I’ve been thinking lately about the role of book reviews and book reviewers, and happily for me, some smart people have been saying smart things on this topic. Charlie Jane Anders wrote a blog post entitled “What Are Book Critics For?”, considering the tension between critic as flaw-finder and critic as cheerleader. My pal Renay considered the incentives, and more often the disincentives, to reviewing books in an era where the boundaries between reader, reviewer, and author are porous to nonexistent. Renay writes: To have a deeper discourse, we also need to talk to and with each other, not simply…
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