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POPSGender in NY Times book reviews, Women's Review, Nov 2004 Not quite as cool as the Guerrilla Girls feminist activist movement in visual art, but still a pretty interesting set of statistics. The article doubts the NYTBR's editor's defense. I wonder if the numbers bear him out. "McGrath offered three explanations for the unbalanced ratio for book authors: that "more books are written by men than women"; that he chooses books for review based on whether they are "worthy of review"; and that he chooses for review books that are "of interest to our readers." We told McGrath we had tried in vain to determine whether more books by men than by women are published, and we asked him to tell us where he had found that documentation. He did not reply."
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POPSJennifer Weiner vs Curtis Sittenfeld, 7 June 2005 To summarize: Melissa Bank wrote a chick lit novel. Curtis Sittenfeld wrote a negative review in the NY Times. Curtis Sittenfeld wrote a novel she says is literary fiction. Jennifer Weiner didn't review it per se, but says it's chick lit. She describes it in the same derogatory terms Sittenfeld used about Bank's book. Implications: (1) Sittenfeld is a hypocrite (2) Sittenfeld's book is empty trash Jennifer Weiner writes chick lit herself. Weiner's line-by-line commentary on Sittenfeld's review is startlingly mean, putting words in Sittenfeld's mouth and portraying her as an insufferable, conceited ass. Finally, Weiner concludes by saying meanness is not helping women get published or taken seriously as authors. Cook utensil, meet cooking utensil. What a sad and ridiculous display of bitchery from all sides.
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POPSChicago Sun: New focus on women authors Other major changes under Ms. Reed: "I do more graphic novel, food, and music books because I realize these appeal to different audiences. I also added poetry and politics to the types of books we review. I experimented with themed sections. My main thrust has been in highlighting local authors and mainstream authors who come to town. We do a lot more interviews with authors now and I encourage our reviewers to take an attitude. I want our section to be entertaining and engaging even if readers don't go out and buy all the books we review.... I encourage our reviewers to take strong points of views. We are a tabloid so we feel we're entitled to have some fun. I've insisted that reviewers' taglines be somewhat clever and funny. I've found that full-time freelancers often can't break out of the mold and the volleying of plot developments. I want my reviewers to write essays about books, not plot points."
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POPSRoze Hentschell on Literature Course Syllabi There's a lot more good text in the article. Hentschell continues: "When thinking about the early modern canon and who gets included, the class and gender of the author can be only part of the story. As John Guillory has rightly pointed out, ‘the historical process of canon formation, even or especially at the moment of institutional judgement, is too complex to be reduced to determination by the single factor of the social identity of the author’ (1993:17). To be sure, many socially privileged male authors (Fulke Greville, Thomas Nashe), are regularly excluded from the curriculum, just as ‘commoners’ (Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare) are ever present. The ‘social identity of an author’ cannot fully explain why texts are not taught to undergraduates. It can never explain why one text by Spenser will always be privileged over another. Why The Shepheard’s Calendar, for example, but not A View of the Present State of Ireland?"
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POPSPissing on Litblogs, NY Sun, Jun 2007 Adam Kirsch is an awfully bright guy, but sadly appears to know nothing about blogs. There are plenty of literary blogs (litblogs, Adam, it's an established term) on which lengthy, rigorous arguments are routinely carried out between scholars, readers, authors, and reviewers. In fact many litblogs are published and cited in print. Perhaps not in the NY Sun, but in other large, reputable papers.
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POPSEast African Views on Sci Fi, 9/07 I'm intrigued with the developing world's view of western sci fi. Our technology-centric culture, and our western mythologies, must sound foreign in more ways than one. (Note that this article is actually from Kenya, one of the more developed African nations, with strong universities and reasonable internet access.)
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POPSJoyce Carol Oates: Reviews miss the writer A nice, pithy commentary that's very relevant to book blogging. For a number of reasons (amateur reviewers, broad access, etc), internet reviewing seems to intensify all the anxiety of hurting authors' feelings, as well as the visibility of the hurt feelings themselves.
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POPSClaire Zulkey: Chick Lit is magazines & Sex and the City Claire Zulkey skewers chick lit for many of the qualities that I dislike about it. I was most struck by her comparison to magazines and Sex in the City. It seems to me that the most visible chick lit books are extended ads for, or paeans to, the air-brushed lifestyles purveyed by so many teen magazines.
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