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Re: reviewing reviews and reviewers
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From: Monica Edinger <monicaedinger_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:38:31 -0500
Ah, Miriam, I'm guilty of mentioning my little darl---I mean ---students in
the two (count 'em two!) New York Times reviews I have done. (Kidding, I know exactly the sort of reviews you are referring to.) But you are right, it is a pleasure to have that luxurious word count. A few years ago I reviewed a handful of picture books for Kirkus and was about to review a novel when they drastically cut the word count. I bailed feeling it was too hard for me to try to distill a 400 page book into 250 words. More recently I started writing the occasional review for the Horn Book Magazine and I must have become more concise in my old age as their word count (greater than Kirkus, but definitely not the Times) doesn't feel constricting at all.
Thinking about the sorts of reviews I write, the issue of audience raised by Regina is key to me. After all, the audience for the Times reviews is a different one from Kirkus and from the Horn Book. As editor Julie Just pointed out to me as I considered how to write about the issue of Newbery and popularity for my review of *The Graveyard Book*, the Times audience would have been completely unfamiliar with it.
Then there is blogging. I started my blog a few years ago figuring I'd have a place to go on and on and on about the various topics related to books that interested me. It didn't occur to me that some of what I was doing would be considered reviewing; however, people would reference certain of my posts as "reviews" so I realized I had to consider them as such whether I liked it or not. Now there seems to be a plethora of review blogs out there, but I'm at a loss to conclude anything about them because they, the bloggers, and their intents seem so varied.
I read reviews for a multitude of reasons --- to see what others think about
books I have read, to discover new books, to learn (say from the essays in the New York Review of Books), and to enjoy (as some reviewers are amazing writers). Because I'm not reading them primarily the way a librarian does consider whether to add something to her collection --- I tend to like
reviews that are provocative, deep, indeed ones that make me think. Of course, I've not had to think about this much from the authors' side; that no doubt will change in a few years when my book comes out. Maybe I'll have to eat my hat or, at the very least, my words here. Time will tell.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger educating alice (medinger.wordpress.com) monicaedinger_at_gmail.com http://twitter.com/medinger
Received on Sun 15 Nov 2009 01:38:31 PM CST
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:38:31 -0500
Ah, Miriam, I'm guilty of mentioning my little darl---I mean ---students in
the two (count 'em two!) New York Times reviews I have done. (Kidding, I know exactly the sort of reviews you are referring to.) But you are right, it is a pleasure to have that luxurious word count. A few years ago I reviewed a handful of picture books for Kirkus and was about to review a novel when they drastically cut the word count. I bailed feeling it was too hard for me to try to distill a 400 page book into 250 words. More recently I started writing the occasional review for the Horn Book Magazine and I must have become more concise in my old age as their word count (greater than Kirkus, but definitely not the Times) doesn't feel constricting at all.
Thinking about the sorts of reviews I write, the issue of audience raised by Regina is key to me. After all, the audience for the Times reviews is a different one from Kirkus and from the Horn Book. As editor Julie Just pointed out to me as I considered how to write about the issue of Newbery and popularity for my review of *The Graveyard Book*, the Times audience would have been completely unfamiliar with it.
Then there is blogging. I started my blog a few years ago figuring I'd have a place to go on and on and on about the various topics related to books that interested me. It didn't occur to me that some of what I was doing would be considered reviewing; however, people would reference certain of my posts as "reviews" so I realized I had to consider them as such whether I liked it or not. Now there seems to be a plethora of review blogs out there, but I'm at a loss to conclude anything about them because they, the bloggers, and their intents seem so varied.
I read reviews for a multitude of reasons --- to see what others think about
books I have read, to discover new books, to learn (say from the essays in the New York Review of Books), and to enjoy (as some reviewers are amazing writers). Because I'm not reading them primarily the way a librarian does consider whether to add something to her collection --- I tend to like
reviews that are provocative, deep, indeed ones that make me think. Of course, I've not had to think about this much from the authors' side; that no doubt will change in a few years when my book comes out. Maybe I'll have to eat my hat or, at the very least, my words here. Time will tell.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger educating alice (medinger.wordpress.com) monicaedinger_at_gmail.com http://twitter.com/medinger
Received on Sun 15 Nov 2009 01:38:31 PM CST
