Harriet Klausner (1952-2015)
October 24, 2015 4:02 AM Subscribe
Amazon Reviewer #1, Harriet Klausner (previously) has passed away at age 63. At the time of her death she had over 31,000 reviews to her name, none of them negative.
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I learned early on that Klausner's reviews weren't ever going to be helpful for me, but really, this
posted by Etrigan at 4:17 AM on October 24, 2015
I learned early on that Klausner's reviews weren't ever going to be helpful for me, but really, this
A blogger at “The Harriet Klausner Appreciation Society” noted that many of these books ended up resold on Half.com via her son’s account, and wondered whether Klausner’s positive reviews of them without disclosing she received them for free might constitute fraud under FTC regulations.is just lunacy. Don't a significant number of reviewers get review copies for free? ARCs have been a thing for a lot longer than Amazon.
posted by Etrigan at 4:17 AM on October 24, 2015
This thrilling story about a crooked reviewer will really make you think! Five stars!
posted by mittens at 4:20 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by mittens at 4:20 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Reviewers have resold review texts in the amazingly lucrative second hand book/CD/whatever market since Pontius was a pilot. To my knowledge none have yet become rich doing so.
posted by Wolof at 4:22 AM on October 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Wolof at 4:22 AM on October 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
It must be said her reviews are universally awful and unhelpful. I don't quite know if she quite qualifies as a spammer but sincerity and quantity should not cover up how bad she was at the thing she was notable for.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 4:26 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 4:26 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
"I ask any regular reviewer--anyone who reviews, say, a minimum of 100 books a year--whether he can deny in honesty that his habits and character are such as I have described. Every writer, in any case, is rather that kind of person, but the prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash--though it does involve that, as I will show in a moment--but constantly INVENTING reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feelings whatever." (George Orwell, Confessions of a Book Reviewer)
posted by mittens at 4:34 AM on October 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by mittens at 4:34 AM on October 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
It must be said her reviews are universally awful and unhelpful.
Actually, you don't really have to say this. You can just let people make up their own minds. Have a little respect for those who have passed on.
posted by Roger Dodger at 4:48 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Actually, you don't really have to say this. You can just let people make up their own minds. Have a little respect for those who have passed on.
posted by Roger Dodger at 4:48 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
She lived as she read.
posted by converge at 4:49 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by converge at 4:49 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Why does anyone really care?
It must be said her reviews are universally awful and unhelpful.
Did this person's existence diminish yours in any meaningful way? [ Yes ] [ No ] Report abuse
posted by mhoye at 6:22 AM on October 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
It must be said her reviews are universally awful and unhelpful.
Did this person's existence diminish yours in any meaningful way? [ Yes ] [ No ] Report abuse
posted by mhoye at 6:22 AM on October 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Her reviews were amazingly bland and useless, although churning them out at that rate, I'm not surprised. Good on her to be so prolific as to get mentioned by Time magazine though!
posted by dazed_one at 6:24 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dazed_one at 6:24 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
My book wasn't nearly as good as she said it was. Seriously.
posted by Modest House at 6:28 AM on October 24, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by Modest House at 6:28 AM on October 24, 2015 [14 favorites]
Often, her brief review blurbs betrayed a fairly imperfect understanding of what the book was about, casting doubt on whether she actually read them.
Truth be told, that could be said of a lot of reviews. Tastes and interpretations are unique etc, but I've seen my share of professional (or at least as professional as in intern or a paid-by-word reviewer might be) reviews being complete, uttermost bullshit.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:29 AM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Truth be told, that could be said of a lot of reviews. Tastes and interpretations are unique etc, but I've seen my share of professional (or at least as professional as in intern or a paid-by-word reviewer might be) reviews being complete, uttermost bullshit.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:29 AM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Mod note: A few comments deleted. I'm confounded how this became about Henry Kissinger, but let it drop, please. I'm not sure what the desired end point of posting the article is, but just fighting about how much we get to or don't get to slag on the deceased is not a great result, so let's skip that rerun.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:29 AM on October 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 6:29 AM on October 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
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I read the title and at first thought it was classic Amazon reviewer Henry Raddick.
posted by rh at 6:36 AM on October 24, 2015
I read the title and at first thought it was classic Amazon reviewer Henry Raddick.
posted by rh at 6:36 AM on October 24, 2015
From her review page, at this point in time, 75% of her audience that voted found her stuff helpful - votes received on reviews (119,698 of 159,753). She seems to me like she was a pleasant, speed-reading librarian who enjoyed writing blurbs. And plenty of people liked them.
