RARA-AVIS: Re: Half Priced Words and reviewing

From: Joy Matkowski ( jmatkowski1@comcast.net)
Date: 29 Nov 2005


You can't just review: "This book stinks." You have to, at least in my mind, explain why it stinks. That means you have to read the whole stinking book. Here's an example of a book whose first 20 pages were enough: http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/review.html?id=2985.
    That was a book that I was pretty sure I was going to find interesting. Then there was this one: http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/review.html?id=3076. The blurb must have been really misleading for me to think I might enjoy it. If you like that kind of a book--and I'm pretty sure no one here would like it any more than I did--then it was well done, and I think I was fair.
    Anyway, eventually I figured I had spent too much time reading and writing about books I didn't enjoy. I did discover books I wouldn't otherwise have come across that were real pleasures, but the costs were way higher than the benefits for me. So now I just read other people's reviews and buy what's irrestistible.

Joy

Tony Burton asked:
> Anyway... what I'm getting to is this: Jack, you said you wouldn't
> review it unless you think you are going to enjoy it. Doesn't that
> tend to make your reviews sort of inherently "good reviews"? And by
> that I mean, do you ever give a negative review of a book? It's not
> an accusation, I'm just curious. I've done a lot of reviewing of
> various things: books, computer hardware, software, and when it
> sucked, I said it sucked. I wonder if you, and anyone else here who
> reviews, is of the same mind? Or am I just a misanthropic minority?

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