Let's Get Political?

[Bookchronicle]

As election seasons (or various other forms of political turmoil) are upon a variety of countries, I was curious to read the opinions of my fellow book bloggers regarding book blogs and politics.

Do you include politics on your blog? Or do you feel your blog is excluded from the political forum? How do you feel about other bloggers expressing political thoughts? Would you ever stop reading a book blog because of politics?

[Susan]

Personally I don't think this is the place to talk politics.
This blog, at least I feel is about books and blogging.
But this is my personal feeling.

[Bookchronicle]

Susan: I suggest you reread the question because I'm assuming you scanned it and missed the point. :P

[Mary]

I usually escape to books so I will not blog about politics or read political blog posts elsewhere.

[Nymeth]

I don't talk about politics explicitly on my blog, but I think that the political and the personal can't always be kept apart. My political views are a part of who I am, and therefore, along with other factors like my age, gender, nationality, etc, they affect how I respond to books to an extent.

I have absolutely nothing against book bloggers expressing political thoughts, and I don't think I'd stop reading a blog because of politics, no.

[Anysia]

I don't post about the political on my blog unless it in the context of reviewing a book on the topic. When you blog your audience is worldwide so any blogging you do on politics is not only off-topic for a book blog, but also irrelevant to readers outside your country.

I could blog about Harper, Dion, and Layton, but since ~80% of my visitors come from the US I suspect the majority of you would be at best confused and at worst put off. Political posts are likely to be skipped by readers because they are coming to your blog for book reviews.

Like Nymeth I wouldn't stop reading the book blog because of political posts. Of course I'm not going to read the political posts either because that's not why I'm there and chances are good you're blogging about an election I have no say in.

[Rick]

I haven't brought politics into my blog outside of the types of books I review. If looking at my site currently, it's probably fairly obvious where my interests lie. However, there are some opposing views where I won't spend my time or money reading their books, and if I chose to I don't feel like I could give it a fair review. However, if someone from the opposite political side of things were interested in posting opposing view reviews on my site I'd welcome it. I'd like to have a well rounded site with looks at many different socio-political groups whether I share their viewpoint or not.

I have set up a forum though, where there's a general discussion area. Visitors can discuss any topic they want, so if they want to get in there and fight about who would win in a Jell-O wrestling match (Olbermann vs. Beck) then they are free to do so.

[Linda]

I don't include political comments on my blog. Sometimes it can't be avoided if the book you are reviewing is political. I just try to review the book. I recently reviewed a book that turned into a political rant, so my review stated my view of the fiction book used for that purpose. I also don't want to read other bloggers political views, and would avoid blogs that do unless it concerned a book review. I do, however, have two badges on my blog that I guess are political. One, the US Constitutional Watchdog badge and the other badge is another Ning group that is political.