As more and more bloggers write about books and with some of their Web sites receiving thousands of hits a day, this is an easy-to-follow guide to the top, book-related blogs.

With the current craze for blogs, the phenomenon of book blogging is of interest from an objective standpoint as well as to those keen to read book reviews. How much influence do these bloggers have? Is there any kind of censorship or quality control? Are booksellers aware of them? Does Oprah Winfrey take note?

Many people develop a real fondness for book bloggers who write reviews for love and not money. Taking in small, quirky Web sites like Book Slut, dovegreyreader, Bluestalking Reader, and MoorishGirl as well as large, well-known sites like salon.com, this book will show readers how to investigate literature from distant lands, to find the sites of authors who are yet to be discovered by the mainstream, and to find the pages of book industry pundits who have opened their daily lives to a wider world. Welcome to the honest world of book blogs.

Catheryn Kilgarriff and Rebecca Gillieron are editors at Marion Boyars Publishers, and Meryl Zegarek is a book publicist of many years standing. All three have seen the book industry from the inside and are happy that blogs are now opening this world up to ordinary readers.