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posted by Roger Dodger at 6:42 AM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
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posted by Roger Dodger at 6:42 AM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken."
-Snow Crash
This is how about I felt about Harriet Klausner in the early days of Amazon book reviews. For a brief moment I was Top 500 and aspired but Harriet, the badass, had it covered. Respect.
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posted by jadepearl at 6:44 AM on October 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
-Snow Crash
This is how about I felt about Harriet Klausner in the early days of Amazon book reviews. For a brief moment I was Top 500 and aspired but Harriet, the badass, had it covered. Respect.
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posted by jadepearl at 6:44 AM on October 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
I'm not sure what the desired end point of posting the article is
"Somebody died! They love that on MetaFilter!"
posted by Wolfdog at 6:49 AM on October 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
"Somebody died! They love that on MetaFilter!"
posted by Wolfdog at 6:49 AM on October 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Speaking as someone who was reviewed by her, I can say with authority that at least a few of her reviews of my books strongly suggested either she did not read them (or read them entirely), or read them so quickly that the review synopsis of the work did not at all resemble the actual book.
Was I mad about this? No. She was reviewing books on Amazon, on her own time, for fun, and regardless, she was almost always positive about the book. Essentially, she was harmless. If she had been a pro reviewer I don't imagine I would be as sanguine about it, but then if she was a pro reviewer, after a few complaints by writers/publishers, she probably wouldn't have remained a pro reviewer for long.
She was at her level as an Amazon reviewer, basically. And ultimately it was a kick to get "Klausnered." Other authors and I would trade stories of our Klausner reviews. Getting a Klausner review was small rite of passage, as it were.
She clearly loved books and wanted to promote them. I hope she rests well.
posted by jscalzi at 6:53 AM on October 24, 2015 [48 favorites]
Was I mad about this? No. She was reviewing books on Amazon, on her own time, for fun, and regardless, she was almost always positive about the book. Essentially, she was harmless. If she had been a pro reviewer I don't imagine I would be as sanguine about it, but then if she was a pro reviewer, after a few complaints by writers/publishers, she probably wouldn't have remained a pro reviewer for long.
She was at her level as an Amazon reviewer, basically. And ultimately it was a kick to get "Klausnered." Other authors and I would trade stories of our Klausner reviews. Getting a Klausner review was small rite of passage, as it were.
She clearly loved books and wanted to promote them. I hope she rests well.
posted by jscalzi at 6:53 AM on October 24, 2015 [48 favorites]
Flogging review books is part of the publishing game, which prefers pragmatics to ethics across the board. When I was a book reviewer for a newspaper - I covered a genre which got a page to itself about once a month - I got a large box of books every couple of weeks under the standing order to pick any that I thought worthwhile and ignore the rest. I guess I easily received around 80-100 books a month, which resulted in maybe three to four reviews and perhaps the same number of two-sentence squibs in a round-up.
I simply didn't have room to store that many, even if I wanted to, because Sturgeon's Law is an underestimate. As I considered my friendly second-hand genre bookseller* as a major asset to local fandom (which he most certainly was, acting as matchmaker between agents and wannabes, putting up authors on book signings, organising splendid parties, etc), I had no qualms about passing my surplus on to him at a price which kept everyone happy. The publishers didn't mind, the authors didn't mind (they minded about a lot of things with reviewers, but not that), the readers certainly didn't mind.
No harm, no foul. Nobody got rich at it - my god, did we not - and a lot of people who didn't have much money got to read new fiction they couldn't have afforded otherwise.
(The rules are different elsewhere - if you're reviewing expensive hardware, for example, it's a no-no. Software, in the days when software came in boxes, was a grey area.)
I'm not saying that Harriet Klausner didn't game that system, I have no insight about her motivations for doing what she did - I hope she just loved doing it, and it was a splendid thing in a certain light - but it can't be fraud if everyone who participates has full knowledge of what's happening. Publishers didn't have to send her books.
The second-hand book trade in London, at least the bit I knew in the 80s, was great fun and supported a Dickensian mix of eccentrics, schemers, dreamers and bohos. It was ever thus, I know, but I fear it is not so now. Klausner would have fitted in well.
