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By David Rothman

CJR logoEarlier we griped about book reviews, and in next week or so, the TeleBlog will run a review of a book on reviewing—rather timely concerns, as it happens.

Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, an ex-Los Angeles Times book editor named Steve Wasserman has just quoted James Atlas, a prominent author and critic—who wisely observes that you can’t stop technology.

Clueful thoughts from an old book hand

“We are going to have e-books,” Atlas says, among many other things. Exactly.

And it is possible that e-books and links might actually elevate the art of book reviewing if the publishing and library worlds plan ahead? Here are three reasons why the answer might be yes:

1. Many and perhaps most reviewers are generalists. With more books online, and ideally available through a TeleRead-style library model, they could more easily vet the books under review—see how they compared with existing works.

2. Digital libraries and e-bookstores could encourage e-publishers to link to indexes of reviews, so that they could be part of the experience of reading a book. I say this with mixed feelings, considering many reviews’ quality or lack thereof.

3. With proper e-book standards in place, reviews could link directly to specific spots within books, so readers could see for themselves whether the reviewers were on target. Even now, within the blogsphere, a review can use a Web link to buttress or refute points that an author makes. No wonder blog-based reviewing is growing! Too bad that many newspapers are committed to the idea of walling themselves off from the Web—driven by near-ideological reasons: the fear that the Web will render editors obsolete. It won’t! They’re all the more needed as evaluators of the torrents of information out there, even though readers also want to judge for themselves.

Advice for the here and now

For now, reviews in the online editions of newspapers need to appreciate the possibilities of linking to Wikipedia, which, though a long way from infallible, can provide a nice concentration of links to topics in a book under discussion. Yes, a strong disclaimer could accompany the Wikipedia links.

Point is, books need to be considered in context, and readers should not be forced to rely just on reviewers for their facts.

Indeed, in Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America, Gail Pool serves up some horror stories about the use of inappropriate reviewers. The old days, of readers automatically trusting books sections or any other parts of newspapers, are gone. Book review sections need to adapt.

 
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