What first got our attention in this blog by Mark Athitakis was a tag cloud of names in his posts: John Updike, Mark Twain, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, in big letters, the most frequent mentions. In our book this is a nice little canon right there.
Athitakis is a Washington, DC-based editor, writer, and book reviewer who has been blogging serious literary fiction since 2008. His reviews appear in newspapers around the country. What we like about Athitakis is his well-reasoned, fair-minded, in-depth approach to any subject he posts on.
Check out his recent “G-Rated Reviewing,” on reviewing books for newspapers versus reviewing for a blog. His jumping off point is another blogger’s comment: “Blog-published reviews and criticism in general are more satisfying in this way than what can be found in print publications, especially newspapers.” We kneejerk agree.
But by the time Athitakis gets done considering the differing levels of sophistication in audiences, the comparatively vast numbers of readers reached by newspapers, newspaper length requirements (now as few as 400 words), and the paycheck factor, he’s given us a much better understanding of the issue and good reason to think it’s not yet the time to write off newspaper reviewing.
Ted the Cat (1994-present) is a domestic shorthair blogger and vers libre poet. He also enjoys sleeping, eating, and lurking. Ted the Cat co-habits with Kaze,
also a blogger at 317am.net.
