Much Ado About Something: The Campaign to Save Book Reviews

There’s been a lot of discussion on blogs lately of book reviews — where they are published (e.g. newspaper, literary print journal, literary electronic journal, personal blog, or something else), who they are for (e.g. librarian considering what to purchase for a collection, a person looking for a book for herself, a parent looking for books for his child, etc), and so much more.

Recent changes in newspapers’ commitment to book reviewing caused the National Book Critics Circle to initiate A Campaign to Save Book Reviews. They’ve had a number of people weigh in on their blog, defending newspaper book reviews. They’ve also received criticism that their focus on print publications is a slap in the face to blogs. And so today, they have a post on their blog responding to this.

There is such a paradigm shift going on at this point with the resulting tensions fascinating and understandable. Who knows how it will all fall out?