My first comment was a bit flippant. I do read the reviews in the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post, and sometimes the weekday reviews in the former. Yet I rarely read the reviews of fiction, and rarely purchase a book because of a review.
My choices in books depend less on reviews than on what I might have read in some other book, or what just happens to be on store’s shelf, or what a friend might have given me. Now, that other book might happen to have essays that originally appeared as reviews of a sort: George Garrett on Wright Morris, Hugh Kenner, Randall Jarrell, Guy Davenport, or Clive James on almost anybody. So I guess that at second hand I do in part rely on book reviews. But those are not the only cases in which a book leads one to another, are they?
Then there is the matter of time. My shelves are not that extensive, yet I imagine that if I were to read only the books on them that I have not read through, and of those only the books in English, I would have enough reading to occupy my home hours for a couple of years at least. I once did a rough estimate of the time to read the books reviewed any Sunday in the New York Times, and figured it as six months. ( https://dc20011.blogspot.com/2011/05/book-review.html).
A previous comment about The Washington Post Book World may give a misimpression of our books coverage. When the print tabloid edition of Book World was closed, the staff was not affected, and the number of reviews was not reduced. People who read Book World online (that is, *most* people, since the print version of The Post is not available outside the DC area) saw no change at all. Yes, some book reviews moved to the Outlook section, but just as many moved to the Style section, including those by the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda; and a new Books page was added to Sunday Style & Arts. Also, a few years ago we hired a new full-time book critic (Carlos Lozada, who was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize). Last year, we increased our Books staff again. The Washington Post’s book reviews are as “numerous and authoritative” as ever.
March 22nd, 2019 at 5:23 pm
March 24th, 2019 at 6:12 am
When the print tabloid edition of Book World was closed, the staff was not affected, and the number of reviews was not reduced. People who read Book World online (that is, *most* people, since the print version of The Post is not available outside the DC area) saw no change at all. Yes, some book reviews moved to the Outlook section, but just as many moved to the Style section, including those by the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda; and a new Books page was added to Sunday Style & Arts. Also, a few years ago we hired a new full-time book critic (Carlos Lozada, who was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize). Last year, we increased our Books staff again.
The Washington Post’s book reviews are as “numerous and authoritative” as ever.