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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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POPSBook Readers = Newspaper Readers, NY Sun, Jun 2007 Kirsch makes an interesting point: the book review section may not be in itself profitable for the newspaper, but surely the audience for the printed newspaper itself has a large overlap with those who read books. So the book section might keep readers loyal to the paper to a larger extent than the bean-counters realize.
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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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POPSThe Ethics of Book Reviews, NY Sun, June 2007 Another quote I feel really demonstrates the issue: "Some of the most influential editors and writers in the country — including Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times Book Review, and Francine Prose, a frequent reviewer for Harper's and other publications — pretty much shrugged off all of the ethical concerns that the NBCC survey raised. As Ms. Prose said, such questions stem from "a bogus idea about book reviewing" — the idea that a book review is like "a peer review panel of the FDA."" Unfortunately, in the last few paragraphs of the article, Mr Kirsch goes off on an ill-informed rant against blogging. It's really unfortunate that the "establishment" reviewers haven't, apparently, discovered the fascinating world of the quality litblog.
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POPSWhen is a Review Not a Review? NY Observer 6/2007 Two interesting points here, on the purpose of reviews: 1. The National Book Critics Circle appears to think book reviews are a quid pro quo transaction between author and reviewer. This idea is nicely debunked by Adam Kirsch in the NY Sun (12 June 2007; see my clipmark). 2. Apparently reviews aren't intended to "review"; they're essays on the book, rather than thumbs up/down. I'll have to think about that; it's a broad statement, perhaps broader than originally intended?
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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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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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