A Big And Hearty Thank You

 

I’ve been umming and arghing about writing this post, but having been convinced by my family(Ta, family) that it’s not boasting and combined with the realisation that I do owe a very large BIG THANK YOU, to those who took the time to confront the labyrinth that was the BBAW registration and nomination form and vote for me. End result is I’ve been nominated in two of the niche categories - Best Poetry Blog and Best Eclectic Book Blog, which humbled and yet made me really proud that  my fellow bloggers and Bookfiends  liked what I do here at The Parrish Lantern. This has left me with an interesting dilemma. It seems you can only go forward in one niche category and after much consideration, a lot of pacing back and forth I have decided to choose - Best Eclectic Book Blog, on the grounds that although I feature poetry on the blog, there is not yet enough to fulfil the criteria of five separate posts (which must include book reviews), so best eclectic it is, and these are the posts I’ve chosen.

 

A Void - Georges Perec

Behind The Verse (Bloodaxe Books)

If On A Winters Night A Traveller – Italo Calvino

Discuss Your Thoughts On Sentimentality In Literature

A Personal Library (A Reader On Reading – Alberto Manguel)

Hope you agree with what I’ve chosen, as it’s your input  that inspires me, whether this is through book suggestions, poems, links etc. or in my attempts to improve The Parrish Lantern. So this is a big..

Junichiro Tanizaki

The Secret History     
Of The Lord Of Musashi
and Arrowroot.    trans
Anthony H. Chambers.  
In 1948, after completing his great novel “The Makioka Sisters”, Tanizaki wrote that of his works he liked “Some Prefer Nettles” and “Arrowroot” best. The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi, he described as another favourite and often spoke of a sequel (of which an outline was found after his death). Arrowroot and The Secret history of… are from the middle of this writer’s amazing career. By the time he wrote Arrowroot, all his previous work, the novels, stories, plays and essays had been collated into a volume and published as his “Complete Works” 20 years of work and he’d only just got started, he would go on entertaining, shocking and perplexing his audience for another 35, along the way he received The Imperial Award for Cultural Merit and achieved the distinction of being the first Japanese Writer to be elected (Honorary) to membership in The American Academy & Institute of Arts and Letters.


The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi, is set in the 16 century, opening with the main protagonist, a royal hostage, in a siege stricken castle, there as a peace token (a common practice worldwide around that period), the lord is a 12 year old child and finds all the action taking place around him very exciting, in fact he begs his attendant, some lower ranked Samurai, to allow him to join the fray, but is refused. A few days later, whilst listening in to the conversation of a group of female hostages, he learns about Head dressing and one of the elderly female hostages offers him the chance to see it in action. She takes him secretly to the room where the practice of Dressing Heads takes place and she explains the custom of cutting off the head of a ranked Samurai to be brought back as a trophy to be presented to your lord, obviously a bloodied head would be considered poor show, so the heads are cleaned by the women then  made to appear as alive as possible.





This sight, the women dressing the heads, has a bizarre effect on the 12 year old boy, he is entranced by the vision before him and starts to feel agitated as he becomes aroused by this experience, becomes excited by these feelings new to to him. After a while he notices a nose- less head and learns that if a warrior doesn’t have time to remove a head, he will slice off the nose so he can go back later and claim his trophy, this combined with the girl dressing it stirs an even greater level of feeling in his loins


“The girl carefully ran her comb through the nose less head’s lustrous black hair and retied the topnot; then as she always she gazed at the centre of the face, where the nose should have been and smiled. As usual the boy was enchanted by her expression, but the surge of emotion he experienced at that moment was far stronger than any he had felt before.”

Without giving too much away, this through a series of bizarre tales and adventures, develops into a full blown sexual fetish, which follows him and comes to dominate his life and his view of it, regardless of his ability as a warrior, what he becomes is as a servant to his warped appetites, all he does is in homage to that desire.
This was one strange and yet strangely enjoyable tale, Tanizaki’s take on the idea of Samurai legends & their histories, is as though through a fairground mirror, it twists and contorts the classic traditions and the ideals of nobility.The tale bowls you along with the narrator more an old gossip in some surreal drama than a historian of worth. But the end result is a sly clever tale that for all its deviant nature is wonderful.

