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Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America

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Informed and informative, "Faint Praise: The Plight Of Book Reviewing In America" by Gail Pool (a freelance journalist, reviewer, and review editor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an impressively insightful, deftly written, accessibly articulate, expertly knowledgeable, and decidedly analytical survey of the multifaceted and complex world of book reviewing today. Getting a book reviewed can result in prestige for authors and their publishers, improved sales, and a raised public awareness of a particular title struggling for attention against thousands of competing books. They can also bury worthy and literate titles in a sea of inane and flawed books that are published by the tens of thousands every month. "Faint Press" provides a descriptive and comprehensive introduction to the institution of book reviewing, including such issues as why bad reviewing happens despite good intentions, why so many intelligent bibliophiles, knowledgeable readers, and gifted authors can fail at the art, craft, science, and business of writing book reviews. "Faint Praise" takes the reader behind the scenes and shows how books are chosen for review, the context in which book reviewing takes place, including a book review culture that is shows little interest in literature, a surprising antipathy toward criticism, and a vulnerability to the 'seduction of praise'. It's a sad fact of contemporary publishing that reviews so often degenerate into unmerited hype. Very highly recommended for both academic and community library Literary Studies collections, "Faint Praise" should be considered mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to become a book reviewer, and is especially valuable reading for authors, publishers, academicians, and the general reading public.

"As any reviewer knows, whatever one critic says is likely to set another's teeth on edge, the war between writers and reviewers is never ending, and critics are likely to be reviled for what they do, however well or badly they do it." ~ pg. 3

"Faint Praise" is an intellectual look at the realities of book reviewing. Since there are so few books on the subject of reviewing this is a welcome read. Gail Pool truly presents an insider's view because she is a reviewer and an editor. Therefore she sees the big picture and accurately presents an assessment of current reviewing predicaments.

While I was very interested in reading what she had to say about professional reviewers, I was even more intrigued by what she thought about Amazon reviewers. Since this book was published in 2007 Amazon has changed quite a few site features. We no longer have to worry about anonymous reviews (authors now frequently just review their books publicly without shame even though it makes them look bad) and both positive and negative reviews are often featured in the most helpful reviews section.

One of the most interesting topics of discussion was the differentiation between various types of reviewers. By reading this book you can find out if you are a literary critic, book critic, classic book reviewer or reader-reviewer.

One of the questions I've had about publishers was answered in this book. Apparently it is quite common for some publishers to send you a catalog of books to review and then to not send you the books you select. Apparently this is one of the "long-standing mysteries in reviewing."

If you are curious as to what goes on in an editor's mind when selecting books for review the answers will be very revealing. Their job is far more complex than I could have ever imagined. This book gave me a new respect for all reviewers and editors who get paid so little for so much intellectual effort.

I can recommend this book to Amazon reviewers and professional reviewer who are concerned about the state of reviewing in our society today. I think online reviews will continue to be highly popular as they are free and easy to locate within minutes.

"The reviewer who praises will never be out of work. American reviewers who are persistently critical will find that they're writing against the cultural grain. Ours is a culture that generally doesn't welcome criticism..." ~ pg. 106

~The Rebecca Review

Too bad the joke about reviewing a book about reviewing books is already taken, so those professional reviewers (at Publisher's Weekly, see above) really do have an edge over us amateurs. Gail Pool can thus rest assured that the market for her services, which she sees as endangered, will not be diluted to the point of total dilettantism, as I sensed from her slight animosity towards online reviewers who can afford to do it for free (I, in particular, take exception and offense to her statement that reviews spare in numbers are "probably" placed by the author's friends).

Aside from occasional pokes, however, it would be unfair to call Pool's plight a rant, since she does give good reasons for her concerns. It was about time someone who knows what they're doing spoke up about the caprices of the media machine that make and break careers, in this case inflationary, over-the-top, often misinformed book reviews, and, at the heart of it, the schemes that get an author reviewing space in the first place.

Fortunately, she does not leave it at that, but also offers viable guidelines and approaches that might very well serve the overall quality of literature, if not the book industry, which appears to be the underlying problem. Since, presumably, Pool is too experienced to bear any illusions that she is stronger than the system, the most valuable message of "Faint Praise" has universal appeal: be independent-minded if you can, do not take the path of least resistance by becoming just another particle of mass culture, and read, read, read--carefully.

