How much am I loving this post in the NY Times’ "Papercuts" blog on books to read while commuting. The piece, written by Dwight Garner, a editor of the Times’ Book Review, prescribes a good book as the preferred way to endure a long urban commute.
I have to say that the steady blogification of the Times over the past year or so has been somewhat hit-and-miss. It’s terrific that they’re using the infinite canvas of the web page as a vector for putting more content online. But when Times writers started blogging, I wondered whether the contribution of a good editor would be lost, and that occasionally seems to be the case. (On the other hand, it’s not like my own blog couldn’t do without some editing now and again.) It’ll also be interesting to see whether the Times blogs represent a minor league opportunity for emerging new voices, or whether Times blogs will turn into a ghetto for junior writers who are disdained by their elder peers (such as John Markoff, who famously and embarassingly said that he doesn’t need to blog because NYTimes.com is his blog. Um, duh).
But this Garner post has it all, blog-wise: an interesting exploration of a topic that’s probably too niche for the news section (or even the Review of Books); a first-person point of view which is nevertheless reasoned and balanced; and a call to action for readers to continue the conversation.
This being the internet, it is unavoidable that someone would use the comments section to mention the iPhone, but still.
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