……………..

Arrowroot, starts with the narrator explaining that it’s been twenty years since he travelled to the interior of Yoshino in Yamato and that his reason in doing so was  research for a historic novel set around the heavenly king, who was heir to the southern court and around whom numerous legends have accumulated. He then goes on to discuss  a catalogue of references, histories etc. such as, An Imperial progress to the southern hills,  Records of the south,  The Blossom Cloud chronicles, plus several others. Everything he discusses is related through these references, in fact to take it further his whole world is seen through this medium. As we follow the narrator we learn that he was orphaned at an early age being raised by relatives and when he checked his past he discovered his mother was sold to a tea house. There is a lot more that goes on in this tale, but it’s all told through the lens of  the narrators learning and although beautifully told I found myself reading it as though listening to a lovely piece of music and although it didn’t have the immediacy of The secret History of the Lord of Musashi, I was entranced by the writing if not so much the content. In writing this I know of at least one individual who will probably disagree with me & who has himself written a far better post on this tale which I shall add a link to… The Reading Life, This link will also give you access to his great  review on the first story as well.

Junichiro Tanizaki (Wikipedia)
Junichiro Tanizaki (Timeline)

Behind The Verse (1) - Bloodaxe Books

I recently bought a set of three poetry Anthologies, called Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human, or to be more accurate I purchased “Staying Alive” was so impressed that I bought the next and then the next (and even gave one as a prize in a Literary Giveaway), and they did that impossible thing – each was as good / if not better than the previous, in fact individually they easily stacked up against my benchmark poetry anthology “The Rattle Bag – edited by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney”, combined they are unbeatable. These books contain a selection of poetry from most nations, poets such as -  Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Simon Armitage, Anna T. Azabo, Imtiaz Dharker, Wislawa Szymborska, Naomi  Shihab Nye, Anna Swir, Rumi, Benjamin Zephaniah, Langston Hughes, Agha Shahid Ali, Phillip Larkin, Billy Collins, Moniza Ali, Elizabeth Bishop etc. In fact between the three anthologies there is approximately 1200 poems, and  all  three were edited Neil Astley and published by Bloodaxe Books, now anyone with an interest in poetry will have heard of Bloodaxe books, but I wanted to find out more, about the history behind such a force in contemporary poetry.

Bloodaxe books was set up Neil Astley in 1978, with the idea of publishing poets who had a strong grassroots following, who had appreciative audiences at reading and by the readers of poetry magazines. Poets who were not necessarily being recognised and picked up by the mainstream publishers of the 1970s .



The ethos behind Bloodaxe books was that poetry was not just for middle-class Oxbridge-educated white men from the Home Counties. Having been part of the grassroots culture that he would go on to promote, working for Stand Magazine and producing small press pamphlets, he would also organise readings at places such as Newcastle university, with it’s energetic, internationally-minded poetry culture. This in turn inspired Bloodaxe’s  democratic style of publishing and it’s eclectic rota poets. Neil Astley and Bloodaxe books started this fantastic journey by publishing poetry by new or previously neglected writers from the  North of England, gradually broadening the range to encompass the leading poets from as far away as the  Caribbean and America, as well as poets from around Europe, and by combining these with  new or established  poets from the UK. Bloodaxe easily achieved the aim of bringing contemporary poetry to a wider audience, whilst being there and publishing virtually every  style that modern poetry has taken,  in the process working with writers that garnered praise and prizes from all quarters, including four Nobel prizes, yet sticking with the original policy have also published works by a great many significant but little-known European poets.



Over the last 30 odd years Bloodaxe has become a pioneering publisher of Poetry, wherever it may be from, knowing no borders in it’s aim to be at the forefront of contemporary verse. They’ve achieved this  by  taking a pro-active stance in publishing the work of women poets, as well as writers from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, Neil Astley has said that this was done not out of any ideas of political correctness, but….

