Pool 4
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No aspect of reviewing is more charged than the matchup of books and reviewers . . .
Pool mentions that editors select books for review based on the general audience of their respective publications. What she does not discuss is whether or not editors want to see variety of opinion in the book pages. Would an editor care if every book he chose received negative reviews, resulting in a miserable book review page?
is devastating.
I see what you’re saying, although reviewers don’t exist to stroke authors’ egos. Their job is to provide an honest opinion of a book, and I would also imagine that many of the “objectivity” rules of journalism would apply to book reviewing, too. For example, I probably wouldn’t trust a book review written by the child of the book’s author, because the familial connection would reduce the reviewer’s credibility and call into question the opinions in the review itself.
The charge rests in the wait. The author waits to read the opinion of the reviewer. The reviewer will determine or curate the market for their book.
I think the matchup is so charged because aside from who the reviewer is, their impact will affect the success of the book. Although personal preference in terms of genre and author can affect a review, I think the amount of enthusiasm a reviewer has towards a book is the most crucial aspect. A reviewer who mostly reviews fashion biographies might not have much interest in a sports biography and might give it a lackluster review due to a lack of enthusiasm in the subject matter.
This matchup is so critical for numerous reasons; among the most obvious of these is expertise of the reviewer. A reviewer should be at least moderately familiar with a book’s subject matter, especially if the book is intended for a niche audience. A book about the scientific mechanisms of sports vehicles may be the best written and most reliable title on the market, but someone (such as myself) who has no driver’s license and doesn’t know how to start an engine should not be the one to review it.
the review.
Lived experiences and other biases will most likely affect the way the reviewer looks at a book, and no two authors will have identical biases.
In an ideal world, every reviewer assigned to a book would be appropriatedly knowledgeable to deal with it . . .
that is a very difficult task to accomplish. The idea of matching the book with the “right” or appropriate reviewer is the role of the editor. A failure to make a good match may give the public a different view on a book and will upset the author.
In the real world every book should be assigned to a proper reviewer. A reviewer who is an expert on that particular genre or the place where books is written. But it doesn’t go like that in the real world, editors don’t usually find a “right” reviewer for each book. According to Pool Editor have a lot of responsibilities. They have to make decisions to assign the best suited reviewers for the kind of book they need.
Pool asserts that it is the responsibility of the editor to curate reviews. The readers will appreciate a review more from a source that is knowledgeable on the given topic.
The way Pool sees book reviewing, is that not many are equipped to handle it. Meaning that being assigned a book to review may not mean you are versed in the subject matter. So the editors who assign the reviewes may just go with the best writers, who may not be the most knowledgeable.
Agreed. As I wrote in my comment for Paragraph 1, the level of enthusiasm can greatly affect how a book review turns out. Sticking to book reviewers who are more experienced in structure and wording may lead to a better review in terms of how well it reads, but not necessarily in terms of knowledge of the subject.
Ideally, reviewers should be experts on the topics they are reviewing. If a book is about life in Russia after the Soviet Union’s fall, for instance, the reviewer should be on expert on this topic. But this does not occur in the real world, and makes the work for editors even harder.
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The editorial process seems so impossible. Not only does the editor have to choose a book from a drowning amount of titles (that choice could fall through for various reasons), the editor must then pick a review from another sea and who knows how that’s going to work out. I imagine all editors take heartburn or migraine medication daily.
I would have thought some reviews would require so much editing that most editors would rather just move on to the next one. Also, I figured editors would prefer to edit reviews based on things they’re at least somewhat familiar with. Seems like editors don’t have the time to be picky – must not be easy.
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