On blogging and book reviewing

A great post at Critical Mass describing the other day's event on blogging and book reviewing at Housing Works. I wish I could have been there, but I've been much too busy--too busy even to blog, which is very busy indeed, I always usually have time for a quick post--more posting later this evening, I think, I must indulge in a little frivolous book stuff before plunging back into work.

I'm interested in the relationship between the two activities, obviously. Blogging for me is pure pleasure; book reviewing is also a pleasure but the kind of pleasure that's more like work, you have to steel yourself to sit down and write the thing but the rewards are different (complementary, to some extent) and in some ways greater. Blogging is more process-driven, reviewing more product-: by which I mean to say that the intellectual & other benefits of the former come to me by way of its more-or-less dailiness (like running or yoga!), whereas writing a book review is like going to a one-off workshop that comes with its own particular payoff independent of other reading and writing activities.