“because I've always had two primary concerns as a poetry editor: literary quality and broadening the readership of contemporary poetry, and that involves being responsive to the changing literatures of Britain and other countries. And the list which has evolved over 30 years is roughly 50:50 male: female. This is unusual but it shouldn't be.”

This stance has led to the support of poets, such as Irina Ratushinskaya's  whose book “No, I’m Not Afraid “ was published by Bloodaxe in May 1986, at a time when the young poet was imprisoned in a Soviet prison camp for the ‘crime’ of writing and distributing poems a judge had called ‘a danger to the state’ and  at 28, she found herself faced with a sentence of seven years hard labour. An international campaign was mounted on her behalf, spearheaded by her own poetry, which led to her release in October 1986 on the eve of the Reykjavik summit after Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan had been given copies of her Bloodaxe collection by David Owen. “No, I’m Not Afraid “ went on to sell over 20,000 copies.

Bloodaxe were joined in 1982 by Simon Thirsk as a director and chairman, after twenty years as a journalist, also lecturing in journalism and marketing, he has an honours degree in philosophy and is fluent in Welsh. He has also written a play for TV “Small Zones”,  about Irina Ratushinskaya, which was shown on BBC2 and a novel “Not Quite White” which  was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award in 2010. In 1995 Neil Astley was awarded an honorary D. Litt for his work with Bloodaxe Books, he has also received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors for a short collection of his own poems, “The Speechless Act” (1984), his first book length collection “Darwin Survivor”(1988) was given a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, this was followed by a second book titled “Biting My Tongue” (1995). He has also written two novels “The End of My Tether”(2002) which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and “The Sheep Who Changed the World”(2005)

The growth of Bloodaxe runs parallel with the rise of a generation of poets born in the 50s and early 60s, many seeing their first work under the Bloodaxe banner, as the title grew and expanded its publishing, it has come to mirror the changing face of literature, not only in the UK, but worldwide, taking in talented writers from whatever background, allowing the poetry to evolve and in the process has widened the appeal of poetry to a larger audience expanding interest well beyond the traditional poetry readership, taking in readers from an increasingly diverse series of backgrounds. By following this ethos, they’ve become an integral part of the world of poetry and yet they have still managed to keep that original outsider cred, by maintaining their original idea of poetry, not just for a select few, those middle-class Oxbridge-educated white men from the Home Counties, that poetry is for all regardless of status, regardless of a persons ethnic or cultural background, and for those that think this is nothing more than a mission statement, or something for a letterhead, these are some of the poets, Bloodaxe has worked with;


