It’s taken me forever to try and write a review for The Map Thief by Michael Blanding, which came out on May 29 from from Gotham. It was the book I chose for my May pick for Bloggers Recommend, but I’ve been having such hard time expanding on that little blurb:

In 2005, the small world of antiquarian map collectors was shocked to learn one of their own had been stealing maps from libraries around the world. This book illuminates the true story behind this high-risk crime and, along the way, engagingly exploring the complicated history of cartography, where maps have served as tools for navigation, props for political propaganda and, more recently, been coveted as works of art.

I liked The Map Thief because it is a great mixture of true crime and history where both the crime and the history are a little bit obscure — one of my favorite types of nonfiction.

The world of antiquarian map collectors is rather small and insulated, which makes the way E. Forbes Smiley III build his reputation as a collector then threw it away after being caught stealing maps from libraries and collections around the world stand out. Smiley is a man full of contradictions that Blanding explores in great detail. Blanding had cooperation from a vast array of sources, which makes his portrait of Smiley very detailed.

But perhaps even more interesting than the story of Smiley’s thefts is the way Blanding weaves in a history of maps and mapmaking. Over time, maps have served a variety of purposes and have influenced decisionmakers around the world, depending on the particular biases or knowledge bases of their creators. It was interesting for me to think more critically about the way maps tell stories and show how our views of the world can be changed based on what we can see or not see.

The Map Thief was a quick but thought-provoking read — one of those light but juicy nonfiction books that I love reading in the summer. Get yourself a copy!

Other Reviews: River City Reading | Words for Worms | Julz Reads |  Doing Dewey |

Time and Place // 8:10 a.m. at my desk

Eating and Drinking // Blood orange cranberry black tea and cherries (I love cherry season so much). I’m still thinking about the awesome dinner we had last night — steak, sweet corn, and two types of salad. Yum.

Reading // After a slow reading week, I sat down yesterday and made myself finish a couple of books I’ve been working on for a Book Riot piece going up this week, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty (Sept. 15 from Norton) and Nine Years Under by Sheri Booker. It was a bit of a morbid day, since both books focus on life in the funeral business. I’m not sure how much recreational reading I’ll get done this week — I was asked to be a reader for a regional literary magazine and I have quite a few submissions still left to read before my deadline on July 1.

Watching // The boyfriend and I watched Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel last night and I thought it was really delightful (and so very much a Wes Anderson movie).

Listening // I’m still working my way through Siege and Storm, the second book in Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Trilogy. The third book, Ruin and Rising, came out on Tuesday, so I’ll jump into that next.

Making // I have a couple of thriving basil plants, so last night we made a tomato, mozerella, basil and balsamic salad. It was so great.

Blogging // This week I posted a couple of short audio book reviews and a pretty lengthy piece on the idea of blogging for books versus blogging because of books. The comments on that second post have been really fascinating to read. I’m still catching up on replying, another project for today.

Hating // The boyfriend and I live in an old rental house with old appliances. Right now, the refrigerator is driving me nuts — it’s got a broken shelf and there’s water dripping from something that’s pooling in one of the vegetable drawers. Every time I open it I just sigh.

Loving // Our rental also has some unruly gardens out front and along the driveway. They’re a bit of a mess — gardening isn’t really my thing — but I do love when some of the big flowering bushes open up like they did this week.

Avoiding // At the beginning of the month I issued myself a personal challenge to not buy anything new this month. I faltered a little bit last weekend when I was in the Twin Cities — I got that new mug pictured above for work — and was tempted by some clothes online, but it’s largely been successful. I’m hoping I can keep up the cutback in spending through July too.

Wanting // Despite having way too many books, I’m getting a little antsy to buy some new ones! My birthday is in July, so I think I’ll splurge a little bit on some new titles — still deciding which ones!

Anticipating // Our trip to the lake for the Fourth of July is two weeks away, but I am still excited! Like the crazy person that I am, I’ve already started putting together the stack of books I want to take. I’ll be sure to share that before we leave.

