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« Mooninite guru? | Main | Belly up to the usage bar » Sunday, February 18, 2007New book review?Over at Open University, a blog published by The New Republic, historian Jeffrey Herf has issued a call for a new weekly review of books focused on informing a non-specialist but sophisticated public about developments in the world of American scholarship. Something closer, he says, to England's Times Literary Supplement than to the New York Review of Books (too political; too many fiction reviews) or any of this country's weekly newspaper book sections. Herf's fellow OU bloggers agree, and offer advice. David A. Bell says: You should publish it online. Richard Stern says: You should also survey foreign publications. Linda Hershman says: You should include more reviews of books by women, and reviews by women. Steven Pinker says: You should be more fair to the cognitive and biological sciences. Eric Rauchway, finally, takes the opportunity to post a funny reviewer's manifesto: 1. Write a book before you review one. You'll learn lots of useful things about the performance you're assessing. 2. Write about the book you're reading, not the book you would have written, the author, the political position you impute to the author, or the book, on a similar subject, that you are now writing. 3. Eschew predicate adjectives, especially "persuasive" and "convincing" and their opposites. The least persuasive sentence in any book review is, "The argument is unpersuasive." What you mean is, the argument does not account for facts (a), (b), and (c). Saying so specifically will add a mote of value to civilization. 4. Avoid quips: to criticize the author, quote the author saying disagreeable or foolish things. TNR subscribers can join in the discussion via the COMMENTS function. HELP US PROMOTE BRAINIAC: DEL.ICIO.US | DIGG Posted by Joshua Glenn at 04:24 PM
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