Sappho, Catullus, Osip Mandelstam, Federico García Lorca, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva. Edith Södergran Miroslav Holub Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Piotr Sommer, Marin Sorescu, Tomas Tranströmer, Miguel Hernández,Attila József, Jaan Kaplinski, Tua Forsström, Pia Tafdrup  Tomas Venclova,  Maram al-Massri  Salah Stétié Mahmoud Darwish  Taha Muhammad Ali  Jack Mapanje  Li-Young Lee  Aimé Césaire Evgeny Rein, Tatiana Shcherbina, Elena Shvarts Tatiana Voltskaia Yang Lian  Yi Sha Kenji Miyazawa Robert Adamson  Kevin Hart  Alden Nowlan Priscila Uppal , Deborah Garrison, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Hinsey, Tony Hoagland, Jane Hirshfield,Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Denise Levertov, Philip Levine, Samuel Menashe, W.S. Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Ruth Stone, Brian Turner (American poet),Chase Twichell, Fred Voss, C.K. Williams, C.D. Wright James Wright,Julie O'Callaghan, Anne Rouse, Eva Salzman Anne Stevenson.Yves Bonnefoy, René Char, Jacques Dupin, Paul Éluard, André Frénaud, Guillevic, Philippe Jaccottet, Gérard Macé, Henri Michaux, Pierre Reverdy Paul Valéry.
 Simon Armitage, David Constantine, Peter Didsbury, Katie Donovan, Maura Dooley, Ian Duhig, Helen Dunmore, Frieda Hughes, Elizabeth Garrett, W.N. Herbert, Jackie Kay, Stephen Knight, Gwyneth Lewis, Glyn Maxwell, Sean O'Brien, David Scott, Jo Shapcott  Pauline Stainer, Paul Batchelor, Zoë Brigley, Polly Clark, Julia Copus, Nick Drake, Jen Hadfield, Choman Hardi Tracey Herd, Matthew Hollis, Joanne Limburg, Roddy Lumsden, Esther Morgan, Helen Ivory, Stephanie Norgate, Caitríona O'Reilly, Leanne O'Sullivan  Clare Pollard  Sally Read Sarah Wardle.Jeni Couzyn Carol Rumens Linda France Maura Dooley Robyn Bolam Deryn Rees-Jones’
 Gillian Allnutt, Connie Bensley,Stewart Conn, Freda Downie, Ruth Fainlight, Andrew Greig, Philip Gross, Tony Harrison, Selima Hill, Frances Horovitz, Kathleen Jamie, Jenny Joseph, Barry MacSweeney, Adrian Mitchell, Grace Nichols, J.H. Prynne, Peter Reading, Lawrence Sail, Ken Smith, R.S. Thomas  Susan Wicks Oxford University Press : Fleur Adcock, Moniza Alvi, Basil Bunting, Roy Fisher, Carole Satyamurti, Penelope Shuttle, Anne Stevenson  George Szirtes.  Rita Ann Higgins, Brendan Kennelly  Micheal O'Siadhail. John Oldham Rabindranath Tagore Ketaki Kushari Dyson Kenji Miyazawa  Roger Pulvers Edward Thomas  Edna Longley, Bernard Spencer  Peter Robinson
 New Generation Poets Jackie Kay, Ian McMillan, Sean O'Brien, Jo Shapcott  Matthew Sweeney.  Michael Hulse, David Kennedy David Morley, Sean O'Brien Philip Larkin  Ted Hughes John Agard, James Berry Kamau Brathwaite, Jean "Binta" Breeze, Martin Carter, Fred D'Aguiar, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols  Benjamin Zephaniah  E.A. Markham Moniza Alvi, Imtiaz Dharker, Arun Kolatkar Arundhathi Subramaniam,  Jeet Thayil (courtesy of Wiki)


For more information
 Bloodaxe Books
Twitter Bloodaxe
Bloodaxe(Wiki)
Arts Council(Bloodaxe)

Stevenson Under The Palm Trees

Alberto Manguel

“Robert Louis Stevenson left the house and walked the long trek down to the beach just as the day was setting. From the verandah the sea was hidden by the trees, six hundred feet below, filling the end of two vales of forest.To enjoy the last plunge of the sun before the clear darkness set in, the best observation-post was among the mangrove roots, in spite (he said bravely to himself) of the mosquito and the sand-flies. He did not immediately notice the figure because it appeared to be merely one more crouching shadow among the shadows, but then it turned and seemed for a moment to be watching him. The man was wearing a broad-rimmed hat not unlike Stevenson’s own and, even though he could see that the skin was white, he could not make out the man’s features……”

This is the start of  Stevenson under the palm trees and is a fictionalised account of the last days of the author of books such as, Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde to name just a few.  It is set in Samoa and the man he sees and meets is a Scottish missionary, named Baker whose appearance not only stirs long buried memories of Stevenson’s past, but also appears to be the catalyst for a whole spate of crime, ranging from arson to rape and murder with the finger of suspicion turning like some compass needle in the direction of the writer, when his hat is found   beside the corpse of a young Samoan girl. What at first seems a glorious idyll amongst the natives whose exuberance with life enchants him and his family, slowly crumbles as he faces the hostile stares of the Samoans.

