason that I’m a huge fan of Comics Alliance<\/i><\/a>, even though I’m actually reading fewer comic books and graphic novels these days; editor Laura Hudson has put together a roster of sharp critics who challenge the sexual and racial assumptions of mainstream comics on a near-daily basis, but also aren’t afraid to give themselves over to the fun of great storytelling. When it comes to literary blogs affiliated with mainstream media institutions, the only one I admire enough to pay attention to regularly is Carolyn Kellogg’s Jacket Copy<\/i><\/a> at The Los Angeles Times<\/i>, although The New York Daily News<\/i> launched a book blog in late 2011 called Page Views<\/i><\/a> that I hope works out. (As for the other “corporate” book blogs, I count on the people I follow on Twitter to ferret out the must-read posts and bring them to my attention, though sometimes I’ll spot-check if I’m looking to see if anybody’s talking about a particular book.)<\/p>\n

For professional inspiration, I keep an eye out for new posts at 43 Folders<\/i><\/a> and Presentation Zen<\/i><\/a>, and Seth Godin<\/a> usually posts about once a day (sometimes more). Personal inspiration comes from my friends Gretchen Rubin<\/a> (The Happiness Project<\/i>) and Jonathan Fields<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, when I just want to be entertained, the following webcomics never let me down: Randall Munroe’s XKCD<\/i><\/a>, David Malki’s Wondermark<\/i><\/a>, and Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant<\/i><\/a>. Each has a particular type of “geek humor,” so there’s very little thematic overlap between the three, but they all “work” at a consistent level of excellence.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned, these aren’t the only<\/i> blogs I follow regularly, but they are among the best, and I encourage you to pay attention to any (or all) of them, and see for yourself what rewards that attention will bring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Randall Munroe’s XKCD Nearly four years ago, I wrote a post for GalleyCat called “What’s In Your Ultimate Blogroll?” I was riffing off a book called Ulimate Blogs where Sarah Boxer laid out some info on her 27 favorites. (The book’s still available, though as far as I know it’s never been updated; I wasn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[243,244,242],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1645,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions\/1645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}