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Though I fear it has been too long in coming and will be a bit underwhelming, I'd like to try to articulate my own thoughts on the nature and evolution of book reviews: mainstream media, blogs, print, internet, etc.

And it turns out living read girl's Lady T (who ought to have a paying gig as a cultural critic) got there first. To put it in a nutshell, she writes

It's like public school funding, the arts are the first ones to take the hit, while the football team gets their new uniforms. It's all about money to the corporations who run the newspaper/magazine industry,not quality vs. quantity.

Essentially, we (that is, bloggers and professional book reviewers, the internet and the newspaper) are not each other's enemy.

I mentioned some time ago the Wall Street Journal article which observed that publishers' allocation of advertising funds -- that is, spending money to get stacks of bestsellers front and center in chain stores, rather than on advertising in book review pages -- was linked to the demise of the book review pages. I think that factor, and its implication about the increasing consolidation of media companies, has more to do with the struggles of newspaper book review sections than does the emergence of literary blogs. Both the NBCC's campaign to save book editors and the Litblog Co-Op are reactions against the same trend. As a recent author in our store asserted (Eric Klinkenberg, author of Fighting For Air), the trend toward homogenization leads to a counter-trend of fragmentation and uber-indie underground culture. What suffers is the middle ground, the culture that you don't have to be a bourgeois zombie or a hipster of the arcane to desire and consume.

With the blame out of the way, I'd love to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of blogs and print.

I tend to think of things in terms of bookstores. Both a newspaper book review and a blog review could be said to be more browsable, or more findable, as I've described methods of shelving books. If you're a newspaper subscriber, you might find yourself reading a book review just because it's there, physically in front of you. If you're a web surfer, you might find a literary blog linked from some semi-related site, or you might search for a review of one book and find reviews of another. But you might also find a blogger whose tastes correspond to yours, and read every review they write and buy books based on their recommendations. Or you might read the New York Times or your local paper every week and set your habits by what is recommended there.

As the responses to my question seem to indicate, many (if not most) readers find their reviews of books they want to read from a variety of sources, both print and online, professional and amateur and utterly accidental. They find information about books wherever they can. If print options are available and credible, they'll go there. If a blog is speaking their language, they'll listen.

I feel unfortunately the "conflict" between bloggers and professional print reviewers has been couched in terms of Elitist Snobs versus Uninformed Masses. That seems pretty stereotypical and unlikely to be true, and I squirm uncomfortably whenever an author or a blogger makes an assertion in such terms. Though the debate may fairly be described as Amateur vs. Professional, the perspective and talent of someone talking about books can really only be accurately discussed on a case-by-case basis. Right?

I read a review of a biography of Virginia Woolf in the New York Times where the famous author cutely admitted she had never read any works by Virginia Woolf. (Okay, disclosure: I wrote my undergrad thesis on Woolf, so I'm a little sensitive.) And I've read some impeccably written but sneering blog reviews that cast aspersions on the education and intelligence of an author, their editor, and any reviewer who would dare to praise them. So the Elitist Snob thing and the Uninformed Masses thing can obviously go both ways.

There is a difference between getting paid for something and doing it for free. The difference isn't always one of quality, but it is one of filtering. As Andy Laties points out, "because the individual litbloggers don't have the institutional structure within which to operate, their resistance to co-optation by publishers will be less dependable." Having an editor, a format, and a wage makes for a level of impartiality that leads to the "credibility factor" that many authors cited for print reviews. It doesn't always work – lots of writers and reviewers are friends or enemies, of course, on account of they're people who live in the world, and no institution can or should eliminate all personal interest from a book review.

Blogs, on the other hand, have the benefits that come from no filter: their passion for or against a book, or their complex thoughts about it, are subject to no one's editing but their own. Most of the litblogs whose reviews are worth reading know more or less what they like and don't tend to write reviews hoping for another free book or a mention in the publisher's catalog. There's no reason for them to write unless they want to, and there's no reason for anyone to read them unless they like what they're writing. That can make for some crazies or duds, but it can also make for some powerful and impassioned writing and some creative ways of talking about books that can't happen in the slower-moving systems of an institution.

Finally, I want to address the assertion I've heard, even within the book industry, that people who read blogs don't read newspapers, or even that they don't read books. (I have to try to be articulate and careful, because this statement strike me as so ignorant I can start to see red.) Some people who read blogs on non-book issues perhaps do not read books or newspapers. That is because they are not particularly interested in books, and would be unlikely to read a book review section even if they found it under their plate at a restaurant. But people who read book-related blogs tend to be people who like to read in general. They are unlikely to read blogs about books and then not read books. And they are very likely to read about books wherever they are able, because that's what they care about.

