Even people comfortable with the disappearance of traditional book reviews don't get the advantages of web reviews
From Book reviews continue inevitable migration to web, via Harvard University Press:
“Some bloggers have pointed out that book reviews inevitably will migrate to the Web,” Brauchli said. “Reviews online are no doubt easier to find. Putting them online also shortens the distance between reading a review and buying a book, which surely is a good thing for authors and the book trade.”
While continuing to publish book reviews in other sections of the print edition, he told the critics the Washington Post would also develop a well-indexed Book World site online.
The article ignores or doesn’t realize the most important part of reviews’ migration to the web: actual discussion. Washington Post Book World, like other voice-of-God printed book reviews, ends with its own final period. Meanwhile, reviews online—whether those by newspapers posted with comment forms below them or on Amazon—let people thrash on their ideas, collectively, about any book, whether it’s brand new or centuries old.
It’s frustrating as some people mourn the loss of Book World and other Sunday book review inserts (I do too, don’t worry). Books got reviewed and discussed and promoted before newspapers, and they’ll get reviewed and discussed and promoted without newspapers. And while it’s arguable that no single review will ever match the elegance of one of the better stand-alone New York Review of Books pieces, collectively being able to find multiple reviews and compare them to one another—the excellent ones and the piddling ones—will lead readers to the best books. That, not necessarily Book World.
