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By David Rothman

Faint PraiseLarge publishers like HarperCollins are starting to release e-book originals. How to review them? For that matter, what about digital versions of paper books?

I like the consumerish approach at Dear Author, where Jane and Jayne grade romance authors from a Ja(y)ne Doe perspective. When they’re disappointed, they let you know directly or at least through very strong hints.

Attack the dogs?

But J & J aren’t pretending to do high lit. What should the methodology and standards be for more serious critiques—of both e- and p-books? Do you focus only on the good titles and spare the readers any mentions of the rest? Attack the dogs just from well-known writers? Or give obscurities the same treatment? And who should be a reviewer? One thing I like about J & J is their identification with readers instead of writers—who, as I see it, aren’t necessarily the best reviewers. Creation and critical skills are different.

P-book reviewing dissected

In Gail Pool’s Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America (Amazon link), such issues arise in a p-book context, but the same concerns would apply to E. I hope to catch up with her book. Meanwhile a review of it has appeared: Hosannah in the lowest: An essay on book reviewing—written by book/daddy‘s Jerome Weeks, a former book reviewer for the Dallas Morning News. Also see excerpts from other, mostly positive, reviews.

Related: Pool’s PublishersMarketplace page and her informative Web site, including a Bibliography of Book Reviewing.

The Amazon angle: Do you wonder if comments from Amazon readers can be a replacement for the verdicts of professional reviewers? Well, here’s an answer of sorts. Although the University of Missouri Press released Pool’s book on June 29, not one “review” has appeared from a reader. So what does this say about the many-to-many model as a spotter of books that are both serious and promising as potential reads? Meanwhile Pool’s Amazon rank in Books is a disappointing 570,398. As I see it, that’s probably more of a reflection on the Amazon community than on her. The optimal approach is a mix of comments from amateurs and pros, and in fact, Amazon does offer that—although I wish it would include more from the latter than it now does.

Technology vs. literary quality: They needn’t be at odds, but I pity the e-book reviewers of the future who will have to cope not only with traditional literary concerns but others such as the caliber of the embedded videos. I want book-books, not just multimedia books alone, to be survive and flourish.

 
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