If Web 2.0 means anything, it means less creation of content and more facilitating of conversation, on whatever topic one wishes. The conversation about books on the web is growing louder and more powerful and refining itself and throwing out new branches daily, and it is undeniably having an effect on the world.

The strength of newspaper, print, and magazine reviews is not that they are "better" than amateur reviews, but that they take that conversation into another portion of the world. They make the cultural dialogue about books important enough to exist alongside the news and the sports page. They give us touchstones, as the booksellers who responded can attest, that cross demographics and genres and levels of technological comfort. They give legitimacy and structure to the rich thoughts and words about literature that are happening in people's minds and mouths and on their computer screens.

Both the existence of literary blogs created by amateurs and the existence of book reviews written by professionals are necessary to a rich literary culture. To put it simplistically, blogs build audiences; print builds credibility. Both would be the poorer without the other. The more we talk about it, the harder it will be for any corporation looking to their bottom line to ignore it. It's all part of the conversation.

It may seem a bit Pollyanna-ish of me, but my wish is that reviewers of all stripes would band together like booksellers of all stripes, hanging together so that we do not hang separately. The more we snark about who is more talented or professional and who is undermining who, the more we make book reviewing a vicious and ineffectual backwater in the larger culture, and the less it becomes about the books. If we build on each other to enrich the conversation about literature, we combine grassroots and institutional foundations to create a rich and growing world.

There's lots more to say, and I hope it will get said. Feel free to share your agreement, disagreement, or expansion on these thoughts in the comments.

Okay, this is the lazy girl's version of a Wednesday post. Below you'll find your comments and those of your fellow WN readers on reviews, in semi-abbreviated form, broken up by category: book industry, authors, and general readers (though of course there is some overlap). It's a bit long, but I thought it might be useful to see how people with different relationships to books are thinking about this issue. I'll have my thoughts on the issue on Friday.

From the Book Industry:

As a person who works in a bookstore, I find that a lot of customers still come in looking for a book that they read about in the Times (NPR being a close second in popularity.) Often, they don't remember the title or the author, so I try and read the Times book review so I can remember the name of the book based on their plot summary.
(Noelle)

Hi, I work in the bookselling industry so a lot of the books that I end up reading are just books which I've stumbled across while receiving books, putting books away, selling to a customer. I DO get some of my books through blogs - not so much reviews in blogs but books which are brought up in conversation. Periodically I read the NYTBR but, if I get a book from a print review it normally comes from Entertainment Weekly. I'm constantly amazed at how often I'll find a book reviewed there which you would never expect to find in such a mainstream publication.
I also get a lot of recommendations from friends and readers of one of my blogs.
I would like to say that I think that, while blogs are daily becoming a better place to find great reviews of books, print reviews still hold more credibility to me - possibly because the reviewers have seemingly more reason to be listened to. The downside of print reviewers - at least in some circumstances - is that many of them are turning into the very thing they are accusing the blog reviewers of being: partial judges who you can expect a certain responce to a certain kind of book.
(Ragu)

I participated in a rather raucous exchange on this subject last month, on Roger Sutton's blog (Horn Book Magazine). The angle of attack Roger chose for framing the debate concerned impartiality and niceness and publishers' marketing efforts. That is: Isn't professional reviewing a better means of obtaining "juried" or "impartial" reviews? I took Roger's side, and a LOT of litbloggers got quite irritated when I argued that now that marketing departments are clued in to the importance of getting books reviewed on major litblogs, they're working hard to manipulate the litblogosphere, and that since these marketers are pros, and under enormous pressure to get results, therefore, major litbloggers are now, and will be, subject to the same pressures as the major book reviews always have been -- but because the individual litbloggers don't have the institutional structure within which to operate, their resistance to co-optation by publishers will be less dependable. (Talking about very popular, widely read litblogs -- the ones that cause book-sales to jump when a book is reviewed there.)
Hence, print reviewing is important because of the established checks-and-balances that go into the publication of such.
(Andy Laties)