This book about a surprisingly complex subject manages to be both authoritative and highly entertaining. It is compelling reading for anyone who relies on book reviews and essential for anyone who writes with the hope of being published.

FAINT PRAISE was a tough book to read, for a couple of reasons. One is simply that it is simply dense with information and research on the dismal state of book reviewing and perhaps even publishing and writing in general, in America today, making it a work which requires very close reading. A bit of a slog, even. And I really wanted to know and understand what author Gail Pool had to say, so believe me, I worked at it. The other reason it was tough to read was because I love books, and I love to read a good review too. And I have observed first-hand what has happened to the book pages in newspapers and magazines over the past several years. Yes, for all of you who share my love of books and reading - it's the case of the "incredible shrinking book page."
It's sad, believe me.

I live in Michigan and subscribe to The Grand Rapids Press, and have watched the Sunday book page(s) shrink from two pages to one, to a half, and sometimes barely a quarter page, along with the ever-present NYTimes bestsellers (an increasingly disappointing list of always the same tiresome non-literary (mostly) authors, churning out the same potato-chip schlock, and non-fiction merde about whatever the latest fad or headline might be). I was also saddened and appalled when the Washington Post Book World ceased to be a separate section and many of their staff columnists and reviewers were let go (including even, I believe, Pulitzer prize-winner Michael Dirda, who continues however to contribute reviews and pieces on a fairly regular basis). I can also remember fondly my home-delivered subscription for the NY Times Book Review, also no longer a separate option for those of us in the hinterlands.

Pool, a career book reviewer and book review editor for various publications, lays out methodically all that is wrong with book reviewing in America, cutting right to the chase, starting with the explosion of new books every year (she says 150,000 new books each year, but by now I think it's closer to 200,000) and how impossible it is to cover even a small percentage of those. She talks too of how the major New York publishing houses (now mostly controlled by European conglomerates) have a stranglehold on the attention of all the major print media which feature book reviews. (Of course they do; it's all about advertising and the bottom line.) So of course the smaller publishers, independent or university presses, get short shrift from reviewers as a matter of course.

She then cites historical references to how reviewers have always been thought of, epitomized by one of her chapter headings: "Vermin, Dogs, and Woodpeckers." It's not surprising then when she dwells on the dismally low wage paid to book reviewers, a situation that has changed very little for decades. Indeed, it may have even gotten worse with the upsurge of unpaid and unskilled - not to say poorly written - reader "reviews" which now show up online at sites like Amazon and B&N by the thousands.

Pool even gives Oprah her due, but only as a "cheerleader" for books, which is certainly true, but God knows reading, books and literacy need a champion in this distracted, digital age of the sound-byte.

Although Pool attempts to make suggestions for improving the situation and providing better reviews for a better and wider selection of books, it is sadly obvious to me that most of her carefully thought out suggestions and reasonable (to lovers of books and reading) arguments will probably fall on deaf ears, if indeed they fall on any ears at all. Because, in addition to that tyrannical "bottom line" thinking propagated by the huge foreign companies that now control publishing in this country, America has already been thoroughly "dumbed down" in nearly every aspect of life. The community of discerning readers and lovers of literature and good writing continues to shrink exponentially every day. So although I applaud and agree with almost everything Pool has to say in FAINT PRAISE, I have very little hope that things will get better.

The truth is, I was very hesitant to try to "review" this book at all, because I'm one of those "self-published reviewers" she talks about that populate the online booksellers' product pages. And I will admit, with no little embarrassment, that I often rattle off a quick "review" without spending a lot of time thinking about it - reactionary rambles, you might call them. I'm not alone, of course, but that's no excuse. I characterize my "reviews" as ABE, "awkward but earnest," and I can only hope my enthusiasm for a book shows through. And yes, my reactions are largely positive. Because I know that the writer's lot in America today - like the reviewer's - is not an easy one. Why make it harder? If I don't like a book, I simply don't finish it, and certainly don't bother to review it. And this is almost without exception. I try my best to make an honest assessment of whatever I read.

