but seriously now

So this karfuffle clearly begs the question: should reviewers review books about cultures they're not intimately familiar with? If we say no, that leaves such a tidy excuse for mainstream media to ignore books that aren't mainstream. And it's a very hard line to draw in some cases.

I apparently wasn't clear enough in my last post, so let me state directly that I feel very uncomfortable about having unwittingly promoted a book that makes a serious and offensive error, and I have to take responsibility for not knowing enough to recognize that error. But I'm not entirely sure how.

d'oh again!

A comment on my recent review of The Twelve Days of Christmas sent me here.

Ouch!

It's always difficult to review a book about a culture you're not intimately familiar with, which is why I spent a fair bit of time researching the details of this book. Obviously, not enough time. :-( Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of the book here to verify Debbie's comments, which she made without actually seeing the completed book.

d'oh!

My sense of the day has been completely off all week... I should have realized, when I actually had time to work on a review yesterday that it couldn't possibly actually be Thursday evening. (I don't know what they typically do on Thursdays at my son's school, but judging from the results it seems likely to involve massive amounts of sugar and red dyes.) It was only as I browsed around looking for today's Poetry Friday round-up, increasingly puzzled, that it hit me.

Oh well, better early than my usual never.