and still the comments rage on into the night
In the comments of that Read Roger post, which continue to be be thought-provoking, Roger wrote:
"Fuse's point that blog reviewers might ignore a bad book from a blogosphere acquaintance is certainly possible, but isn't it also possible that a mediocre book could be reviewed "because she's so nice" or something? Readers of blog reviews generally have no clue why a certain book was chosen for review. They don't know what universe of books the reviewer is selecting from. I know there has been something of a movement for blog reviewers to tell readers the source of a book being reviewed (ARC, from the library, bought, etc.) but I'm not sure that informational is in itself helpful unless the reader also knows what books in general the reviewer is seeing."
I'm not entirely sure I have anything to add to this, I just thought it a very interesting point. Though perhaps the answer is implicit in the very nature of blogging: this book was chosen because I had something to say about it.
"Fuse's point that blog reviewers might ignore a bad book from a blogosphere acquaintance is certainly possible, but isn't it also possible that a mediocre book could be reviewed "because she's so nice" or something? Readers of blog reviews generally have no clue why a certain book was chosen for review. They don't know what universe of books the reviewer is selecting from. I know there has been something of a movement for blog reviewers to tell readers the source of a book being reviewed (ARC, from the library, bought, etc.) but I'm not sure that informational is in itself helpful unless the reader also knows what books in general the reviewer is seeing."
I'm not entirely sure I have anything to add to this, I just thought it a very interesting point. Though perhaps the answer is implicit in the very nature of blogging: this book was chosen because I had something to say about it.
posted by web at 7:30 PM
3Bligs:
Well, yes - but I think the same could be said to be true of many non-blog reviews and reviewers too. Maybe I'm perceiving this slightly differently because I don't get regular access to the big US reviewing publications, but certainly from this side of the pond, there are a lot of reviews of children's books written by other children's authors. And it's a small world, with friendships and writer's groups, but nobody necessarily questions the objectivity of reviews just for that reason. And sometimes supposedly professional reviewers seem to be unable to evaluate a book objectively for no good reason whatsoever.
Guess I'm just saying that the 'problem', if there is one, isn't unique to blogs. Maybe there's even less of a problem with blogs as people are more likely to read a blog review just to see, as you say, what the blogger has to say about it.
Ah, Yeah! I don't know what is up with Roger. Is he just trying to keep the pot stirred? Bloggers pick the books they want to talk about of course.
And there's something WRONG with picking the books you want to review/share?!?!
Sigh.
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