From Authors
Hi - I'm replying from the perspective of an artist/writer/cartoonist who has recently published (via print-on-demand) a book, which started life as a comic strip on my blog. The decision to publish this edition myself via POD, rather than submitting it first to mainstream publishers, was influenced by the enthusiastic response I got from visitors to my blog who kept asking when the comic strip would be a book.Now that the book is out, it has received more reader-reviews (on the lulu.com site where it is on sale) than most new books would get from the mainstream press. Yet, because we live in a world where success is determined by media coverage, I find myself compelled to seek media "validation" and to spend vast amounts of time trying to get reviews for my book in the press - in other words, tilting at windmills. My hope is that a mainstream publisher will take it on but I've taken this roundabout route so of course I have to accept its difficulties. The excellent reviews I've had from bloggers/writers has encouraged and supported me but there is still this ingrained belief that unless your name is up in lights (ie in black ink on newsprint in the quality press and/or the A-list top-hit litblogs) you ain't worth a look-in. How to change this perception?
(Natalie)

As a recent debut author whose first novel, Radiant Days, came out with an independent press (Shoemaker & Hoard), the reviews and press about my book has exclusively come from traditional print media (NYTBR, Washington Post, SF Chronicle and a few others). While I'm insanely grateful and happy about the coverage, even the negative, this has been surprising to me. I always thought my book was more 'a bloggers' book since I'm with an independent press and more or less unknown. My day-job is as a computer developer so I’m online and reading the blogs pretty religiously—probably way more than is heathly. And I guess, and I realize this is totally ridiculous, I felt I was somehow part of that community, just because I’d been reading them since way before my book came out.
But man.. if there hadn't been print reviews...
I should also point out that while the reviews resulted in a slight and temporary sales bumps, they’ve been nothing compared to announcements of readings (spam to friend’s email lists). And I’ve corresponded with other authors about this, and it seems to be agreed that unless it’s a glowing review on the front page of the NYBR, print reviews don’t directly correspond to large sales. But what they do give you, and this is invaluable, is some sort of “legitimacy” and a starting point for getting your book in the literary discourse. People I work with suddenly wanted to talk to me about the publishing process. Reading series began to answer my emails. My parents concluded I might actually be serious about writing (despite doing making the regular sacrifices for over 15 years in order to do it) once the book was mentioned in the NYTimes. etc... This might seem petty, but they’ve all been landmark events for me.
(Michael)


From Readers
I'm replying from the perspective of someone who just reads a lot - not in the industry in any way, I don't have a blog and I don't do any reviews - other than suggestions to friends/family.
I read reviews everywhere - blogs, magazines, Bookmarks magazine - and then I go to Amazon. I look at the reviews there and the brief description of the book and add to my wishlist if it's something I want. Often I don't purchase there - I go to the library or a local store, but I think it's a great resource.
I will say that I have found a few blogs where I realized I have very similar tastes to the reviewer - and I'm more likely to just get a book that is raved about there without much more consideration.
I assume if I subscribed to a newspaper, I might do the same.
(Kate)

I find most of my books by reading a story in a magazine or lit. journal and then further investigating the author, or through lit. blogs. The lit blog co-op and EWN, in particular, have been very influential. I've bought at least a dozen books this year that I've found through blogs. The only print reviews I regularly read are the NYTBR, some lit. journals that run reviews, and our local weekly, the Boise Weekly. I also get recommendations from other writers who know my personal tastes.
I should add that my town (boise) doesn't have a very strong independent bookstore presence, but when we lived in Missoula, I regularly when to Fact & Fiction or and the stellar Shakespeare & Company for suggestions.
(Michael)


ok, we have to give a summary of where we fit in? former bookdealer, has sold some short stories recently, no novels yet. Reader first and last though.
It's probably important that I'm also not American; we do have newspaper and magazine reviews of books here (South Africa), but very few and seldomly along the lines that I like. We mostly only get leadlist, or at least top selling authors since it's all imported, so it's frustrating not knowing what's happening in the writing world in that sense.
So, I can't really comment too much on the value of your newspaper and mgazine reveiws, although it seems as if people look to it for validation more than suggested reading.
Blogging and online forums has changed that for me, a lot - interacting with other writers and readers from different countries has opened up a whole new realm of options regarding authors.
It's the word of mouth thing, in the long run nothing beats word of mouth, I remember this from the time I spent as a bookdealer as well - people would come looking for books that friends recommended, none of them read reviews in newspapers.
For myself - there's a few online sites that I like, and a number of fiction magazines do regular reviews. I've found these official reviews helpful; blogging is a boost, IMO, not a detriment. It creates more dialogue, and I've learned about interesting books and writers much faster than I would have.
I do have a preference for a one-man/ woman blog - whether reviews/ commentary, whatever.
The reason I'm not sure of, but I feel more at ease measuring the advice and tastes of single person against my own. Easier to follow and understand in some ways; maybe too a belief that bloggers are a bit more honest since they don't get paid for reviews? I don't know, but I'm comfortable reading blogs.
Like I said, to me it's a bonus, not meant as a replacement to official paper or online reviews -I read and compare as many as I can before I make a choice.
I do value my money, and don't like to spend it on too many long-shots. That, is what it comes down to.
The more discourse about books the better, IMO.
(David de Beer)

