Guest Post by Reamy Jansen: How Do You Decide What to Read Next?

by Reamy Jansen | Aug-02-2010

Another response to the third question in our Next Decade in Book Culture series, from former NBCC board member Reamy Jansen.

Reviewers: I'll read the reviewers in the NY Times daily, also those in the business section, and pretty much the New York Times Book Review. However, I often find the Times simply too Mandarin--the reviews there of Hitch-22 are a good example of how to write a dull review. Close critical readings came from Ian Baruma in NYRB and David Bromwich in LRB--both had done considerably more background reading than the American reviewers I read--perhaps NY Times writers had had dinner with Hitchens, tossed back a few, woke up they knew not where. When it comes to politics, the Times is often dull and characterless.... For The Times, too often there is a general tendency to pass over analysis in favor of dutiful summary. Often, it's just not criticism.

Reamy Jansen is Professor of English and Humanities at Rockland Community College, SUNY and taught Arts Reporting for many years at Fordham University's College at Lincoln Center. He is a Contributing Editor to the Bloomsbury Review of Books and initiated its quarterly short nonfiction section, The Out of Bounds Essay, which is now in its third year. He is also nonfiction editor of the the online journal The Hamilton Stone Review. His most recent book is a memoir, Available Light, Recollections and Reflections of a Son, a series of linked essays published by the author collective, Hamilton Stone Editions, whose president is the novelist, Meredith Sue Willis. It's been getting good reviews.