Book Reviews

In response to the argument that America needs a new magazine of book reviews, Ross Douthat says:

[I]s a nation where an educated person is exposed to "only" 700 book reviews a year (i.e., two reviews a day) really facing "a hole in [its] cultural life?" If a hypothetical educated American bought and read one book for every seven reviews he encountered, he'd be reading a hundred books a year, or two a week. That's a rate to envied, and one that I haven't managed since high school. Would my life be enriched if I could up my intake of books? Of course. But would I be more likely up my intake of books if I read, say, an extra thousand book reviews a year? I think not; if anything, I'd probably read even fewer books than I do now.

I think this misses the point. The purpose of a book review can be to alert you to new books that you might wish to buy and read in their entirety. But another major function of book reviews is to give you a snapshot view of new books that you'd never have time to read in full. Obviously, this requires that book reviewers actually review a book, rather than use a new book as a mere foil for an excuse to write an essay about their own preferred view of a given topic (along with a few paragraphs tacked on at the end discussing why the book either confirms or fails to refute the reviewer's pre-existing opinion).



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