I am a former bookseller, but have always been and continue to be an avid reader. When I worked in a bookstore, I was immersed in book culture and was constantly talking books with other employees, reps, and customers. Once that conversation ended, along with my employment (by my choice, to pursue a different line of work), I had to become more reliant upon reviews.
I find most of the books I read through word-of-mouth, via friends, or through print reviews, via newspapers or magazines.
I use to rely rather heavily upon The New York Times Book Review until they decided to become weighted more heavily toward the non-fiction end of the book spectrum. I still read them occasionally, along with The New York Review of Books to see what is being published regarding books about current events, politics, and history.
I also tend to trust the essays and book reviews in The Believer, to which I subscribe. And, I subscribe to the daily email book reviews of Powell's City of Books, which culls reviews from their own newsletter as well as many national publications.
All of that being said, I have recently begun to switch to the reviews and recommendations found on blogs such as yours. I picked up the spring 2007 Read This! recommendation due to the link from your blog to the LitBlog Co-op site. I have picked up a couple of other books via reviews on blogs.
I will also "research" a book via personal reviews on Amazon.com and on other sites to get a "feel" for whether or not a book and I are a good match, although I tend to oftentimes discount those reviews because they seem to tend toward unbound fanaticism or vile hatred.
So, I do use print reviews, although I seem to be trending away from a reliance upon them.
(Troy)

Yes i agree with u now a days many book reviews are suffering because blogs are cheaper and easier to produce.However i found many interesting things to read,gathered information
(Alin)

New Yorker, NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Bookworm. Steal info off Newsweek, time, BookForum, NYRB, LRB, New Republic, GQ, Esquire, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, I forget!
(bhadd)

I've written about this subject at my blog,and while I feel for those print reviewers who are being pink slipped and undercut,I don't buy that it is all due to blogs. It's like public school funding,the arts are the first ones to take the hit,while the football team gets their new uniforms. It's all about money to the corporations who run the newspaper/magazine industry,not quality vs. quantity.
I also find it peeving that there are folks who insist that most of the litbloggers out there are rank amatuers,who only put biased reviews or sarcastic ones. I've read plenty of reviews in the NYT(both the Sunday and weekly book section)that are downright nasty and actually give away the ending of the book,which is horrible to me. Even If I don't like a book/movie/TV show,I wouldn't ruin it for someone else. Also,I've seen many litblogs that are just as crafted and well thought out(Maud Newton,for one)as any newspaper or magazine section.
The bottom line is,this should not be either/or. We all want the same goal,which is to help good books get the attention that they deserve. Instead of fighting each other like Jerry Springer guests,we should team up and see if we can help each other out.
Oh,and as for where I get my reviews,I check both the internet and blogs such as Buzz Girl for the latest in books. I also read EW's book section(which gives a nice mix of high and low brow). I'm a former bookseller who believes in word of mouth when it comes to great books,be it in person or online.
(lady t)

In case you don't read any blogs but mine, let me first clumsily sketch the current issues raging in the blogosphere at the moment, and in the world of book culture at large.

The National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to preserve newspaper book review sections, beginning with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which recently fired its full-time book section editor. You can read their reasons and their strategies here on the NBCC blog, Critical Mass.

Some periodicals (like the New York Times) and many bloggers, have picked up the story and interpreted it in terms of the rise of literary blogs. Some opinions (with which I risk offending someone even by summarizing):

- book reviews are suffering because blogs are cheaper and easier to produce.
- blogs represent contemporary, passionate criticism, while mainstream media reviews have gotten staid, elitist, boring, or irrelevant.
- professional reviewers represent an educated opinion on books, while bloggers are often amateurish, reactionary, uninformed, etc.
- the elimination of book review sections has more to do with the flagging fortunes of newspapers, and/or with corporate policies, than with literary blogs.

