2005 Blogged

My complimentary copy of this book, which is edited by Tim Worstall, arrived in the post this morning.

In the Guardian Jane Perrone describes it as "an accessible introduction to the breadth and quality of writing on offer from some British blogs". She goes on to say:

For me, what lets the book down is its typography. I'd thought gimmicky use of a typeface that looks like it was ripped straight off a dot matrix printer circa 1982 had been deemed unfashionable long ago. And it seems a bit pointless to employ a fake html to indicate when the editor is writing for a book targeted at people not acquainted with the lingua franca of blogs.

If you can get beyond these stylistic quibbles, this is a book that provides proof positive that the British blogosphere is full of great writers.

All this is fair comment. Chicken Yoghurt adds:

The variety of bloggers represented is pretty impressive. The temptation for Tim could have been to go with what he knows. As a narrative of the past year it works as well. Structuring the book chronologically means that people will be inclined to read it from beginning to end rather than if the book had been arranged by, say, subject area.

I was impatient too see which of my postings Tim had included. To my surprise it was a short comment on the government's plans to extend the legislation on incitement to religious hatred to protect Satanists. I'm not convinced that is the best thing I have written this year, and I now see that the first sentence does not even make sense.

But there is a lot of good stuff in 2005 Blogged and I recommend it.

There is also a useful index of the blogs quoted, complete with their addresses on the web. I shall work through it and freshen up my blogroll.