This is one of those books, that when you’re reading it, you stop, turn it over in your hand as though looking for the trick, like some magic act, you saw it happen, you were real close, but ……?  This book is including notes and woodcuts (Stevenson’s own) only 105 pages long and yet Alberto Manguel manage to pack in so much as it focuses on Robert Louis Stevenson’s last days dying of consumption on a tropical island. It plays with the idea of moral duality as in Stevenson's own Novella (Jekyll and Hyde), is Baker real or some Edward Hyde persona of Stevenson's allowed free reign whilst he slept. Also the writers attitude to the indigenous population as childlike innocents whose amoral existence was counterpoint to his 18th century Scottish Calvinist upbringing. That Alberto Manguel has managed to conjure up through Stevenson’s own Tales (The Beach of Falesa), letters and biography a beautiful little book that plays with many ideas and  questions concerning sensuality and repression, waking and dreaming, plus the whole craft of writing itself. Like his mentor Jorge Luis Borges, Manguel seems to place his own reading centre stage in his writing, by which I mean his dominant subject matter are books themselves, not as some influence on his writing but as  the subject of it. If I played the game of who I would invite to some fictitious dinner party, Alberto Manguel’ s name would be high on that list, as he appears to be the epitome of a representative of the Reading Life. 

Alberto Manguel – Homepage

Alberto Manguel(Wiki)
Alberto Manguel(Discussing Borges)

The Parrish Lantern news/waffle

pomes ALL SIZES

Recently I’ve been attempting to tidy up The Parrish Lantern, creating specific pages (in sidebar) for some of my obsessions. The idea behind this was to make it easier to find points of interest, for example, Pomesallsizes, is the title I use for all my poetic posts, whether this is individual Poems, collections by a specific writer, writing about styles of Poetry or a particular publisher (more about this soon). With Pomesallsizes I want this to be a resource for links to anything vaguely related to poetry, whether it’s Magazines/Journals, publishers, organisations or Bloggers who promote Poetry - Anything. So please Explore and if you have a favourite poetry site, whether it’s a local area one or something international, please put the details in the comment box, so I can check it out.
Thanks,
Parrish.

pomes ALL SIZES

@pomesallsizes

Without Blood

Alessandro Baricco
This book opens in an old isolated farmhouse, with a father and his two children (a boy and a girl). The father goes and looks out of the window at the sound of a car engine. What happens next is a shocking act of violence, that leaves the father and son shot dead. The daughter (Nina) although hidden away is discovered by Tito, the youngest of the killers.
“The child turned her head and looked at him. She had dark eyes, oddly shaped. She looked at him without expression. Her lips were half closed and she was breathing calmly. She was an animal in its den. Tito felt returning to him a sensation he had felt a thousand times, finding that exact position between the warmth of the sheets or under the afternoon sun of childhood Knees folded, hands between the legs, feet balanced. Head bent forward slightly, closing the circle. How lovely it was, he thought……..”

What he sees is a 4 year child, and against the wishes of his comrades, he covers up her hiding place & leaves her without revealing her existence.
Years later a beautiful women somewhere in her 50’s purchases a lotto ticket from an old man. She strikes up a conversation with him, then invites him to go with her for a drink. He somehow recognises her as the young girl from years before & initially refuses, knowing that he is the last  one of the killers  surviving from that day, that his fellow assassins have met untimely ends. Although believing she’s here to kill him, he goes with her to a local cafe, and over glasses of wine, they start a conversation which takes up the major part of the book and shows how each of their lives have cast shadows upon the other, and how Nina's life, an apparent series of isolated moments, of twists of fate, becomes a net of intrigue, of calculated intent.
They leave the cafe……

This Novel  could so easily have become  a tale of revenge, carrying on with the bloody path it first seems to be taking, but it becomes so much more, with it’s beautiful understated prose, placing it in a no mans land, in a time and place unstated. It’s myth and like myth it’s relevance is timeless & like myth it mines the human psyche.This book is 87 pages of viscerally shocking, mesmerising writing. It takes no time to read and yet its stark landscape will become a backdrop to your thoughts .









After reading Ocean Sea, by this author last year, I’ve been wanting to read another of his books and came across this one, I’ll now be tracking down his other works.

Translated by Ann Goldstein
Alessandro Baricco(Wiki)
Alessandro Baricco(Publishers)

THE ROMANTIC DOGS by ROBERTO BOLANO

  X-Rays.*

If we look with X-rays at the patients house,

we’ll see the ghosts of books in silent shelves

or piled in the hall or on the nightstands and tables.