Last week I shared a post I wrote about the growing expectations for readers. In that post I was critical of a program for book bloggers, Blogging for Books, that’s been developed by the Crown Publishing Group. After there was some chatter on Twitter about my post and the program generally, Kate Rados (@KateRados), Director of Community Development at Crown Publishing | Penguin Random House reached out to me and offered to answer any questions and respond to feedback about Blogging for Books.

While I stand by my original post and my criticisms of the program, my e-mails with Kate did address a few of the misperceptions I’ve seen floating around about the program that I think are worth mentioning here. I also have (many) thoughts on the idea of “blogging for books” more generally that I want to share. I hope non-book bloggers will forgive another post that is pretty “inside baseball” to the world of book blogging – I’ll be off my soapbox soon.

On Some Good Changes

Since the program launched in beta a few weeks ago, Crown has listened to feedback from bloggers and removed many of the most troubling requirements of the program. Michele’s (A Reader’s Respite) original post on this program sums up most of the terms that were originally included, most frustratingly requirements to post reviews on retail sites and social media and specific guidelines for what reviews should contain.

If you go back to read the Frequently Asked Questions today, nearly all of these requirements have been removed (the requirement that hasn’t been removed is a requirement to write a review – an issue I’ll address shortly). To my knowledge, there has never been a section that said all reviews had to be positive; they just ask for them to be honest. I’m glad they’ve pulled back in these significant ways.

Kate also emphasized to me that Blogging for Books is not required for bloggers who want to review Crown titles – a misperception that I think was fueled by some mistakes in the program’s beta roll-out. Several bloggers I know who use Edelweiss to request egalleys received rejection notices that told them they should sign up for this program. Kate noted on Twitter that this was a mistake and no one should have been rejected. Bloggers can still use other contacts and connections to request books.

On Review Consideration and Exchanges

One of the things that has not changed about the program, however, is the requirement that participants must post a review of every book they receive in order to receive their next book though the program. As Kate noted in an e-mail:

Regarding your questions about whether a review is required: it is. That is the nature of the program, which again is optional and a supplement to reviewers’ other methods of obtaining books from Crown. Via Blogging For Books, NetGalley, Edelweiss, and personal contact, a blogger is now able to access a wider array of titles across all Crown categories. Just as there is an understanding that a blogger would review a book after requesting it, we are reflecting that arrangement through Blogging For Books.

This is a non-starter for me when considering the program.

One of the phrases that has changed my reading/reviewing life is “for review consideration.” That’s how I answer every pitch, and I include it in every request that I make. I don’t promise a review and, in fact, I don’t review every book that I get – even books that I reach out and request specifically. This approach, making coverage decisions after seeing a book, is not possible with Blogging for Books, if a blogger wants to remain in good standing with the program.

By requiring a review for every book, Crown is, in essence, buying a blogger’s time and attention and the time and attention of a blogger’s readership for the cost of, at best, a hardcover book. As bloggers, it’s important to think about whether we should be bought for so little.

There’s also a little more at play in this comment, specifically the last sentence:

Just as there is an understanding that a blogger would review a book after requesting it, we are reflecting that arrangement through Blogging For Books.

This is not the arrangement for me and, frankly, I don’t think it should be the case for any blogger. It is not the relationship that publishers have with editorial media. In the comments to my last post, Teresa (Shelf Love) made a great comment that I think reflects this point:

I’d really love for all of us as bloggers to get away from using the language of exchange when we talk about review copies. It gives the impression that the review copy is “payment” for a review, which implies that a review is required upon receipt of a review copy. If a blogger wants to make that a personal policy, that’s fine, but because the exchange language is so widespread, I worry that it sets up unspoken assumptions and expectations

This is vitally important. We as bloggers have to stop talking about books in exchange for anything. We do not have exchange relationships with authors or publishers… and the sooner we make that point the better because the longer it continues the more we start to look like paid enthusiasts rather than critics.

