It's a funny thing about book reviews. It's been documented by publishing industry researchers that a negative book review can sometimes bump sales as well as a positive one, and good writers have bemoaned the fact that a great review, even a great front cover review in the New York Times Book Review, might not help sales at all. Of course, publisher incompetence can help cause the latter situation, as was recently revealed in a rather shocking New York Magazine interview:
Lit-Crit
by Levi Asher December 13th, 2009 1:38pm
by Levi Asher November 7th, 2009 3:49pm
I was wondering if Sam Savage's worthy The Cry of the Sloth would get attention in the New York Times Book Review (Savage's earlier Firmin did not). The novel only gets a paragraph within Joseph Salvatore's "Fiction Chronicle" in this weekend's Review, and Salvatore finds that "as rich as the humor is, such satire does not finally sustain the novel".
by Levi Asher August 29th, 2009 7:46pm
Faced with the chance to write for the New York Times Book Review, many critics opt to play it straight and stick close to the work at hand, and there's nothing wrong with that. Wyatt Mason praises The Skating Rink, the latest translated novel by Roberto Bolano, in this weekend's issue, and hits all the usual points: placing the new work in career context, outlining the plot, reaching in conclusion for language that transmits some of the excitement of the work itself.
by Ed Champion August 9th, 2009 7:57am
(Once again, my friend Ed Champion is sitting in to handle the Reviewing the Review slot this weekend. -- Levi)
by Levi Asher June 27th, 2009 8:21pm
A dustup is always fun. Caleb Crain basically murdalizes a non-fiction book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton in today's New York Times Book Review. It's an exciting article, but after examining the plays in detail I'm not quite sure who wins.
A critic who sets out to write a strongly negative review ought to open with a powerful point, but Caleb Crain actually punches himself with the opening paragraph, which posits many doubtful assertions as fact:
by Scott Esposito June 21st, 2009 6:52am
A critic who sets out to write a strongly negative review ought to open with a powerful point, but Caleb Crain actually punches himself with the opening paragraph, which posits many doubtful assertions as fact:
(Today's special guest reviewer is Scott Esposito, founder of The Quarterly Conversation, a literary review, and Conversational Reading, an associated blog.)
by Levi Asher June 10th, 2009 11:18pm
The author of the remarkable essay I posted here yesterday about the state of literary criticism in 1962 was John O'Hara, and it appeared as the introduction to his short story collection The Cape Cod Lighter, published by Random House in 1962.
(Literary brawling is nothing new, and in fact we ought to wonder whether we do it as well as our predecessors. The following study of the state of literary criticism was published in the spring of 1962 by a famous American author as the introduction to the author's latest book of short stories, published by Random House. We can learn a few things, not only about our literary past but about our literary present, by reading this remarkably funny and well-crafted piece. Just for the sport of it, I'd like to see if any of you can guess the author.
by Levi Asher June 7th, 2009 12:40pm
It's kind of a dirty trick to assign the well-known political writer Paul Berman, who has railed against Latin American left-wing leaders like Che Guevera, Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro, to review Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin. A major biography of a literary giant must be considered on its own terms, but Berman nails Gabriel Garcia Marquez for a single perceived failing: he openly adores Cuba's controversial Communist dictator Fidel Castro.
by Levi Asher May 9th, 2009 9:41am
It's now four years since I began reviewing the New York Times Book Review. A look back at my very first installment leaves me embarrassed, because I clearly did not understand the Book Review well and had little to offer beyond a negative comparison to the Velvet Underground's song "Sunday Morning" (a reference point I have, by now, completely milked dry).
