Places where it’s possible to linger

Here are 9 blogs that make you feel bigger and better and more alive than ever

Under the Counter has been going since 2009 and now that it’s 2013 it’s probably time for a list of blogs that I check out regularly.  By regularly I mean once or twice a week, because I do try to balance online time with offline – as in real life – time, so I can keep on being a human for as long as possible.  It’s true that I’m not much of an internet traveler, and would much prefer to spend a morning working in the garden before a long afternoon on the couch with a book and a cup of coffee, probably some chocolate, perhaps with a late addition of wine if I just can’t put the book down.  However, there are places online where it’s possible to linger and come away with your brain expanded rather than diminished.  So, below is a list of blogs that I currently enjoy.  It’s neither definitive nor unchangeable – I thoroughly recommend all those sites listed in UTC’s blogroll to the left – but you may wish to go exploring in the following directions:

• Whispering Gums – an indispensable well of reviews and commentary on Australian and international literature
• Broadside – a New York-based blog written by professional freelance writer Caitlin Kelly; it’s invariably thought-provoking, particularly in terms of US current affairs but also on the trials and tribulations of being a practicing independent scribe
• City of Tongues – a longstanding blog by highly regarded Sydney novelist and reviewer James Bradley, on offer here is a host of links (to James’ work and elsewhere) and glimpses into the writing process/life, plus music recommendations
• Three other writer-blogs that I follow are by Irma Gold, Gabrielle Bryden, and Mark William Jackson
• Headphone Commute – a very professional music blog dispensing reviews, interviews and general information about all things minimalism, electronica and contemporary classical (for want of a better term)
• Bootlegsmade4walking – if you’re interested in mash-up/bootlegs then you can’t go past Phil Retrospector’s blog
• And, just for a bit of good fun, albeit the ever-so-slightly maudlin kind, I visit I’ve Had Dreams Like That, which is simply a collection of odd, cheeky, hilarious vintage photographs (you’ll get a Warning Notification, but that’s only because every so often the images are extra cheeky indeed).

What currently are your favourite blogs?