Online Review Culture.

One of the best parts of my job is talking with critics I admire about books I love. Getting to know these critics, understanding their interests, seeing what they make of projects I’m working on, is always enlightening, even when we disagree. These critics bring the weight of their training, education, reading, intelligence to the conversation – whether we agree or not isn’t the point. Their job is to elevate the cultural conversation.

Over the years, with the rise of online commenting, the cultural conversation about books has gotten so noisy and lite it’s difficult to figure out whose opinion is valuable. The best way to find a book to read, and in my opinion the only sure-fire way, is when someone you trust recommends it to you. So I read with extreme interest Tom Vanderbilt‘s essay in the Wilson Quarterly’s Spring Issue — Star Wars: Online Review Culture is Dotted with Black Holes of Bad Taste.
From Yelp to Netflix to Amazon, Vanderbilt considers online reviewers and what influences us to decide. He says “our choices in pre-Internet days were informed either by friends we trusted or critics whose voices seemed to carry authority. But suddenly, the door has been opened to a multitude of voices, each bearing no preexisting authority or social trust.” He quotes Daniel Mendelsohn who says most online reviewing “isn’t criticism proper” – it’s full of heat…but lacks light.” You can read Tom’s essay here. Whether you agree with Tom, or Daniel, or me, doesn’t matter – what is important is to consider who is recommending what and why, and to continue to have the conversation.