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RSS icon Comments on Book Reviewers— Who Needs ’Em?

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Addendum: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also fired their film critic.

Posted by annie | May 10, 2007 2:44 PM
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paul constant's reviews are consistently among the best in the stranger.

Posted by bing | May 10, 2007 2:58 PM
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I totally agree, bing. They're better than mine.

Posted by christopher frizzelle | May 10, 2007 3:04 PM
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Only 47 Americans read a book last year? That is alarming.

Posted by snipey | May 10, 2007 3:07 PM
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snipey @ 4,

Alarming, yet totally believable.

Posted by Original Andrew | May 10, 2007 3:21 PM
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I read a lot of books, but almost never pay attention to book reviews. I don't trust critics enough to invest considerable time reading a recommended book that turns out to be shit.

Posted by keshmeshi | May 10, 2007 3:28 PM
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I can’t get too upset about how few people read books. Most so-called literary fiction is complete crap. Particularly the *short* literary fiction. I mean, how many fucking stories do we need to publish about an aging professor who wants to pork one of his students? Or the family tensions of New England Jews? There are plenty of literary rock stars, but the whole medium is weighted down with nepotistic academics who’ve spawned a persistent and ubiquitous tradition of navel-gazing derivative shit. Nonfiction is where most of the really interesting stuff is happening these days, and that’s obviously going to be a much narrower market.

Paper’s just too expensive to support a genuinely experimental milieu like the pulps of yesteryear—kind of like the real estate market is massacring all the good experimental theatre.

Posted by Judah | May 10, 2007 3:31 PM
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thank you for using the word "erstwhile" correctly. It REALLY bugs me when people think it's some vague synonym for "esteemed" or "earnest" and use it that way.

oh yeah, the rest of this post was good, too.

Posted by gramma schola | May 10, 2007 3:57 PM
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Judah your awesome takes on things. I read your writings on your website and you have knack for being right on target with your viewpoints. I find it hard to disagree with anything you've said. yet. I like the piece on Heros and the writers for t.v. shows. I find that so right on the money.
Anyway As for books and fiction or nonfiction, I stopped reading them so much. I've been busy doing design and graphic illustration of stories into
vectored templates from my rough drafts. I got real deep in researching but thats about it. trying to get in some writers head what he was thinking after 1000s of pages of pros and cons is way to involoved for me these days.
Besides it is easier to surf facts and fiction these days with the Book called a computer. You find everything you want. Someones got to draw life. Not just read about it. I choose to draw. Am I bad for not reading books?

Posted by summertime | May 10, 2007 4:42 PM
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Uh.

Posted by Judah | May 10, 2007 5:45 PM
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My take is that the publishing industry sucks. I think that fiction writing needs the same sort of creative vibrancy that keeps music, theater and visual arts alive. What fiction writing needs is some sort of movement akin to hip-hop, with an local community emphasis and an outreach to match readers with books.

Posted by Chris Bradley | May 10, 2007 7:01 PM
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I haven't read a book in ages because I was too busy reading web material.

Posted by east coaster | May 10, 2007 9:06 PM
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Right on, Judah. I think that you're right for the most part--most contemporary fiction is bullshit. Especially the young generation of rock star novelists. At the same time, the aging guard continues to shine. I hated Roth's Everyman, but much of what he's written in the last five years is spectacular. And Old Man McCarthy's The Road was stunning. I have my problems with Oprah, but her book club is a major contribution to keeping books alive.

On another note, does this notion of competing ideologies and isms and politics still describe most literary academics? I just graduated from college last year and can't recall anyone using the loaded term "feminist literature." I think most of the top-tier academics have moved on. It seems to me that those wallowing in these false characterizations are dead-end grad students still in the throes of postmodern theory.

Aren't Paglia et al. beating a horse that died years ago?

Or am I wrong?

Posted by Ryno | May 11, 2007 9:13 AM
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It just occurred to me that I'm wrong. During my oral exam I spent a good chunk of time trying to convince a very senior professor that I didn't think Leaves of Grass was an "abolitionist text."

Posted by Ryno | May 11, 2007 9:20 AM
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