I can’t even remember when I started writing books reviews. I started (maybe 20 yeas ago) because it’s a nifty way to get free books, and that’s one reason I still write reviews. I used to have a lot of my reviews archived on a 5 ½ inch floppy disk. Well, technology happened, and I threw that floppy away. Then I copied a lot of my reviews on a 3 ½ disk. More technology happened, and I tossed that disk, too. I think I have a lot of reviews copied on a CD, but after my CD burner ate a book by one of my authors, I stopped burning CDs. (I bought a new computer, but I still don’t burn CDs. Call me paranoid.) So now I have my reviews on my hard drive (on my external hard drive, too). I’ve just counted them: 150 reviews printed in a dozen different magazines. That’s a lot of free books!
I don’t review every book I receive, of course. Sometimes, as when I receive books on astrology from Inner Traditions, I don’t review them because I don’t know enough about astrology to read or write intelligently on the subject. I used to get extremely mediocre novels from ForeWord; the editor and I had a long email conversation about how they require favorable reviews. I demurred and now I don’t write reviews for that splendid magazine anymore. Sometimes someone on a listserv I’m on will send me a book to review. But I tend not to review books by people I know anymore. I once made the mistake of saying something like “While this book is poorly written, the plot and characters are interesting, and the book is worth reading.” The author took umbrage at the introductory clause and the listserv practically imploded. I can’t help it. Why write a review at all if I can’t give my honest opinion? So I’ve decided to follow Sir John Falstaff’s advice and let discretion be the better part of valor. And some books I decline to review just aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. They have lousy production values, like the one where the illustrations were placed in the middle of a page, so the reader’s eye had to jump an inch and a half on every line across the illustration. I have also declined to review a book that printed whole lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II without permission (that’s called plagiarism), another book that opened with a Forward and closed with an Afterwards, or another book that had errors of English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage on every single page.
But, oh, the splendid books I receive! After I’ve been editing from, say, 7:30 a.m. until lunchtime, I crave good prose. I read some beautiful writing in the afternoons, novels that take me, like Emily Dickinson’s frigate, to lands away. Just in the past week, I’ve wandered in Chicago at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, among the French impressionists, and into the secret rooms of Vodou magic.
As my home page says, I live a wordy life. I’m buried in books. I sit at one end of my living room couch to watch TV and DVDs. On the middle cushion are a box of tissues, the TV listings from the local paper, the cat brush, and red Netflix envelope flaps that I use as bookmarks. At the other end of the couch—I just counted ’em—six books. An autobiography. A novel about the Holocaust. A book on ceremonial magic. A novel about Hildegard of Bingen. A novel about Shakespeare before he became famous. A novel about Abelard and Heloise. I’ve got bookmarks in three of them. These are books I’m reading just for the pleasure of reading. I don’t have to review any of them. Some days, yes, I want to read without having the plan the review in my head as I’m reading, without having to consider the context of the story or the permutations of the plot, or whether I can recommend the book to readers of the magazine or web site I’ll send the review to. And picture this: my Maine coon cat, Heisenberg, is obviously a very intelligent fellow. One of his favorite things is to paw the cover of a book open and curl up next to the book and sleep with his head on the title page. I sometimes wonder if he’s absorbing the book. (Right now, he’s sitting next to my keyboard in his library lion pose.)
There are few things as good as the wordy life. Few things as good as a good book to read in the afternoon. (BTW, you can see a couple of my newer reviews on the Feathered Quillweb site. I’ll also post reviews at Womens Radio as soon as I learn how.)
Comments
Kerr Cuhulain said on Tuesday, May 04, 2010:
Nice site! I wish you much success with your writing!
In Her Service, Kerr Cuhulain