We’ll also see a small notebook with drawings, lines

         and arrows

that diverge and intersect: they are voyages in death’s

company.But death, despite its arrogant aide-memoir,

still hasn’t won. the X-rays tell us time

is expanding and thinning like the tail of a comet

inside the house. Life still gives its best

fruits. And as the sea promised Jaufre Rudel *

the vision of love, so this house near the sea promises

its dweller the dream of the destroyed and constructed tower.

If we look, however, with X-rays inside of the man,

we’ll see bones and shadows: ghosts of fiestas

and landscapes in motion as if viewed from an airplane

in tailspin. We’ll see the eyes he saw, the lips

his fingers brushed, a body emerged

from a snowstorm. And we’ll see the naked body,

just as he saw it, and the eyes and the lips he brushed,

and we’ll know that there’s no cure.

The poem above is one of forty-three in a collection of poetry by Chilean writer Roberto Bolano, originally published in 2006, this, the bilingual edition was published two years later, and was translated by Laura Healy (publisher New Directions). This collection spans just under twenty years (1980 to 1998) and covers a lot of the subject matter covered in his novels, his obsessions with detectives, with the lost and exiled, and with poetry itself. In fact anyone who has read 2666, The Savage Detectives, Amulet etc. will be familiar with the subject matter and although the books are shot through with poetry, you get the impression that these are more personal. Bolano  has always considered himself a poet, he wrote fiction to fulfil the need to support his family more than as an abiding wish to write the books, explaining, “I blush less when I reread my poems.” Yet it was through his novels, translated after his death, that he gained recognition outside the Spanish language world, that allowed this work to be published alongside other works from his back catalogue.







This book has an air of nostalgia, of looking back at a youth and it’s freedoms, of a time of living the poetry, of it being the essence, in the title poem Bolano writes;

Back then, I’d reach the age of twenty

and I was crazy.

I’d lost a country

but won a dream

nothing else mattered.

Not working, not praying

not studying in the morning light

alongside the romantic dogs.

And through these poems you follow his journey, meeting the many characters, the good, the lost, the evil. This is the story of artists, writers & poets exiled from all that could be called home. Individuals caught in their own private quests, hunted by nightmares, always on the edge, and yet  the penultimate  poem is about love (possibly his wife) and it ends with these lovely words suffused with hope.

Muse,
more beautiful than the sun,
more beautiful
than the stars

"That's what art is, he said, the story of a life in all its particularity. It's the only thing that really is particular and personal. It's the expression and, at the same time, the fabric of the particular. And what do you mean by the fabric of the particular? I asked, supposing he would answer: Art. I was also thinking, indulgently, that we were pretty drunk already and that it was time to go home. But my friend said: What I mean is the secret story.... The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every damn thing matters! It's just that we don't realize. We tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, we don't even realize that's a lie."








This was spoken by one of the characters in a tale (Dentist) in the short story collection, Last Evenings on Earth, and I think it sums up the reasoning behind this writers work, which includes this wonderful, explicit, fragmented brilliant book of verse.

(The first part of) Resurrection

Poetry slips into dreams

like a diver into a lake.

Poetry, braver than anyone,

slips in and sinks

like lead…………..

..

Roberto Bolano

The Source of all Wisdom on Bolano  -(In Lieu of a Field Guide)

*Jaufre Rudel
New Directions (Roberto Bolano)

Book Blogger Appreciation Week.

Got anything planned, anything going on between the dates of September 12 - September 16th, yes, no ?, make it a no, because it’s time for the Book Blogger Appreciation Week . Started by Amy Riley of  My Friend Amy with the idea of recognizing  the contribution book bloggers make to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture, by actively engaging in the reading life, through the discussion and support offered to all aspects of literature. But beyond that B.B.A.W, is a week of reacquainting yourself with old friends, making new friends, whilst giving you the chance of championing your favourite book blogs. 

