The nature of book reviews has become rather controversial lately. Especially as high profile book reviews, in magazines and newspapers, have become more precious as newspapers and magazines reduce or eliminate the amount of space given to books. One question is: should one be critical? Not critical in the sense of critical thinking, rather, in the sense of writing negative things about a book. This is an especially poignant questions when it comes to poetry. With so little space left (and please, let’s not count blogs like this one – they are no substitute for the Sunday book reviews that your local newspaper hopefully still includes), is writing about a book we don’t like worthwhile? Or should we focus on book reviewing as promoting quality books? But even when writing online, if we truly care about book culture and poetry culture, does writing harsh reviews hurt it, but making it seem less worthwhile, or support it by building an honest dialogue and culture of critical thought? It’s easy to take the high road and say, the latter, of course. But it is true that literary culture is suffering from a debilitating sickness, I think. And if it is, does the latter actually speed its sickness towards a nasty end?
Below are some articles and arguments on this subject:
Has Twitter Made Book Reviewers Too Nice?
Arthur Krystal: The Excuses of a Mean Book Critic
A Critic’s Case for Critics Who Are Actually Critical
Is This Book Bad, Or Is It Just Me? The Anatomy of Book Reviews
the coffee philosopher 