Crime Fiction Dossier

Why reviewers over-praise books

In the comments section to my post "Is it just me?," where I questioned whether reviewers are getting soft, author Elaine Flinn made an interesting point:

I don't think reviewers are getting lazy - I think they're overwhelmed by the sheer number of books being published now - and so many of them are carbon copies with voices that are far from original.

This is a keen observation, and it relates directly to one of the things I brought up in the original post; namely, whether or not reviewers over-praise books, which I think they often do. And one of the major reasons that they do is because of the volume of books being published.

Since I am a crime fiction reviewer of some prominence, the publishers are usually quite eager to send me their books. I get stacks and stacks of them, probably an average of 50 or so every week. (I haven't counted in a long time, but the last time I did, that's what I got.)

A large percentage of those books aren't very good. I'm sure somebody likes them, but for whatever reason, they're not to my taste. This leaves me, or any reviewer, in the unenviable position of wading through stacks of dross in the hopes of finding something interesting to read, and hopefully worthy of being reviewed.

After a while, the cumulative effect of so many disappointing books starts to add up. It can get discouraging. But then lightning strikes and a gem is found amidst the sand. When that happens, the reviewer seizes on the book like a prospector at his first sign of color.

"Eureka!" he cries, and dashes off to write a glowing review. After having read so many books that weren't fresh, or weren't interesting, or weren't well-written, when the reviewer finds one that is, the book looks all the better by comparison.

Thus, books will often receive kudos that they don't necessarily deserve based on their own merits. This is one of the reasons it is so important for reviewers to maintain their own standards for quality, and to make them as objective as they can -- in what is always, and must be, a subjective field.

(There are some other reasons reviewers over-praise books, and perhaps I'll discuss them in the future.)

Is it just me?

Every Sunday morning, I go to Sarah Weinman's blog to check her round-up of all the major mystery reviews. When I see a book that looks interesting (something I've read, something I plan to read, something I'm curious about), I'll click through and read the review. (Note: I don't usually do this if it's a book I plan to review -- but by the time someone else's review runs, mine would probably be done anyway.)

Lately I've been noticing how much I disagree with the reviews I'm reading. The same thing goes for the PW reviews that I see on Amazon. Reviewers are heaping praise on books that I find to be, at best, merely average -- and often they're much worse than that.

This leaves me wondering: are reviewers getting soft or am I just turning into a grumpy old man?

I don't think I'm being any more curmudgeonly than before. I still find plenty of books that I enjoy and that I would feel comfortable giving glowing reviews, too. But I can't help but be surprised at all the crap that people are heaping praise on.

Same thing for many of the Best of 2006 lists that I read. I thought that last year was just okay for crime fiction; hardly a banner year. There were a lot of good books, but few great ones -- and an awful lot of truly bad ones.

But when I've looked over the lists that people put together, I've seen plenty of titles that that were disappointing, if not mediocre; lots of books that I simply gave up on reading.

So all of this makes me wonder: are reviewers getting soft? Are people becoming reluctant to pan books (or, at least, give mixed reviews to books), unless they're written by Michael Crichton or Thomas Harris?

I know the temptation to over-praise books, subconsciously or otherwise, and I know some of the reasons why it happens. But it seems to me that the plaudits being doled out lately are above and beyond.

Snarky reviews

What's with all the snarkiness in reviews lately?

I just read this line in a Publishers Weekly review of a debut thriller: "Despite some clunky expository dialogue (practically a genre requisite)..."

It is? Thrillers are required to have clunky dialogue? Has this reviewer read many thrillers? I doubt it.

Earlier in the week, we had Janet Maslin's review of Marcus Sakey's The Blade Itself, which can be summarized as: "Marcus Sakey has written a pretty good book, the ideas for which he ripped off from Dennis Lehane, Joseph Finder, George Pelecanos and Elmore Leonard. Although it is occasionally an entertaining story, Sakey is not as good a writer as Lehane. Nor, for that matter, is he as good as Leonard."

Just because Sakey lists some writers he likes on his website, Maslin assumes he's copying them? She somehow knows that his voice is not his own, based on reading one novel? She assumes that he is cravenly creating an amalgam of better writers because he worked in advertising, and is thus suspect from the start?

