My review was better than a Times review? Man, that one must have been mighty bad! 😂 But I share that same hope for the future - that Booktube will be taken more seriously in the reviewing world. Just from my personal experience as someone who has done both written and video reviews, both require the same time, energy, and thought. Granted, I've not written as many reviews as I've filmed, but I take both equally seriously and I know I'm not the only person on Booktube who does so.
An excellent choice for a new regular feature. Particularly if you drop The Books in Entertainment Weekly and replace it with the books in the London Review of Books.
I suggest the LRB because of its wonderful stable of writers, its eminence among European readers I know (most of whom think the NYT Book Review provincial and the TLS too GB-centric), and its willingness to take French, Hungarian, German, Spanish, and Italian literature seriously. As you have chosen to concentrate on new American releases, it may do everyone good to expand their horizons. I believe you have a sufficient audience of serious readers to make the effort worthwhile. An aside: I am sympathetic to your criticisms of how the NYT Book Review is choosing its reviewers for books, but you omit the worst offense it engages in: novels and stories by women cannot be properly reviewed or judged by a man. Consider where this notion has gotten the Women's Prize for Fiction. Its longlist is a laughingstock and its winners even more so.
Love this! Please make it a regular feature!! I lived fairly close to that Bella Coola Valley and the area is as beautiful as you imagine they are trying to make it. My hometown was a few hours north and of the 5 different houses I lived in there over the years, every one of them had bears in the yard fairly regularly. Thankfully only black bears.....but those are big enough! Any bear with cubs is frightening.
I've tramped over every inch of the Bella Coola Valley many times and never had a bear encounter, thank Gawd! But yes, I agree: any bear with cubs is frightening.
I thought about going through the whole paper too. And then realized that was CRAZY. But I had so much fun copying your idea :) I also wondered if you ever have/want to get a review in the NYT. I hope you keep doing this! Like last week, I'll pause now until I read it myself...
A born again African-American Artist ( re-trained in Ghana west-Africa as a Craftsman 1965/76) and now a self-published author. See Details below: www.amazon.com/Curtis-James-Morrow/e/B074TWSKKW/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
What a treat to get this wonderful commentary about theBook Review before I’ve read it. My husband laughs at me because I always read it last and that usually means that it doesn’t get read until a Monday or Tuesday. I tell him I save the best for last. I had my hands on the Packer book and put it back. I won’t make that mistake twice.
I disagree, Steve. I don't distrust The NYT Review of Books because it decides to have a Korean author review a book by another author of Korean heritage. Just as I don't distrust it for having Isaacson's review. Now, about Olive's review of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone? I agree completely. Too bad it's not available on Scribd in my region and the wait list at the library is incredible.
I agree with your general point about the negative effects that arise when certain reviewers are matched with reviews, as in the case when the reviewer is in some fashion a competitor of the author of the book reviewed, however, I can see some problems arising if nationality becomes an issue, because if a Korean should not review a Korean author, or an Australian an Australian author, should American authors be reviewed by Americans?
He is not saying Koreans cannot review Korean literature - that really would be a dumb thing to say. Rather that it should not be limited to Koreans only. And that is what he is saying: only Americans should not review American work. Although everyone gets review work of Ethnic Majority, but only the particular Ethnic Minority gets to review their work.
I agree with your last point. Why should a book written and reviewed by a Korean be met with suspicion (why is all of a sudden the issue raised about the reviewers capacity for objective judgement?) when we don't think about nationality twice when it concerns an American book and reviewer. Or, heck: a white male author and reviewer... Unless, of course, the argument is: "look at how subjective the judgment is of white male reviewers re: books written by white male authors...perhaps we should raise a similar concern re: Korean authors/reviewers..." I'm not convinced that that is the argument made here though...
Charli Writes It is not that a Korean reviewing another Korean writer is being objected to, not at all. As most works of a nation are reviewed by that nation (except English given its global reach). Rather why should a Korean writer be sought to review a Korean work, just because they are Korean? And that is not done at all when it comes the White Male writer.
@@AminTheMystic But Steve did say that an Australian should not be reviewing an Australian book. So while there may be wiggle room in the Korean example, however, coupled with the Australian one, I took them to stand for the general proposition that a person of one nationality should not review an author of the same nationality.
@@AminTheMystic Well let's turn this argument on its head: if we are so committed to Korean reviewers reviewing the work of non-Korean authors (e.g. American authors) than why don't we just hire / publish their work more? We are perfectly fine keeping those jobs for ourselves and only consider them when we think their background gives them an edge or advantage. Why is there not a public outcry each time a (big) American book is not reviewed by a minority? Because it's a non-issue. But how are they supposed to launch a career when their reviews are not published (or if they are not commissioned)? If Korean (or any minority group) reviewers were accepted as belonging to the mainstream than we wouldn't even think twice about making the argument that they should stay away from reviewing Korean books - because in that case we would have plenty of evidence of their "objectivity" reviewing non-ethnic books. But the fact is, we have not accepted them into mainstream, and so they are often relegated to "ethnic literature" *and then we complain!: "Why do they review ethnic books?!" "They shouldn't only focus on....!" Well, yes, but welcome back to reality. Who's going to pay their bills? You? So, are you going to take the streets and march to make papers hire more diversely? That's what I mean. We don't. Also, if you are simply critiquing the fact that (in this case) Korean books are reviewed by Korean reviewers, then who are you suggesting should review the Korean books instead? Or rather (let's keep it real): who do you think ends up doing the review if it's not a Korean?! Because that's what such a one-sided intervention amounts to: you rid the Korean reviewer out of the picture and replace him/her with a non-ethnic reviewer - so the little employment opportunities Koreans had are taken away from them in the name of diversity - leading non-ethnic reviewers to also dominate the ethnic section of the book world *without them having to give up their status quo in the book world at large*. So, this one-sided argumentation and intervention (meaning: in the absence of opening the doors of the mainstream reviewing world to Koreans *first*) effectively leads to the eradication of the Korean reviewer in virtually all reviewing domains.
I can see maybe bringing in a big stunt reviewer for the cover piece to attract readers, but doing it for nearly every review is kind of ridiculous. Oh, and your Booktube friends are not "imaginary"!
