Claire Messud: “A woman’s rant” [National Post] "Over the last week, discussion surrounding Claire Messud’s new novel, The Woman Upstairs, has shifted from the book to an
interview its author recently gave to Publishers Weekly, in which Messud took issue with the following question: “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you? Her outlook is almost unbearably grim.”
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on May 10, 2013 -
22 comments
The Omnivore's
Hatchet Job of the Year rewards "the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past 12 months," with the winning critic taking home a golden hatchet and a year's supply of potted shrimp. 2013's
winner: Camilla Long, for her devastating
review of Rachel Cusk's divorce memoir,
Aftermath. Among other things, she described it as a nasty, bizarre memoir written by a "brittle little dominatrix and peerless narcissist."
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 18, 2013 -
71 comments
Bullying & Goodreads: "Little more than a week ago, a website aimed at naming and shaming so-called
Goodreads [A kind of facebook for bibliophiles.] ‘bullies’ suddenly appeared online – called, appropriately enough,
Stop the GR Bullies. Run by four concerned ‘
readers and bloggers’ writing anonymously under the handles Athena, Peter Pan, Johnny Be Good and Stitch, the site thus far seems bent on punishing the creators of snide, snarky and negative book reviews by posting their handles, real names, locations and photos in one place, together with a warning about their supposed ‘level of toxicity’ and some (ironically) snide, snarky and negative commentary about them as people. There’s a lot here to unpack, but before I get started on why this is a horrifically bad idea, let’s start with some basic context."
posted by Fizz
on Jul 11, 2012 -
178 comments
Nicole Cliff has been reviewing
Classic Trash fiction for The Awl, with a recent exposition on
Clan of the Cave Bear. Jeffrey Sconce reviewed 100 obscure and largely unloved books last year on
Consumed and Judged, and shows no sign of slowing down.
Pop Sensation profiles the cover of one, generally trashy, paperback, three times a week, (and includes a seemingly random quote from the book).
posted by latkes
on Feb 8, 2012 -
19 comments
The
Hatchet Job of the Year Award, sponsored by
The Omnivore, is looking for 'the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the last twelve months'. The
shortlist includes
Geoff Dyer on Julian Barnes ('excellent in its averageness'),
Lachlan Mackinnon on Geoffrey Hill ('he is wasting his time and trying to waste ours') and
Jenni Russell on Catherine Hakim ('if you should pass it in a bookshop, pick up a copy and drop it somewhere where nobody's likely to take an interest in it'). Mary Beard, another of the shortlisted candidates, insists that '
it's not actually a prize for skewering .. it's for honest as well as entertaining book reviewing, that isn't afraid to go beyond deference, to call a spade a spade'.
[more inside]
posted by verstegan
on Jan 17, 2012 -
21 comments
The Millions, online since 2003, is a book blog of exceptional breadth and depth, and "an independent literature and culture publication that pays its writers." Until recently, that breadth and depth was hard to fathom, as the site had outgrown its infrastructure. Now, however, its excellent
features are easy to find, as are series like
The Future of the Book,
Ask a Book Question, and
The Millions Interview. Superb reviews can be found
as they happen or in the
Book Review Index, and, a vestige of when The Millions was a one man operation, you can find out what C. Max Magee, founder of The Millions, is reading on the
Book Lists page.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Aug 20, 2009 -
12 comments
The Second Pass is an exclusively online publication devoted to reviews, essays, and blog posts about books new and old. It is updated every weekday. [
via]
posted by sciurus
on Mar 12, 2009 -
7 comments
The Spaghetti Book Club offers book reviews by kids for kids, searchable in a variety of ways. (And most of the reviews are also illustrated by the kid-authors!).
One of my favorites begins: "
Do you like bad ideas or thinking about them? Well, if you like bad ideas then you should read The Book of Bad Ideas. The Book of Bad Ideas is a book that has bad ideas you really shouldn't try at home. If you try them you'll be soooorrrrryyyyy! If you want to learn more about it, I'll suggest a website but I don't know any. Maybe you should read the book."
posted by taz
on Mar 3, 2005 -
6 comments
Metacritic Books. Metacritic has been covering reviews for movies, music, and games for years, but now has started aggregating books reviews, with about 150 books so far.
posted by driveler
on Jan 3, 2005 -
13 comments
You're all dummies and you're reading it wrong! Anne Rice's latest book has gotten some crummy reviews on Amazon, and she's seriously POed that the "outrageous stupidity" of the proles allowed to review on the site are tarnishing one of her her editor-free "virtuoso performance(s)." (Scroll down to Anne Obrien Rice- guaranteed real name by Amazon, and feel free to compare this rant to the one on her
official website.)
posted by headspace
on Sep 20, 2004 -
82 comments
Critique Magazine's
On Writing III -
Each year, Critique Magazine's staff compiles essays by and interviews with writers, teachers, and translators of merit for inclusion in the special anniversary edition "On Writing".
Basically, a
shitload of authors provide thoughts on, ahem, writing.
{Both sites are worth a look, imo.}
posted by dobbs
on Sep 15, 2004 -
18 comments
The Pastiche of a Presidency, Imitating a Life, in 957 Pages This is a very bad review of the Clinton book, soon to be released. My question: why has the New York Times placed a book review on its front page? Would they have done this if the book were given a good review? Is the "paper of record" making a clear-cut statement about its feelings about Clinton? Has any other book review made the front page of the NY Times? I for one plan to read the book. I recall that Edmund Wilson once said: always stick to primary sources rather relying upon what some scholar or reviewer has to say about a book.
Finally, Clinton is out of office (alas). How much longer will small and jealous puppies chase after The Big Dog?
posted by Postroad
on Jun 20, 2004 -
33 comments
I'ma write a little letter, gonna mail it to my local DJ... Don't bother they're writing their own. Books, rather, but writing just the same. If, like me, you can remember when the radio was a magic box full of surprises rather than boredom, you'll want to read IndyWeek's reveiws of these two books by disc jockey's:college and pirate radio stalwart Jesse Walker and Richard Neer of the legendary WNEW-FM in NYC, the station that ignited my love affair with rock and roll(I still harbor pipedreams of hosting a show with Scott Muni.) These tomes may be partially exercises in nostalgia, but they may also hold clues on how to recapture what radio once was.
posted by jonmc
on Feb 27, 2002 -
10 comments
Fun to be Clueless Literati in the L.A. area will no doubt like this take on the odd tastes of the
Times Book Review section. For the rest of us, there's the fun of watching one paper try and stick it to another. Also, and interesting take on the role books play as a medium in this media-rich age.
posted by jasonsmall
on Mar 8, 2001 -
5 comments
I'm something of a bibliophile; at age 17 I have a personal library of over 600 books and I read about 120 books every year. One of the cool things I discovered on the 'net last year was the growing number of personal book review sites. A couple of my favorites are
John Regehr's Book Pages and
Danny Yee's Book Reviews. Both sites provide literate, enjoyable commentary on a wide-range of books. Assignment: Anybody else out there found any good book review sites? If so,
please share and explain. :)
posted by hanseugene
on Jan 25, 2001 -
29 comments
If
this doesn't get some arguments going, then I'd hate to think what would.
posted by Mocata
on Jul 12, 2000 -
8 comments
