A couple of weeks ago the Seventh Annual Weblog Award nominations were announced and for the seventh year in a row there wasn’t a book related blog anywhere near the stage. There are categories for best food blog, best sports blog, best weblog about music, politics,entertainment and even one for best writing of a weblog but no book blogs.
Now there is a new story out at Forbes called “An Exercise in Collecting”. It appears in the Art & Collectibles part of the Personal Finance section.
It starts off with this quote “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body” and offers a slideshow called “In Pictures: Seven Great Books For Aspiring Collectors”.
Sounds encouraging. Unfortunately, there is nothing about book collecting. Wine and art collecting yes, book collecting no. The other titles seem more about collections of information and images not objects. The big Super Bowl book that they plug is more of a sports memorabilia item than an item for a book collector.
I have raised this issue here before regarding Forbes and book collecting. Their ForbesLife section has a Collecting category but little or nothing on book collecting. Yes, Forbes did have that great special report on books a couple of months back but this is more about the blind spot that exists regarding book collecting as a pursuit on par with other forms of the disposition.
Image is cover illustration of Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness