Baltimore Book Festival recap
Too bad that Saturday's visitors to the Baltimore Book Festival got drenched, but yesterday was a beautiful day to celebrate the literary arts. To get the day started, Nancy and I participated on a panel with blogger Heather Johnson about shrinking newspaper book review sections and the corresponding growth among independent book bloggers. (I also made a guest post on this topic at the Poe's Deadly Daughters blog over the weekend.)
Folks in the audience were saddened by the loss of book coverage in the newspaper, and put a lot of trust in print reviews. They hadn't had much experience with blogs, (most were middle-aged), and wondered how they could evaluate the expertise of online reviewers.
Nancy, Heather and I noted that reading blogs is like talking to neighbors -- you quickly get a sense of common interests and tastes. And we agreed that the financial pressures causing a decline in newspaper coverage would continue, so newspaper and indie blogs will have to take up the slack. Still it can be dizzying to keep up with all the blogs out there. Do you have favorites for recommended reading?
Illustration for The Baltimore Sun by Michelle Stidham
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
Comments
That was a great post over at PDD. I especially loved the conversation in the comments - it was great to hear the perspective of a variety of readers.
Posted by: Heather J. | September 29, 2008 3:18 PM
A big thank you to Dave for guesting this weekend at PDD. Like Heather, I enjoyed the comments almost as much as Dave's thoughts on the future of newspaper books reviews. You're welcome to come back, anytime, Dave.
Posted by: Darlene | September 30, 2008 4:46 PM
Thank you Dave, Nancy, and Heather for an interesting conversation at the book festival Sunday morning. Thanks for bringing "the sun."
Posted by: Gregg Wilhelm | October 1, 2008 11:15 AM