(* He worked in the City in marine reinsurance with the book trade a second business, until he chucked in his job, his wife and his daughters and moved in with a Startling Woman. They shacked up in Throbbing Gristle's old East End gaff - the things they found! - and his hair literally went white overnight, something wondrous to behold.)
posted by Devonian at 6:55 AM on October 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
I simply didn't have room to store that many, even if I wanted to, because Sturgeon's Law is an underestimate. As I considered my friendly second-hand genre bookseller* as a major asset to local fandom (which he most certainly was, acting as matchmaker between agents and wannabes, putting up authors on book signings, organising splendid parties, etc), I had no qualms about passing my surplus on to him at a price which kept everyone happy. The publishers didn't mind, the authors didn't mind (they minded about a lot of things with reviewers, but not that), the readers certainly didn't mind.
No harm, no foul. Nobody got rich at it - my god, did we not - and a lot of people who didn't have much money got to read new fiction they couldn't have afforded otherwise.
(The rules are different elsewhere - if you're reviewing expensive hardware, for example, it's a no-no. Software, in the days when software came in boxes, was a grey area.)
I'm not saying that Harriet Klausner didn't game that system, I have no insight about her motivations for doing what she did - I hope she just loved doing it, and it was a splendid thing in a certain light - but it can't be fraud if everyone who participates has full knowledge of what's happening. Publishers didn't have to send her books.
The second-hand book trade in London, at least the bit I knew in the 80s, was great fun and supported a Dickensian mix of eccentrics, schemers, dreamers and bohos. It was ever thus, I know, but I fear it is not so now. Klausner would have fitted in well.
(* He worked in the City in marine reinsurance with the book trade a second business, until he chucked in his job, his wife and his daughters and moved in with a Startling Woman. They shacked up in Throbbing Gristle's old East End gaff - the things they found! - and his hair literally went white overnight, something wondrous to behold.)
posted by Devonian at 6:55 AM on October 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
I love how her reviews seem to be an auto-generated mashup of adjective + genre:
* gripping second chance at love police procedural
* tremendous early twentieth century Northern Great Plains inspirational
* superb first contact military science fiction
* mesmerizing Jewish street lit odyssey
Also, I have a new favorite mod deletion comment: " I'm confounded how this became about Henry Kissinger, but let it drop, please."
posted by selfmedicating at 6:57 AM on October 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
* gripping second chance at love police procedural
* tremendous early twentieth century Northern Great Plains inspirational
* superb first contact military science fiction
* mesmerizing Jewish street lit odyssey
Also, I have a new favorite mod deletion comment: " I'm confounded how this became about Henry Kissinger, but let it drop, please."
posted by selfmedicating at 6:57 AM on October 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
Her activities gave rise to a new verbed noun on a (cough) email list for professional working novelists which I shall not name here: "I've been Klausnered" (hit by an effusive but wildly inaccurate and misleading review).
The only book of mine she was less than fulsome about was the one where her review showed signs of her actually having read the thing. (Apparently "Rule 34"'s extensive use of second person multi-viewpoint narrative and LGBT protagonists and esoteric but grisly crimes didn't sit well with her.)
(I'm with Scalzi. Rest in peace.)
posted by cstross at 7:05 AM on October 24, 2015 [18 favorites]
The only book of mine she was less than fulsome about was the one where her review showed signs of her actually having read the thing. (Apparently "Rule 34"'s extensive use of second person multi-viewpoint narrative and LGBT protagonists and esoteric but grisly crimes didn't sit well with her.)
(I'm with Scalzi. Rest in peace.)
posted by cstross at 7:05 AM on October 24, 2015 [18 favorites]
maybe i've missed this above, sorry, but here are her reviews.
posted by andrewcooke at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2015
posted by andrewcooke at 7:39 AM on October 24, 2015
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posted by Monsieur Caution at 8:29 AM on October 24, 2015
posted by Monsieur Caution at 8:29 AM on October 24, 2015
I used to have a coworker who, during busy times at work, would say "we can rest when we're dead."
It seems like Ms Klausner lived by the same philosophy. Five stars for living life.
posted by GuyZero at 9:22 AM on October 24, 2015
It seems like Ms Klausner lived by the same philosophy. Five stars for living life.
posted by GuyZero at 9:22 AM on October 24, 2015
She clearly loved books and wanted to promote them. I hope she rests well.
