The best thing about Jenny D having a piece in the new issue of The Believer (other than more of the world enjoying her fabulous self) is that she was able to write about a rather obscure book that she loves and hopefully give it a much broader audience in the process. When she first wrote about Toni Schlesinger's Five Flights Up and Other New York Apartment Stories it completely captivated me. There is no way on earth I would have heard about this title without Jenny's blog (I'm woefully behind on reading reviews, even online, in newspapers like the Village Voice who she reviewed the book for in the first place.) I'm putting together my holiday wish list (I can not buy any books before then - I'm buried under review copies right now and still tackling the TBR pile which is under 20 titles now and I will not add to it until the holiday excuse!!!) and Schlesinger's book is now firmly at the top. I want it not only because it sounds interesting but also because after reading Jenny's blog for over a year (and all of the archives) I understand what she likes and dislikes and I find that often our opinions on books coincide in a very good way. We have good book kharma, and I trust her. So there you go - Jenny loves it and I bet I will too.
So yeah, I want this book!
Interestingly enough, as Jenny was getting validation for all of her good opinions, Cheryl over at Emerald City has decided to hang it up. There are a lot of reasons for shutting down a monthly magazine (even online) like Emerald City - not to mention the pressure of keeping up a daily blog that very busily covers the sci fi and fantasy publishing industry - but one thing she mentions really confused me:
In addition, over the past year or so I have become very disillusioned about both the quality of my own work and the general usefulness of nline book reviews.
Why would you question the usefulness of online reviews? Cheryl doesn't expand on this statement other than to mention the whole book bribes for good reviews thing that came up in her site a few weeks ago. I was quite riveted by all the goings-on there that day (the comments are amazing) as most of them deal with Hal Duncan's Vellum, a book I was sent to review but decided against. I read about the first 75 pages or so and while I can certainly see how some sci fi writers will enjoy it, I was getting further and further lost the more I got in. This happens to me sometimes, particularly with some sci fi, and so I didn't review the book. (I come from the "review what you can recommend" camp and not the "spend your time reading a book you don't like so you can write about how you hate it" camp.) I was really surprised by the whole idea that a reviewer could be bought with an ARC though. I've never felt compelled to write a review based on a free book. Does anyone really give a bad book a good review just because they got the book for free? This makes no sense to me.
Really. Why would I recommend a book I didn't like - for any reason?
But I digress. How in the world could you question the validity of online reviewing? Is there that much of a difference between reviews online and in newspapers and magazines? Is Jenny D's opinion about Five Flights Up more significant in The Believer or the Village Voice as opposed to her blog? Her blog entry is what made me want the book - what made me want to spend dollars to get the book (and yes, if it doesn't show up under the tree I will be buying it myself, that's how the Xmas list works around here). So how can you question online reviewing? What about reviewing books online makes it less significant?
Would you be more willing to believe me if I wrote in your local paper as opposed to Bookslut?
The weirdest part about this argument is that it is an online reviewer who is raising it. So if we are questioning our own value how can we expect the printed reviewing world to take us seriously? And yet.....publishers send me books, many many books, knowing that I write only online. They think my opinion matters, even if it's only expressed on a computer screen. Since they're the ones paying to send out these books then surely they must know what they're doing, I mean if the people who want the reviews think we matter, then doesn't that say something?
Am I crazy?
Go read Jenny D and let me know what you think, You can read The Believer piece here - the whole thing is online.
