Do book reviews sell books?

Last night I read the Sunday edition of the New York Times Book Review. This was something of a rarity for me, as I don't read many book reviews. I like book reviews, but I have a lot of demands on my time, so I usually spending my free time reading books instead of reviews.

But Marilyn Stasio had reviews of some books that I'd also reviewed, so I wanted to check those out. She had an interesting column in which she actually made it obvious that she liked some books (Michael Connelly's and Robert Ward's, especially).

Then I saw that Christopher Buckley, one of my favorite writers, had a review of a book called The Real Animal House.

It turns out that one of the screenwriters of the classic film wrote a memoir about his real-life experiences in a frat at Dartmouth that helped inspire the movie. Buckley says the book is hilarious, and he's a guy whose comedy judgment I trust. After all, he's written plenty of hilarious things himself (especially Thank You for Smoking*) so he ought to know.

So I clicked over to Amazon and bought it. Before reading the review, I'd never heard of the book and even if I had, I wouldn't have bought it. But a reviewer I trust said it was good, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Hopefully, that's what all book reviews can do.

*It appears that Thank You for Smoking is out of print. How is that possible? Didn't the publisher even reissue a tie-in copy for the movie?

Edit: Thank You for Smoking is in print. You can find it on Amazon here. Thanks to Mark in the comments section for pointing that out!

Comments

[Sandra Ruttan]

Thank You For Smoking is one of those movies that made me want to read the book. And for some reason, even when books are out of print, I seldom chase them down used. It's a shame they didn't re-issue it.

[J. Mark Bertrand]

Thank You For Smoking is available at Amazon. The Random House paperback was issued earlier this year; a nice shiny new one arrived on my doorstep about a week ago.

[David J. Montgomery]

Okay, cool. I checked through the various editions of the book with an Amazon search, but somehow missed the only one that's actually in print.

It's a good book -- folks should check it out.

[Cameron]

My Night Gardener review got some people to pick it up.