This year’s celebration  includes guest posts, daily activities, giveaways, games, special podcasts, and an awards program exclusively devoted to book blogs. Last year I entered two categories, which I nominated myself for, this year the rules have changed and you have to be nominated by your fellow bloggers, so if YOU’RE interested, whether this is to support The Parrish Lantern, or any other Book Blog, you’ll need to register for BBAW 2011. This year registration requires a Twitter account or Google ID. You will be added to the BBAW 2011 Directory, and you will also be able to fill out your nomination form and do your final voting for BBAW Awards from account, this allows you to vote for your favourite Blogs in categories as diverse as;

Best Written Book Blog
This blog is consistently well-written, clear and engaging, no matter what the subject.

Best Author Interviews
This blogger does his or her research and asks the questions no one else does. These interviews are top-notch. Note that this award reflects the quality of the interviews, not the popularity of the person being interviewed.

Best New Book Blog
This blog was launched on or after September 1, 2010. The blogger has already made his or her mark in terms of the quality of the reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content on the blog; it’s hard to imagine the book blogging world without this blogger.

Best Book Blog Meme
This weekly or monthly meme is one that you never miss. You look forward to contributing on a regular basis and/or to reading the participants’ posts.

Best Book Blogging Event
This event, whether it focuses on blogging, reading, collecting reviews, or building community, inspires everyone to join in. It brings bloggers together for fun, learning, reading, or mutual support and help.

Best Book Blog Feature or Series of Posts
This weekly or monthly feature is something that an individual blogger does on a regular basis, but that does not include the community participation of a meme.

NICHE Categories

Best Eclectic Book Blog
This blog doesn’t specialize in any one book genre. It is known for consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in a variety of genres.

Best Kidlit Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content for books written for young children through middle-grade readers.

Best Young Adult Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content for books written for a young adult audience.

Best Nonfiction Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in nonfiction. It may cover a variety of areas or focus on one particular field.

Best Speculative Fiction Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in fantasy, science fiction, horror, and/or paranormal books. The blog may cover several of these subgenres or just one.

Best Literary Fiction Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in literary fiction.

Best Classics Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in classics.

Best Romance Book Blog
This blog offers the best reviews and specialized content in romance books of any subgenre, from historical to contemporary.

 

Best Historical Fiction Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in historical novels. For the purposes of this award, consider historical anything from 1945 (World War II) and older.

Best Mystery/Suspense/Crime Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in mysteries, suspense, and/or crime. The blog may cover several of these subgenres or just one.

Best Horror/Thriller Book Blog
This blog offers the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in horror and/or thrillers. This blog may cover both of these subgenres or just one.

Best GLBT Lit Book Blog
This blog features the best reviews and specialized content in GLBT books. This blogger may or may not self-identify as a member of the GLBT community, but he or she focuses on GLBT literature on the blog

Best Cultural Book Blog
This blog features the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in books and/or authors of a *specific* cultural identity. This blogger may or may not self-identify with the culture featured on the blog but focuses on that culture’s literature.

Best Graphic Novel/Illustrated Nonfiction Book Blog
This blog features the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content in the graphic medium.

Best Publishing/Industry Blog
This blog features the best content on the publishing industry and is written by an industry professional.

Best Published Author Blog
This blog features the best content written by an author. This is an author who keeps an active blog that engages his or her readers.

 

Best Spiritual, Inspirational, or Religious Book Blog
This blog features the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content on books that address a life of faith. This blog is not necessarily associated with an organized religion and may discuss either fiction or nonfiction books.

Best Audiobook Blog
This blog features the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content on audiobooks.

Best Poetry Blog
This blog features the best consistently excellent reviews, recommendations, analyses, and other content content in poetry.

Best Bookstore Blog
This blog is associated with a retail bookstore, offering book news, staff recommendations, and other content of interest to people who love to shop for books.

Best Bookish Miscellaneous Blog
This blog has a specific focus that is related to books, but doesn’t include reviews of books. It might focus on book cover design, books in culture, trends in books, hidden treasures in books, etc.

 

 

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So Join in, Enjoy and support your favourite Book Blogs,

but most of all participate and have fun.

Register here

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