Though its name may trip safe-content filters, and its nude logo looks a bit naughty, Bookslut.com is most certainly suitable for bibliophiles of all ages and all types. The curators of Bookslut manage a site every bit as interesting and provocative as its name. Easily navigable and updated in monthly issues, the site features interviews with contemporary authors, articles and columns by contributing and staff writers, and book reviews.
Started in 2002, the site receives almost five thousand visitors a day, many looking for a daily dose of literary satisfaction in the often-extensive blog entries by editor-in-chief Jessa Crispin and "propagandist" Michael Straub. The pair makes it their job to report and comment on relevant news, activities, quotations and squabbles afoot in literary communities, both online and offline.
What may make Bookslut unique among its cyber-peers is both the breadth and style of its content. Each month, the contributors produce around fifteen book reviews, three or four interviews, and regular columns--all marked by honesty and irreverence. While coverage is mainly concentrated on fiction and non-fiction, each issue includes at least one poetry review, and the editors hope to someday expand their poetry offerings.
At odds with a literary trend they call "touchy-feely pseudo-praise," the reviews on Bookslut are refreshingly opinionated. "Everyone involved in Bookslut is, in their own way, judgmental," explain the editors. "We judge with relish and glee. We believe that there is value and even virtue in this act." Bookslut would rather assume the role of the well-informed provocateur, loving books with what they proudly admit is "an almost sexual passion."