Some well-deserved pats on the back and slaps upside the head.
Freelance journalist and former Boston Review editor Pool (Other People’s Mail, 2000) takes the pulse of the American book-reviewing profession and finds it weakening.
Considerable research enriches her jeremiad with pertinent examples from American literary history. “How can it happen,” Pool asks, “that such a serious enterprise works so badly that it often fails to work at all?” She is unhappy about several things: long essays that deal less with the book that with its context (see: New York Review of Books), routinely positive reviews by noted writers, editors who seem unwilling to cover titles by little-known authors, reviews-for-pay, the unprofessional reviews that now proliferate on such sites as Amazon.com (a frequent target here). After laying out her case in broad strokes, the author examines more closely a number of issues, including the difficult process of selecting which books to cover and which writer to assign. She finds chaos and bias throughout as she discusses such celebrated mismatches and controversies as the contretemps between Norman Mailer and John Simon over the latter’s review of Harlot’s Ghost. She devotes a chapter to the issue of accuracy and urges critics to judge books on their own terms, not to condemn Ed McBain for failing to be Leo Tolstoy. At the end, Pool raises and answers two questions. The first—Are reviews necessary?—earns a quick, positive reply. Addressing the more complex issue of what can be done to improve reviewing, she suggests we find more sensible book-selection policies, improved means of rewarding reviewers and better ways to train editors, whose quality, she believes, is cardinal. A code of ethics would be nice, too.
Some well-deserved pats on the back and slaps upside the head.Pub Date: July 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8262-1727-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Univ. of Missouri
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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