Sometimes the Internet is like that. The traditional objects of
culture - books, movies, art - are becoming ever more distant. In their place
are reviews of reviews, museums of museums and many, many lists.
Here's my opinion of this writer's opinion about Lit-bloggers who review the reviews: I disagree! To be more exact: 1) lit bloggers do more than list favorite books, authors, easy chairs, coffee mugs, and the like. While making lists is certainly my favorite thing to do, it is not the only thing I do.
Ron Hogan, who writes a literary blog called Beatrice.com, recently began a second blog, Beatrix: A Book Review Review. He's not the only one reviewing reviewers. The blogs Bookdwarf, Conversational Reading, The Elegant Variation, Golden Rule Jones, The Reading Experience and Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind - all gloss, grade or review other people's book reviews. Most book-review reviews are summary, to say the least. Their main purpose, it seems, is to get noticed and linked to by more popular blogs.
In short, Boxer argues, book bloggers have no original ideas of their own. I would challenge this, but unfortunately I can't find a link or a quote to make my case for me.
[More seriously, see Scott Esposito.]