BOOK REVIEW: Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing No. 1 (ed by Karen Andrews, Miscellaneous Press)

1 April 2010 Unlocked content from the archive. Books+Publishing

Some would not agree that some of the best writing appears in blogs. Editor Karen Andrews throws down the gauntlet by introducing her anthology as ‘an experiment to see how this writing, these writers, stand up to the challenge of the page; or to put it another way, to put them in front of another audience which may be more page-loyal.’ It is impossible to list everything here; suffice to say bloggers (well-known and not so well-known) chosen for this first instalment embrace all manner of subjects from the sacred to the mundane including earthquakes, the GFC, food marketing, what makes a successful cultural blog, Bill Clinton, the death of a child, a bombing, lettuce, grandparents, triffids, writing the first draft of a novel, lists, Silverchair, a massacre in East Timor, writing for a living, ebooks, and mashups of ‘great books’. There are fragments, poems, short pieces and longer pieces. Tones are just as varied as subjects and can be hilarious, irreverent or elegiac. References, blog sources and bios are also included. So, for those who are not blog readers, exposure to this significant array of voices and delicious flavours may be quite revelatory and may well produce some steady converts.

Paula Grunseit is a freelance journalist, editor and reviewer. This review first appeared in the April issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.

Category: Fancy Goods Reviews