On “Blogging for Books” in Theory

At the risk of sounding like a crabby old lady, the idea of “blogging for books” has some really negative connotations that feed into the issues with the language of exchange that has developed around review copies.

The phrase “blogging for books” suggests that the work of bloggers is done in service of publishers in order to get more books. That is just not the case – and not the motivation – for all the successful bloggers that I personally know.

When many of us started blogging five or six or seven years ago, the idea of getting books to review wasn’t even a consideration. Bloggers weren’t on publisher’s radars until they started to see us as active, engaged, excited readers they could reach out to directly. At that point, the narrative shifted to this idea of “working with” each other or that writing reviews was a “favor” that bloggers could do for authors/publishers. This remains a problem.

Writing about the latest books and having access to ARCs does not make a great blog and, in my experience, blogging for books is not a motivation that is going to help a blog remain vibrant and sustainable for any length of time. As Jenn (Jenn’s Bookshelves) succinctly tweeted last week: “I don’t blog for books. I blog because of my love of books and reading.”

I appreciate that the folks behind Blogging for Books have been responsive to criticisms raised about many requirements of the program. I think they deserve credit for making those changes and I appreciate that Kate took time to address some of my questions and concerns.

But I still don’t think this is a good program for book bloggers. Requiring a review allows a publisher a degree of editorial control that I’m not comfortable with. It also sets a bad precedent for other bloggers, especially new bloggers who may think that this is just the way things work. It’s not and it shouldn’t be. We each have set the standards we have for ourselves and, I hope, chose not to participate in a program that allows a publisher to have any control over the choices we make on our blogs. Your time and attention – and the time and attention of your readers – should not be sold for a book.

I’m really excited to start a discussion on some of these issues in the comments. However, I’d like to avoid focusing too much on the Blogging for Books program specifically. It’s not the only program of it’s kind, just the one getting attention right now. I’d rather talk more about how we as bloggers can challenge the increasingly prevalent idea that “book = review” — the bigger issue at stake here. Thanks in advance! 

Since June is Audio Book Month, I want to share quick reviews of two audio books that I thought were a ton of fun: The Martian by Andy Weir and Veronica Mars and the Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham.

The Martian by Andy Weir (read by R.C. Bray)

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive — and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain old “”human error”” are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit – he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?”

The Martian is a heck of a fun book. Mark Watney is the perfect main character and narrator — sarcastic, thoughtful, smart and almost dementedly optimistic in the face of certain death. The book is a little slow to start (Watney spends a long time working out the math of growing potatoes on Mars), but once the plot picks up it never seems to stop. Every time I thought that Mark was finally in the clear, or that I knew how the story was going to proceed, Weir would throw in a twist that blew up the story yet made total sense. I think I held my breath for the last hour of this book… it was great. This one is highly recommended.

The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham (read by Kristin Bell)

Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case.

Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is no simple missing person’s case; the house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica’s past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined.

I’ve been a fan of snarky girl detective Veronica Mars ever since my sister introduced me to the television series. Jenny and I were both sad when the show was abruptly cancelled and enthusiastic backers of the Kickstarter that brought Veronica to the big screen. I tell you that as a way of noting that I am, basically, the perfect audience for The Thousand Dollar Tan Line, which jumps off right where the movie left off.  I loved this book so, so much. Having Veronica (Kristin Bell) narrate was an absolute treat. Loved the mystery which, in typical Veronica Mars fashion, didn’t go where I expected, and, fittingly, was more adult that some of the mysteries Veronica previously tackled. It was just so much fun.

While authors Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham did a good job of dropping the kinds of hints you need to remember who particular characters are and how they fit into Veronica’s world, if you aren’t familiar with either the show or the movie, I don’t think this book will be for you. But if you enjoyed either and are eager to spend more time with Veronica, the book is a fun next step and, because of Bell’s narration, worth grabbing on audio if you have that option.

Disclosure: I bought both of these titles through my subscription to Audible.