Sunday, March 18, 2007
NYT Book Review
Although I know all the blog traffic is over on crimespace nowadays, here's a question. Is it just me or is the NYT suddenly printing more negative reviews of novels than positive ones? Today the new Leithem and Shriver books got run over pretty good. It seems like in the past if you got reviewed in the NYT it was usually a good review. Now they often review books negatively--sometimes even more than once. I'm thinking of the Jane Smiley book which got multiple poor reviews. Do NYT book reviewers get more mileage out of a bad review than a good one? I'm not thinking about Marilyn Stasio here who generally picks books she likes to review but the literary novel bunch.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
"but the literary novel bunch"
So...no...going...there.
I'm tempted to say something else... but truth is, I think the negative does get more attention. When I used to watch Siskel and Ebert sometimes I loved watching them fight.
It's also just possible the books aren't good.
It's hard to believe they're not better than the reviews though. It's like they get off of being mean. Try to outdo themselves with cleverness. It's kind of chessy to trace Leithem's life back to time spent in LA twenty years ago and say he probably wrote this novel then. I really doubt that.
I guess if I thought I would have a novel at some point for them to review, I'd be more careful.
Post a Comment