Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web

by Sarah Boxer

“What are you working on?”
“An anthology of blogs.”
“I didn’t know you had a blog.”
“I don’t. It’s an anthology of other people’s blogs.”
“How do you find good blogs?”
“I read. I surf. I look at blog contests. I follow links. I ask people about the blogs they like.”
“Is a good blog hard to find?”
“Yes. Very.”

A Book of Blogs? WTF!!

Sarah Boxer, a former New York Times reporter and critic, travels through the blogosphere (more than 80 million blogs — and counting) and finds some masterpieces along the way. Among the bloggers in the anthology

two fashion critics mocking the inexplicable “fugliness” of celebrities
a Marine Corps lieutenant stationed in Fallujah in 2006
a 19-year old student in Singapore cheerfully pining for her ex
an illustrator’s tiny saga of a rodent and his ball of crap
Odysseus’s sidekick telling his side of the Iliad and Odyssey



Revealing and deceptive, grand and niggling, worldly and parochial, these blogs comprise a snapshot of life on the wild, wild Web.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't actually read this book, but I did compile the 27 blogs that New York Times journalist Sarah Boxer lists in her book as masterpieces:

Angryblackbitch
http://angryblackbitch.blogspot.com/

Becker-Posner Blog
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

Click Opera
http://imomus.livejournal.com/

Cosmic Variance
http://cosmicvariance.com/

Diary of Samuel Pepys
http://www.pepysdiary.com/

El Guapo in DC
http://elguapodc.blogspot.com/

Eurotrash
http://www.upsaid.com/eurotrash/

Get Your War On
http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war.html

Go Fug Yourself
http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/

How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons
http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/

I Blame the Patriarchy
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/

In the Middle
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

Ironic Sans
http://www.ironicsans.com/

It's Raining Noodles!
http://raining-noodles.blogspot.com/

Johnny I Hardly Knew You
http://jihky.blogspot.com/

Julia {Here Be Hippogriffs}
http://julia.typepad.com/

Language Log
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/langua...

Matthew Yglesias
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/

Micrographica
http://www.serializer.net/comics/micr...

Midnight in Iraq
http://midnight.hushedcasket.com/

Ninapaley.com
http://blog.ninapaley.com/

Old Hag
http://www.theoldhag.com/

Radio.Uruguay
http://dgoutnik.net/

Rootless Cosmopolitan
http://tonykaron.com/

The Rest is Noise
http://www.therestisnoise.com/

The Smoking Gun
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/

Under Odysseus
http://www.underodysseus.blogspot.com/

[Sarah Funke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend starting with Boxer's hilarious introduction (which will restore your faith in the idea that some people still have standards, even in the blogosphere), and then reading the first entry of each blog she includes. You'll know the ones you like immediately, because you won't stop after the first entry. If you don't, it's ok to move on (say I), there's something -- a lot, in fact -- here for everyone and no need to get bogged down with, well, I won't name names, but there are some I could name. Anyone who has a mom will with an email address will appreciate The Diary of Samuel Pepys in way he or she didn't think possible in college. As for living people blogs, "Ironic Sans" is my favorite, but there's lots of good stuff in here. Doesn't make me want to read any blogs on line, but I'll definitely buy the next installment of this book!

[Erin O'Riordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great selection of blogs, from the silly to the sublime! It's a shame some of the authors are no longer blogging, especially El Guapo in DC. Actually, not all the bloggers are writers: some are cartoonists, one is a photographer and one is an animator. One of them is Samuel Pepys, who lived in the 18th century but whose famous diary can be found in blog form. My favorite line is from Alex Ross: "Greatness and unruliness are often interchangeable." This book is full of surprises.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know how to categorize this one - I read the Advance Reader's Copy over several lunch breaks at work. A book about blogs - OK - but without any real conclusions about them, just samples of what they have to offer. In some ways fun, but in some ways you'd be better off just searching the Web randomly.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the thousands and thousands of blogs out there, I'm not sure how the author chose the 27 she profiled.

I checked them all out. Some are okay; others boring. Each blog has a chapter with actual blog entries. I only recognized two.

This book had promise but fell flat with me. So I won't be recommending it.

[Douglas Lord · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting authors, different viewpoints, good writing, and you can curl up with it next to the fire.
Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal. Copyright Library Journal.

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really like blogs, but this book was a terrible disappointment. You can't just take a bunch of random blog posts from completely unrelated blogs and slap them together to make a book. Without the context of who the writer is and what they write about, these posts were incomprehensible.

[T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing really new or mind-boggling here.

[Meadow · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was not really "Ultimate". I couldn't even get through the whole book. Blogs should be read on the internet.