Melville House Books

Books and various other “objects of culture” are “becoming ever more distant” on the Internet, says Sarah Boxer, as “reviews of reviews” are taking over cultural blogs. In a New York Times report, Boxer focuses on the way the trend has taken over numerous liteary blogs: She gives favorable mention to Ed Champion and his Return of the Reluctant website for the way it “bears down on The New York Times Book Review and its editor, Sam Tanenhaus” for, “among other things, the number of pages devoted to fiction versus nonfiction and the number of women assigned to review nonfiction.” However, she continues, “Most book-review reviews are summary, to say the least. Their main purpose, it seems, is to get noticed and linked to by more popular blogs. This, for example, was Golden Rule Jones‘s assessment of The Chicago Tribune‘s book coverage on Sunday: ‘What I liked: Good numbers; timely, worthwhile selections. What I didn’t like: Reviews are a little skimpy.’”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.