Patrick Anderson, who doesn't know the difference between a mystery and a thriller, rails against the thriller authors "who write what can generously be called fluff, deliberately dumb books filled with cliches, improbable events, inane dialogue and crowd-pleasing gimmicks that have nothing to do with the real world."

I'm all for panning lousy books, but that statement not only belittles writers who are quite likely trying their best (how many people deliberately write dumb books?), but also insults the people who read them.

I know the temptation to write snarky reviews, and have on rare occasion succumbed to it myself. But it's like eating junk food. It might feel good at the time, but ultimately it's bad for you, and if you've got any conscience, you'll just wind up regretting it later.

Of course, considering that Maslin writes for the Times and Anderson writes for the Post -- and that I'd be pleased to write for either of those publications -- they must know something that I don't.

Perhaps it's time to send off for my poison pen...

I give up

Folks, it's time for me to find a new avocation.

Lev Grossman, literary critic for Time magazine, has proclaimed Harriet Klausner "one of the world's most prolific and influential book reviewers."

She's as prolific as diarrhea, but if that fraud is influential, then clearly I'm in the wrong business.

Happy holidays!  :)

The thought of the day

From critic Mike Ripley:

"I am always being accosted by crime writers who announce themselves and then say 'You haven't reviewed my new book' to which I usually answer 'There's no need to thank me.'"

(Passed along by Dick Adler.)

(In case you were wondering...Yes, there is a cabal of critics who all communicate with each other. That's how we decide which books get the good reviews.)

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!

The decline of book coverage

Jerome Weeks has an interesting piece on the Collapse of Books Coverage in newspapers. As a veteran of the newspaper business -- and a casualty of its short-sightedness -- Weeks is in an excellent position to comment on this topic. So I recommend you read his post.

I've always thought that this is one area where the powers-that-be at the nation's newspapers are really blowing a big opportunity, both to provide a valuable service, and to advance their own cause as well.

Is it such a leap of imagination to think that covering books and writing in newspapers might help attract and cultivate people who are interested in reading -- presumably the same people who might buy a newspaper in the first place?

After all, most people don't read, don't care about reading, and don't give a whit about newspapers. On the other hand, people who go out of their way to read a newspaper might actually have an interest in reading something else as well, and therefore might like to see it covered in the paper.

But I suppose that's too simplistic for the bean counters.*

*No offense to the nice bean counters, who actually love books, like my wife.

The list that wouldn't die -- and a new blog

Jerome Weeks, formerly the book critic for the Dallas Morning News, has started a blog to share his thoughts on publishing, books and literacy.

One of the first topics he visited is my ever-popular list of the 10 Greatest Detective Novels. He then followed that up with a second post, the latter including his own list of favorite literary thrillers.

I could quibble and say that the books he cites are, for the most part, mysteries (or noir novels), not thrillers...But it's a very good list, so why complain?

He also has some very interesting commentary that I found thought-provoking. I didn't need another blog to read, but I think I'm going to enjoy this one.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Jerome.

Ten Commandments of Getting a Book Reviewed

As part of the fun over at Buzz, Balls & Hype, I offer up my Ten Commandments of Getting a Book Reviewed. It's padded out a little, I suppose -- I had trouble coming up with ten. When M.J. Rose gave me the assignment, I replied (in my best Mel Brooks voice), "Ten? Does it have to be ten? Why can't there be eight commandments?" But apparently it was written in stone.

Let me know what you think!

Now here's a racket I should get in on

Tico Publishing, some small press I've never heard of, will give you a review of your book for only $29.95.

Do you need, or would you like, to have your book reviewed? Not having much luck getting them on your own? We understand.

For $29.95, we'll deliver a 200-500 word full-length review to you within 7 days - 14 days (depending on the length of the manuscript and backlog of submitted work).

There's probably a bigger waste of 30 bucks for an aspiring writer, but none immediately come to mind. Giving it to PublishAmerica, I suppose, would qualify.

I'd consider going into this business myself, but there's no way in hell I'm writing a 500-word review of some lousy book for only $30!

Somewhere, P.T. Barnum is smiling.