Annotated list of literary blogs which regularly feature longform content.
Categories:
Science Fiction
Contrary Brin by author David Brin. Weekly. Mostly ruminations about science and topics raised in his own books.
Nerds of a Feather is a recognized scifi groupblog/fanzine with book reviews, interviews and lots of coverage of Sci-Fi Awards. (BTW, really impressive contributor list). Since 2012. Their main book review index is 5 years out of date,
Ancillary Review of Books runs book reviews, essays and interviews about speculative topics. Since. 8 book reviews/essays per month. Since 2020. “ARB is edited by academics and alt-acs, folks who have grown increasingly skeptical of universities and academic writing alone as a place for political change.” Since 2024 Jake Casella Brookins runs its podcast Meal of Thorns podcast
Speculiction is Jesse Hudson‘s blog about SF books and movies. The index of SF book reviews on Speculiction is exhaustive .
Freewheeling Author Blogs
William J. Cobb contains movie reviews, book reviews, excursion reports, politics and even occasional short stories. 2x weekly. Since 2009.
Woman of Letters by Naomi Kanaka publishes distinguished longform essays and book reviews about classic and contemporary fiction. She also has written several books. 2x a week.
Empire Chronicles by Anis Shivani. Shivani is a Texas-based radical poet who write longform essays about culture and literature mixed with a heavy dose of politics. 2x a week since 2024.
Mainly Book Reviews
Ron Charles. Laid-off Wash Post book critics posts reviews on Substack. 3x a week since 2025(?)
Complete Review /Literary Saloon. Posts & Reviews by M.A. Orthofer about non-USA fiction and translated fiction and blogs about international prizes. 4x weekly. Here’s the Review Index. Also summarizes third party book reviews (English and non-English) Since 2002.
Donovan’s Bookshelf by Diane Donovan. Reviewing for 45+ years (over 50,000 books!) Writes sponsored reviews for Midwest Book Review which means that she covers lots of random indie books. Here is her chronological list of book reviews and an abbreviated version with her Pick of the Month for each month.
Read Her Like an Open Book by Bill Wolfe. (Fiction by Women). Wolfe writes columns 2x a month which feature book reviews and annotated book lists around certain themes. (12 Australian women you need to read, 7 Story Collections you need to read, etc.)
Reviews of Older Books
Better Living through Beowulf by Robin Bates. Retired English prof still posts essays and book reviews, mostly about classics. 3x a week since 2009.
Neglected Books. By Brad Bigelow. Reviews of many unknown books, plus tons of book lists from print journals and books. Indispensable. 1x weekly. Since 2006.
Kaggsy’s Bookish Rambling. Regularly runs online “book clubs” dedicated to reading all the books from a single year. (List of Book Club Years) 2x weekly, Since 2012.
Stuck in a Book (List of Book Reviews). Also co-runs the Tea or Books podcast which seems to have a lot of meaty book episodes. 5x monthly since 2007.
Lit Critics
Daniel Green has been writing long form criticism about books, literature and culture, with a special emphasis on experimental fiction. In addition to writing stuff for the Reading Experience blog and Unbeaten Paths (substack), he writes a one man book review called Unbeaten Paths (12 volumes as of Oct 2026). Posts maybe 1x every 1 or 2 months since 2004 , but what he posts is long and thorough.
Rohan Amanda Maitzen is a Canadian professor & critic who posts book reviews and literary essays and personal stuff 3x a month on Novel Readings. She posts a lot about Victorian fiction, has no index but a Best of Novel Readings. She also was the senior editor for Open Letters Monthly, (2007-2017) which as wonderful as it was, I learned about just a year before it stopped publishing.
Zachary Gillan is a critic of weird fiction who writes longish reviews and essays for Ancillary ROB, LAROB and other places. He has been covering lots of literary ground i didn’t even know existed! Since 2012.
Defunct (or Hibernating)
Jake Seliger‘s The Story’s Story was an Arizona-based litblogger with a Phd in English. (I wrote a posthumous appreciation).
D.G. Myers (1952-2014) was a critic and literary historian who taught at Texas A&M and Ohio State.
Mary Whipple‘s Seeing the World Through Books regularly reviewed non-USA titles. Active from 2009-2022. Book index by Author and By Title.
Group Things
These are equally important, but deserve of a separate category. Lithub , Arts & Letters Daily, PopMatters, LARB, Reactormag.
Critical Notes is an email newsletter consisting of essays and reviews by National Book Critics Circle members. Sent every 2 weeks. Very distinguished, but I get frustrated at how many links are behind paywalls.
Literary Communities
Reddit: Bookreviewers, Truelit, Literature,
About this Web Page
[Note: I have disabled comments here, but if you want to write me to recommend other litblogs or recommend your own, feel free. Either send me an email idiotprogrammer AT fastmailbox.net or make a blog comment on one of my other blogposts. (I don’t always approve them, but I certainly read them].
As strange as this sounds, literary bloggers are becoming a dying breed (and sometimes they are even dying!) Sure, authors and bloggers are made of the same stuff, and most authors manage to write a few blogposts for their book sites. But let’s face it. Writers in academia don’t have time to post on blogs; real authors often don’t have time to write online pieces for nonexistent audiences unless they already have found an audience.
I created this list mainly for my own reference. Believe it or not, I often “misplace” cool bloggers/writers only to remember them years (or even decades) later. Yes, it’s a pain in the neck to keep up to date, but I’m sure going to try.
As someone who has been blogging off and on since 2000, I have seen great bloggers go from posting daily to posting rarely or never. Hey, that’s just what happens. During some periods, life and other projects have a habit of getting in the way. Often people land on litblogs only because someone was seeking information about an individual author or book. That’s fine, but I wish that litbloggers would keep an index of books and authors which they have reviewed.
(Rant) Many of these blogs have review policies that say they will not review self-published or indie books. Really, I don’t understand this animus against self-published books. Books are books, and it doesn’t matter where they come from. The main difference between indie and trad books is simply the size of the publicity budgets.