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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