I very much appreciate Gail Pool's scholarly and incisive look at all that is wrong with book reviewing. She handled it with thoroughness, wit, and professionalism. I feel "improved" for having read it. Now if I can just work at improving what I currently call my ABE reviews. It's just that there are still so many GOOD books I want to read, and so little time. Maybe I'll somehow manage to write at least a decent, workmanlike review on occasion. I hope she'll forgive me for the sloppy ones.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER

Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in AmericaIt seems I was searching for Gail Pool's book, Faint Praise, before I knew it existed, coincidentally with my looking for an agent to take on my own literary novel. One site led to another and I've read Faint Praise with rapt attention, surprise and satisfaction. An intelligent reviewer agrees with me: I've been led on! Loving good literature for decades, I am sorely disappointed by today's fiction. So-called 'literary' fiction that is, which has become anything but intelligently aritistic or artistically intelligent. Can't we all be honest? Demand more, appreciate better - of writing and of education!

Gail Pool, book reviewer and editor, lashes out at the sorry state of book reviewing and by extension, at book reviewers and book review editors. Too many professional book reviews, she says, are sloppily thought out, or puff pieces for friends, or little more than book reports. Don't even get her started on amateur book reviews such as those appearing on consumer sites like Amazon.

Pool thinks that reviewers should write thoughtful and reasoned reviews that tell the reader what the book is about and whether we should read it and why. Yes, she says, reviewers are poorly paid if they are lucky enough to be paid at all. But there have to be standards. Of course, she's right. Readers should be able to assume a reviewer's impartiality. But we can't. The reviewer may be a friend of the author, or a rival. He may be a publicist in disguise. He may just be a lazy reviewer who didn't even read the book.

Faint Praise starts with a basic, but important, discussion of the difference between a reviewer and a critic. Acknowledging that "reviewing is a slippery subject" Pool finds the important difference is that the reviewer is reading and writing quickly, in time to be of use to the reader when the book is released. The critic is not as concerned with timeliness and his criticism may not be published until a year or more after the book is released. I think you can add to Pool's definition that a review is more of a recommendation to someone who hasn't decided whether to read the book, while criticism writes about the work in depth, with spoilers, for a reader who may have already read the book.

Pool is too dismissive of customer (amateur) reviews, especially in light of how lightly edited professional book reviews often are, how few qualifications are required to be a professional reviewer, and how many professional reviewers are shills. These criticisms, which Pool makes, are of course also true of many amateur reviews. It seems the only recourse a reader has is to be skeptical and discerning of everything you read, online or otherwise.

Faint Praise is the only book I have seen that is specifically about book reviewing. It describes book reviewing from all the angles - book publisher, book author, review publisher, review editor, reviewer, reader. I learned a lot about the process, such as how books are chosen for review, how they are assigned, how book reviewers are selected. For such a short book, and such a slippery subject, Faint Praise provides an excellent crash course in the book reviewing business.

This is a well-written overview of the field of reviewing in the USA.

We are advised as to the problems of reviewers being obliged to review books in which they have no interest, in which they can find no redeeming features whatsoever, but on which they nevertheless feel pressured to come up with a positive judgement, and all for an extremely meagre pay.

We amateur reviewers on Amazon and other such sites are criticiszd, I admit with due reason, among other things, for our poor grammar and one-word reviews. According to Pool, many of our reviews are "ignorant and abominably written". This is very true, unfortunately.

We review gladly for no remuneration whatsoever apart from the pure joy of expressing our humble opinions. (I for one experience great satisfaction in being able to write exactly what I think, feel and want and being permitted to be totally subjective.)

However, it turns out that many authors review their own works on Amazon, promote the books of friends and "attack more prominent authors they" think "overrated", protected by their election of anonymity.

There's a chapter on the mismatching of reviewer and the book to be reviewed, i.e. the constant failure of editors to assign books to the "right" reviewers.

The author refers to George Orwell's assertion that reviewers will need to lower their standards. otherwise they will find themselves reiterating in all their reviews "This book is tripe". Editors want enthusiasm, and Pool states that "enthusiasm for the field is crucial to all reviewing". But we need the "enthusiasm of engagement, not of cheer-leading". Oprah, for instance, is "a book cheerleader", and this is what her fans have enjoyed.

One chapter discusses whether book reviews are necessary, while another deals with improving the trade.

I am no expert on book reviewing (there, I admitted it), but found this book to be articulate (if a book in itself can be so) and intensely readable. It illuminates the whole field of book reviewing from an insider's point of view. If I knew more about the field, I might have been able to be more critical, but as it is, I absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in books and book reviewing.