For the amount of time she’s been blogging about books, words, and the particular perils of growing up in Florida and living in Brooklyn, we’re a little scandalized by how few interviews of Maud Newton there are on the Web. We aim to rectify that situation.

Since starting her site in 2002, Maud’s credits have bloomed. Her journey from blog to being featured in The New Yorker or writing book reviews in the New York Times, among other outlets, has been a inspirational testament to the power of personal publishing.

According to the MaudNewton.com legacy, this is how you make a lit-blog: build credibility by posting frequently and sanely about books you love, writers you respect, issues you are passionate about; prove that what ultimately makes the reading experience, and dare we say a literary community, is revealing the human being behind the blog. Maud does that in a way we have yet to see anywhere else, with modesty and honesty. Sincerity may be her trademark, and it loops us back to pay attention to the books she loves.

Sure, we love the interviews with writers, and the scoop on the latest fires burning in the land of literary fiction. But what keeps us coming back are the Ruminations on Writing (oh, that 10-year-novel), the Weekend Ancestry, her obsession with Mark Twain, and whatever future fascinations lie ahead.

As further testimony on Maud’s appeal: Maud was once asked by another interviewer, “Where do you summer?” In response, she was heard to say:

I can tell you’re not paying off student loans. “Summering” to me means a cold beer, sunglasses, a grill, and a hot breeze blowing over the factory and into my Brooklyn backyard.

This is why we love Maud.

When did you decide to start your site?

Back in the late spring of 2002. My ADD tendencies are so pronounced, I figured I’d soon get tired of it, but the medium is as well-suited to people with short attention spans as its detractors say.

We would applaud you for not having comments on your site, but our regular readers may hate us for it. Still, can you explain your position on blogging and comments.

I shut down comments in 2003 when my criticism of the Iraq War (and the run-up to it) set off attacks that I didn’t feel like dealing with on my own site. People are free to criticize and disagree with my opinions in email or on their own blogs or, really, anywhere else. But my actual site is a dictatorship, not a democracy.

How would you sum up the effect of lit-blogging in the world of traditional publishing and writing?

I don’t think it’s possible to generalize about the effect of book blogs. They’re a different, more immediate, more flexible medium for discussion about books, with all the positives and negatives inherent in that kind of immediacy and flexibility.

What has surprised you most about maudnewton.com? Any regrets or disappointments?

Honestly, I’m most surprised that I’ve stuck with it this long, given the way my interests are always evolving.

Do you have any plans for new things on the site? Any expansion of the Maud Newton empire?

I’ve been running readers’ love letters to independent bookstores lately, and I have some related ideas. Also, when I finish the latest draft of my novel, I’d like to get back to some longer-form interviews and more considered, research-oriented posts. In a way this question speaks to the one prior: I stick with the blog because the form is inherently flexible, allowing me to pursue my interests wherever they lead.

What type of content or features do you consciously avoid?

Anything that doesn’t interest me. The endless debates about the unprofessionalism/superficialitity/decivilizing nature of blogs, for instance. The fact that I have maintained one for more than five years speaks for itself, I think; readers are free to criticize or enjoy or deplore what they find there. The grading of local book reviews was another trend I was happy to skip. I work an unrelated day job and am trying to finish a book. I’m not going to spend what little free time I have on debates and publications that don’t get me fired up.

There is a plethora of lit blogs out there. Where do you place yourself on that map?

I don’t. I don’t compare my site to the other book blogs I like—The Elegant Variation, Laila Lalami, About Last Night, Bookslut, The Literary Saloon, Scott McLemee, Cup of Tea & A Wheat Penny, etc., etc., Amen—but leave that to readers.

What advice do you have for the budding writer-slash-lit-blogger?

Follow your passions. Writing about things to curry favor or get attention ultimately is a zero-sum game.

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Since we wrote about BookMooch in late 2006, the site's membership has doubled, and the number of mooched books has more than tripled. Founder John Buckman has clearly encouraged a worldwide community of book lovers and library fans to share their favorite reads. When we checked in with John, he told us about his attachment to books, the personal notes he gets with his mooched novels, and how sharing helps the global community get along just a little bit better.

Hey John, how did you get the inspiration for BookMooch?

I was on vacation and visiting a small town community center for a concert, and the entire entry area of the community center was filled with book shelves. There was a sign that said "leave a book, take a book" and people were browsing the collection, others were bringing boxes of books in, and still others were talking about books, recommending them to others. I loved the fun, friendly feeling that existed in that space, and I asked myself "could I recreate this feeling on the Internet?" When I went searching for book swaps, I did find other sites, but none that captured the camaraderie, friendship and, most of all, the love of books that this community center did.

There was one other inspiration behind BookMooch. In the best-selling book "The Tipping Point," the author writes extensively about a book titled "Lessons Learned from Sesame Street," all about the process of making the first ever education TV show. I wanted to read this book, and given that it was so prominently quoted in a best-seller, was shocked that this book was essentially gone from the world. It took me 6 months of hunting, and finally I bought a copy from ABE Books. It was a library discard, headed for the trash. It's an amazing book, and that's the only copy I've ever seen of it. I've tried to buy copies for others, but it's gone. Could BookMooch be "a new life for old books" and ensure that these fruits of author's lives never be lost?

