All I Want for Christmas is a Readable Blog

National Public Radio has a great series this week devoted to the topic of “blogging.” One of their stories tells about Sarah Boxer’s search for readable blogs. Impossible task?

Now, don’t get us wrong, there are blogs that can tell you how to start a business, blogs that can help you be a more informed voter and blogs that can fill you in on everything about Britney Spears.

But, are there really any blogs you’d want to read?

A few months ago, we got an early Christmas present - and we can’t even remember how it was delivered. It was just there - on our doorstep, so to speak. And, much like a little lost kitten we read it once and kept going back for more.

Why? Well, it’s readable. Sarah Moffett writes about Elizabeth Bishop, Don Quixote and Graham Greene, but that’s not it. She has written about one of our favorite web sites for downloading audio books, but that’s not it, either.

She’s just as likely to write about being thrown out of a Georgetown restaurant - and that’s our definition of blogging sin.

In fact, SarahMoffett’s blog is a “Me-Blog.” Good god, the last place we’d expect to find a readable blog would be under the category of Me-Blogs - those blogs where the writer thinks that what they have for breakfast is somehow interesting.

I don’t know how she does it, but Sarah has a way of making her own experiences, thoughts and idiosyncrasies reach far beyond her own experience. I guess that’s called good writing.

It’s also maddening writing. Why, I wasted several hours one day after reading her post called “Best One-Liners. Got One?” It had me taking my favorite novels off the shelves and even unpacking boxes of moldy books in the basement. What a waste of time - and what fun.

That NPR story was about Sarah Boxer’s new book called “Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web.” She doesn’t mention Sarah Moffett. She should have.

Although maybe that’s Ms. Boxer’s point in writing her book. She does say that blogging is a way “to reach readers you would find no other way.” It’s also a way to find writers you’d never, ever discover any other way.

Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley has helped me find scores of my favorite authors and books over the years. Now the random Internet has helped me find Sarah Moffett.

Thanks, I got what I wanted for Christmas.