The Book Babes: Are Book Reviewers Wasting Time With Books That Get No Added Value from Critical...

Hey Ellen,

Here's some news and gossip that I picked up last weekend during the events surrounding the National Book Critics Circle awards, given out March 18 at the New School in New York.

1. The National Book Critic Circle board finally voted to break up the Biography/Autobiography category and create a separate award for the latter. Hurrah! Lumping those two disparate categories has always been a source of annoyance for many board members, and this year I finally came around to agreeing with them?and so did the majority. Four of the books nominated this year in various categories really fell under the rubric of Autobiography/Memoir: Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Vol. I (which had no chance, set up as it was, against several mammoth biographies), Timothy B. Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story and Edward Conlon's Blue Blood (both on the General Nonfiction list) and Patrick Neate's Where You're At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet (winner of the Criticism award). Creating a separate award for personal narratives (or whatever you call these nonfiction books written from a personal point of view) opens up the chance to reward this ever-growing rich category of books.

2. Nearly everyone who spoke at the ceremony sent their condolences to book reviewers, whom they regard as being under siege.

3. New York Times Book Review head honcho Sam Tanenhaus, who participated in the NBCC panel discussion "Reviewing Politics and the Politics of Reviewing," admitted that he's been patterning the NYTBR after the Los Angeles Times book section, an ironic turn of events given the rumor that higher-ups want the L.A. Times book section's guru Steve Wasserman to pattern his product after Tanenhaus. Kinda makes you dizzy, doesn't it? I imagine that the L.A. Times editors like the shorter reviews Tanenhaus has launched and not his long writer-friendly but reader-challenging essays. They also are said to want to make the process of selecting which books to review more democratic. Talk about besieged book editors.


What do you mean, Margo,

About making the book selection "more democratic"? Is that Emily Post?speak for saying that sections should respond to what's popular, not necessarily that which about something relevant can be said?

Anyone who thinks that potboilers and quality literature are fungible for review purposes should realize that we're talking mo-ped versus SUV. There are lots of useful ways to approach popular fiction or self-help books: interviews with the authors, reaction on the street, analysis of why this particular tome?whether The Da Vinci Code or Who Stole My Cheese??has touched so many readers. But the critical review, if it's to remain true to its definition, doesn't suit every book. Analysis should be limited to the kind of multi-layered books that deserve to be parsed, and forget the book reports that just sum up the plot line or allow a reviewer to make snarky comments about the quality of the writing. Talk about besieged reviewers: They don't get much credit because everyone assumes that anyone can do it.

Which brings me to The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, by Rick Warren. On the eve of the NBCC's deliberations, this was the book in the news, as a result of the courthouse massacre in Atlanta. Reportedly, by reading passages from Warren's bestselling book, the alleged killer's hostage soothed her captor and escaped the fate of his four other victims. I'm well aware of the book, but I've never read it?and I'd bet that many of our NBCC colleagues haven't, either.

It's not because Warren is an evangelical Christian. Rather, it's because the book is what it is?a straightforward explication of how people can find meaning through Jesus Christ. Books that say everything they have to say in one reading are bound to be popular if their message resonates with enough readers. A critic's job is to explain or discuss material that doesn't give up all its treasures quite so readily.

Am I right, Margo? And if so, why should book reviewers waste their time talking about books that get no added value from critical appraisal?


Dear Purpose-Driven Ellen,

Since when are there books that don't get added value by being put under the critical eye? I think there is always something to say about any book, no matter how inane it is.

Actually, I've read The Purpose-Driven Life, and it would be an interesting exercise to parse just what it is about Warren's positive approach to life that works so well. There certainly have been many others who have tried what Warren is doing?religious self-help books abound, with far less success. I think Warren's success is largely due to his lack of theological rigidity. We are all interested in making our lives meaningful, after all, even those of us who don't put a religious spin to it. Warren may be an evangelical Christian, but he doesn't use the narrow language so common among the already converted. He casts a far wider net.

As for "democratic," I think when bosses use that term, it's usually a euphemism for control. I imagine the editors at the Los Angeles Times are as freaked out about the falling circulation of newspapers as any of their counterparts at other newspapers and want to find ways to appeal to that elusive 18-34 demographic. Will that be accomplished by offering a wider range of books in the section (Wasserman does a fair amount of Hollywood coverage already), shorter articles, more reviews of popular fiction? It's anybody's guess. Meanwhile, with Tanenhaus imitating Wasserman and Wasserman, who was imitating the New York Review of Books, now being urged to imitate himself, it's all getting so confusing, it's a wonder any books are getting reviewed at all.


Margo, enough already with L.A. and New York,

There are so many fine review sections being produced elsewhere, each with its own distinct personalities and book columnists I admire, that we need to broaden our horizons. I'm talking about not only daily newspapers but also the alternative weeklies, which already own the 18-to-34 demographic that the establishment print media can't get because they're writing from a 35-55 point of view.

The L.A. Times and the New York Times exude self-importance, and deservedly so. But they're playing to a cognoscenti that is, truly, the already converted. The biggest challenge for us as book advocates is to jump the divide between them and the people whose primary reading experiences are The Da Vinci Code and The Purpose-Driven Life.

The most effective way to reach this audience, I believe, is not through the traditional review format, but by using a reporter's instincts. What's needed to understand the immense popularity of these books and other trends affecting the book world is not more criticism. What we need is more cultural reporting, including a sense of what reading means to regular folks who?unlike publishers, editors, writers or reviewers?don't have any stake in the business. The success of The Da Vinci Code proves that those people are still out there.