It seems like it's doing just that. When did you start BookMooch?

BookMooch launched in August 2006, after 9 months of 100-hour weeks of programming, which was some of the best time of my life. I was so excited by the project and its possibilities.

Do you prefer sharing books to buying them?

I love to buy books, but I can never make myself throw a book away. For me, BookMooch fulfilled a very real need, namely finding people who really wanted to read the books I'd loved over years, but that I wasn't going to re-read. I would take boxes of books with me to campgrounds and leave them in the shared reading room, try to give them to libraries (who didn't want them) and when I found out that the books given to the local hospital were sent to the trash dump if they weren't sold, my heart broke. How could you do that to books!

You've mentioned in your blog that you get personal notes with the books you've mooched. We know it's probably hard to pick just one, but what note stands out the most for you?

I have so many favorites, so I'll pick one recent one. A mom from L.A. told me that her 12-year-old daughter got interested in reading recently, and has read 20 books in the past 4 weeks. The daughter loves getting books from other kids and then passing them on. Wow: someone young got the "reading bug," and I helped!

Another one that really stands out to me was the thank you note from a woman in Iran, who had mooched a book from me. She was so happy because there was no way to get these kinds of books in her country. She very kindly sent me a photo book of her country as thanks. She had a blog with photos of her with her friends, and it was so shocking to me to see them, they were so Western looking, they could have been French. It really shook my pre-conceptions about that country.

What's been the most gratifying thing about being associated with BookMooch?

The worldwide, inter-country exchange of books. BookMooch, the web site, runs in 6 languages, and people in 91 countries participate. I'm mooching German children's books in an effort to learn German, and my wife is reading Asterix: the English and French copies side by side to help her learn. There is so much misunderstanding in the world, if books can help people forge links, make friendships, understand and appreciate other cultures, I think this could help everyone get along a bit better. There was this wonderful warm feeling around the books at the real-life community center that provided the inspiration to BookMooch, and a little bit of that gets recreated on a global basis with BookMooch.

Besides the fact that you already have over 32,000 members in less than a year, is there anything that's surprised you as a result of running the site?

I didn't expect so many people to be interested in the charity aspect of BookMooch. If you give away more books than you request, you build up points and can give them to charities, such as to public libraries in poor areas. It turns out lots of people are happy to give away their books, give their points to charity, and just buy the books they want. Heck, Amazon was shocked to see that $30,000 in books get sold every month on Amazon due to BookMooch.

Have you read books online, and do you think you could ever get comfortable with digital books?

I used to a read a lot of books on my Palm Clie, and read all the Alexander Dumas books as well as "The Da Vinci Code" as a paid eBook. I was disappointed that my iPhone didn't have a PDF viewer.

I've started working with the Open Library to familiarize people with the great public-domain books that are available on the Internet. Brewster Kahle, who runs that project, along with the Internet Archive, tells me that if he had $30 million, he could make the entire US Library of Congress public domain archive available on the Internet. I'm trying to figure out to help him.

What are some of your daily reads online?

Ars Technica and the Wired newsfeed, but that's about all I read. I'm not political and try to not learn about current affairs because it's depressing. I want to save my energy for my own projects and the great books of the world, like…the new Artemis Fowl book I'm currently reading.

Do you work on anything besides BookMooch?

I also run Magnatune, which is a music web site where people can listen to entire albums for free, to see if they like them, and if they choose to buy a downloadable album, half the money goes to the artist. Indie film makers and webmasters also license music from Magnatune for their own projects. It's fun, and it helps unusual music, like classical and world music, have a chance at getting heard and appreciated.

Thanks for talking with us, John!

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All the Presidents Men
Pissing in the Snow
With No Fear of Failure

Not that this is all just fun and games. The Athenaeum Arts and Music Library in La Jolla, C.A. opened their stacks to our sort-happy shutterbug. And in 2004, the Strindberg Museum allowed her to play with the Swedish writer's texts. We loved the images of the sorted Scandinavian spines, but our hearts belong with the dash of humor that comes with the occasional self-help book:

Hamlet
What's Eating You?
Hey, Man! Open Up and Live!

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One of the most recent sites to sail forth from the Gray Lady is Paper Cuts, an "almost daily round-up of news and opinions about books and printed matter" from the Book Review. The site's young still, but already senior editor-now-blogger Dwight Garner has won us over. From his description of infighting among Cormac McCarthy fans ("the fighting Cormackians") to his lovingly compiled slideshow of vintage book ads, we're hooked. The writing's good, the twice daily posts are fresh but manageable, and the potential of literary gossip runs high. That last part might be wishful thinking, but he did call Maud Newton's blog "winsome." A recent take on a new biography of John Updike included this line: "If you're like me, you'll find this strange book a blissful snort of unfiltered catnip." Sneeze! We wish we'd written that.

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1. Don't quit until you get at least 100 rejections.
2. Keep your eyes on the Crap-o-Meter as often as you can.
3. Just 'cause it's got cowboys, don't mean it's a Western.
4. If you're good-looking, try nonfiction.
5. Damn the snark, just get your writing out there.

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