Dublin Opinion

So far I’ve got a very good response to my Christmas books appeal. As I hadn’t thought it through properly when I started to contact people it became apparent very quickly that the plan wasn’t defined clearly enough.

So here’s a recap of what I think people who are interested in joining the Christmas books thing ought to do.

The aim is get people writing about the books that they’ve enjoyed reading the most in 2006. They don’t necessarily have to be books published in 2006 but if you happen to have read a lot of books this year you might prefer to concentrate on those published between January and December of 2006.

After that it’s up to you. The length of the reviews and how many you choose to do are entirely your own choice, but I have suggested to people that they write about three books and keep the reviews relatively short (perhaps just one or two short paragraphs for each). In the case of Wyvernfriend limiting it to three might be hard to achieve but for others three is too many.

Perhaps the most significant change to the plan is the idea that people should publish the reviews on their own blog. This has the excellent advantage of allowing their own audience to respond to their choices and adding their own. If you choose to do so, however, I ask you to add the tag irishblogsandbooks and/or add the link: http://www.technorati.com/search/irishblogsandbooks to the end of the post.

The when is anytime between now and Christmas. Pavement Trauma (or Where the Blubber Meets The Road) has already done one and I hadn’t even contacted them.

I’ll be in touch with everyone again about this update, but I’d just like to thank Frank of Internetcommunicator, Kevin of Disillusioned Lefty, Cian of Irish Election, Wyvernfriend, Sinead of Silga, Isadub, Hugh of Most Sincerely Folks, Copernicus of Midnight Court, Fence of Pretty Stunning and Simon of Tuppenceworth and Trixibel for responding so far.

I’ll be sending the word out to others too as there are many whose choices I’d like to read about. Please pass it on if you think it’s a good idea or leave suggestions of who I should contact.

Update
Sinead Gleeson has a very nice review of Liam Browne’s debut novel The Emigrant’s Farewell for the Christmas Books and Blogs Review project.

And now, George knows who’s going solve the problems in Iraq:

Mildly funny.