At this point, the roars of debate are dying down a bit, but the issues remain. I have opinions, of course, but I have a horror of going off half-cocked, and I need to process them a little more.

So first I'd like to ask you, readers, what you think. Especially if you're NOT in the book industry, or a reviewer (professional or amateur) yourself -- though I'd love to hear from everyone, I've been wondering what book readers in particular think. Since you're reading this blog, you're obviously a specific subset of the reading population, but I still think it's worth asking.

Where do you get book reviews -- if at all? Blogs? (What kind?) Newspapers? TV? Magazines? Online versions of "mainstream media"? Bookstores? The opinions of readerly friends (the "Trusted Fellow Reader", as one of my commenters cleverly calls them)?

Which of those, if any, makes a difference in what books you're interested in, and what books you buy?

What effect, if any, has the emergence of literary blogs had on your reading of other sources? What other changes have affected what you read in the last couple of years?

What do YOU think is the reason for cutbacks in newspaper book reviews? What do you think will be the effects? Do you think it's important?


This is one reader poll/question I'd really, really like to hear from you all upon -- a sentence from you would be worth more than a lot of time spent in my head. Respond anonymously if you like, or let me know exactly where you fit in the literary world. I'll attempt to summarize and synthesize your responses in the coming days.

I've got books to review, too, but I'm behind on my links, so let's try to keep up!

- In big book world/blog world news, the National Book Critics Circle led by John Freeman has launched a campaign to save the newspaper book section -- specifically, to keep the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from firing its book review editor and eliminating the section. The campaign has sparked interest everywhere, including this article in the New York Times positing that reviews may be moving from mainstream print media to blogs (and everyone's got an opinion on that one). The Times article mentions a bunch of my fellow Litblog Co-Op members -- major congrats, guys!

I think many folks ultimately agree that newspaper book review sections and amateur literary blogs both are (or can be) vital parts of the nation's literary culture and conversation -- it's not an either/or thing. There's something to be said both for the professional editorial "filtered" atmosphere of a book review section (and its power to reach masses of readers who might not have been looking for books but find themselves interested), and for the "free-wheeling" passionate amateurism (by which I only mean unpaid, not poor quality) nature of litblogs, which attract a niche audience based on a writer's voice and have some freedoms mainstream media doesn't.

As I've mentioned before, I think book review sections are super important to keep books in the forefront of our cultural conversation, and I'm signing the NBCC's petition to keep them around. Take a look around at the conversation swirling around this issue and make up your own mind; I'd be curious to hear what you think.

- Speaking of the conversation and the internet, I've finally broken down and joined Shelfari, thanks to a personal invite from BEA director Lance Fensterman. And y'all are right -- it's super addictive, and super easy. Had I but world enough and time (sorry, Marvell), I'd be spending many an hour cataloguing my book holdings for interest and discussion. As is, I'm going to just try to make sure the books I review here on the blog are on my virtual "shelf". I'm booknerdnyc, of course -- feel free to befriend me in the big Borgesian library in cyberspace. Good book-nerdy fun!

- And speaking of conversations between nerds, I was thrilled to be a part of a panel at New York's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art this past Monday, as part of their ongoing MoCCA Mondays series. The subject was "Interstitiality and the Comic Book Industry," hosted by the Interstitial Arts Foundation. (It's a fancy word that means "in between", in case you wondered -- kind of like "liminal".) Since I'd just finished reading the IAF's new anthology Interfictions, and the ALP and I have spent way too many hours talking about comics and genre and where to shelve things in the bookstore, I was full of thoughts. The audience was small, but engaged, and it was great to share the conversation with a comics creator, a publisher, and a comics critic and explore the notion of betwixt-and-between that defines the interstitial. I'd highly recommend checking out any further projects coming from MoCCA and the IAF -- good thinkers about the flux-y state of things in the postmodern book world.

That about wears me out for today. See you here on Friday -- happy reading!

In newspapers anyway, as reported here by the Wall Street Journal. Sure, there are plenty of blogs and book review sites, but to me (and it could just be my age) none of them has the power of a newspaper book review. Like take this one, from the Yankton Daily Press and Dakotan (Full disclosure: the name alone gives me chills!). Way back in March 2006, they reviewed Shock Point and said it "will capture your attention and hold it." For some reason, Putnam sent me the clipping this week. But someone has to read this paper, right? Maybe for a few weeks I was a big seller in South Dakota.





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