But what if she rests uneasily? What if new Klausner reviews start appearing which seem to know more, not less, than a reader of the book should know: revisions left on the writing desk, unwritten characters that haunt the plot, the personal habits of the author? And what if those reviews start to turn negative?
posted by ennui.bz at 10:05 AM on October 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
But what if she rests uneasily? What if new Klausner reviews start appearing which seem to know more, not less, than a reader of the book should know: revisions left on the writing desk, unwritten characters that haunt the plot, the personal habits of the author? And what if those reviews start to turn negative?
posted by ennui.bz at 10:05 AM on October 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
"Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic."
Sibelius, meet the Internets.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:09 AM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sibelius, meet the Internets.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:09 AM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
She was an important part of the history of Amazon, and deserves to be be remembered as such.
The whole phenomenon of amateur reviewing is so powerful and so linked to Amazon and to that particular time. I almost feel that if Klausner hadn't been there, someone else would have.
It actually seems quaint to me now that people were shocked to discover an Amazon reviewer hadn't read all the books very well.
posted by BibiRose at 10:48 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
The whole phenomenon of amateur reviewing is so powerful and so linked to Amazon and to that particular time. I almost feel that if Klausner hadn't been there, someone else would have.
It actually seems quaint to me now that people were shocked to discover an Amazon reviewer hadn't read all the books very well.
posted by BibiRose at 10:48 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
31,000 reviews to her name, none of them negative.
By that standard, I'd say she deserved the title "The Un-Troll".
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posted by oneswellfoop at 11:03 AM on October 24, 2015
By that standard, I'd say she deserved the title "The Un-Troll".
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posted by oneswellfoop at 11:03 AM on October 24, 2015
> Actually, you don't really have to say this. You can just let people make up their own minds. Have a little respect for those who have passed on.
> Did this person's existence diminish yours in any meaningful way? [ Yes ] [ No ] Report abuse
It's funny, when we got the first Green Card spam I called up Canter and Siegel and and Siegel made much the same argument - "Can't you just ignore it?"
We shouldn't respect people who have passed on any more or less than people who are still with us. It's not to late to pass judgement on her work - "She was probably a nice lady but the world would be better off without her reviews."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:18 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
> Did this person's existence diminish yours in any meaningful way? [ Yes ] [ No ] Report abuse
It's funny, when we got the first Green Card spam I called up Canter and Siegel and and Siegel made much the same argument - "Can't you just ignore it?"
We shouldn't respect people who have passed on any more or less than people who are still with us. It's not to late to pass judgement on her work - "She was probably a nice lady but the world would be better off without her reviews."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:18 AM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
She's a kinder person than I, my amazon reviews are usually triggered by rage that I spent time and/or money on such an unrelenting pile of shit, so almost everything I review is 1 or 2 stars. My favorite is when clearly the author or their spouse wants to argue with me and they're like, "THAT IS TOO HOW PEOPLE FROM HARVARD TALK."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:36 AM on October 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:36 AM on October 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
She was way too nice. What a shame.
posted by Roger Dodger at 1:11 PM on October 24, 2015
posted by Roger Dodger at 1:11 PM on October 24, 2015
mesmerizing Jewish street lit odyssey
Is this a real book? I want to read it!
posted by leesh at 3:25 PM on October 24, 2015
Is this a real book? I want to read it!
posted by leesh at 3:25 PM on October 24, 2015
Back in the early 1990s, when the Internet was young, I subscribed to a listserv--remember listservs?--called DorothyL, which was "a discussion and idea list for the lovers of the mystery genre." It was originated by a group of librarians and named after mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers.
In an attempt to maintain a civil environment, several topics were officially banned: OJ Simpson was one, and whether Dorothy L. Sayers was anti-semitic was another.
A third was Harriet Klausner.
posted by bcarter3 at 5:37 PM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
In an attempt to maintain a civil environment, several topics were officially banned: OJ Simpson was one, and whether Dorothy L. Sayers was anti-semitic was another.
A third was Harriet Klausner.
posted by bcarter3 at 5:37 PM on October 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
What if new Klausner reviews start appearing which seem to know more, not less, than a reader of the book should know
I will buy this book, thankee, and damned if I won't give it five stars. Get cracking.
posted by smoke at 7:32 PM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
I will buy this book, thankee, and damned if I won't give it five stars. Get cracking.
posted by smoke at 7:32 PM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
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