Who predicted the death of book reviews? 

Perhaps it began in the 1990s, when book pages depended on advertising and lost space for reviews. Regular reviewers sought new gigs after reviews were turned over to reporters. The obituary writers wrote great mystery reviews but…

At our house, we have alway read book reviews. We love The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post Book World, The New Yorker, etc.

And then in the 2000s, journalists accused bloggers of ruining literary criticsm. Yes, those of us who scribbled and scrawled about classics and old books were now official “reviewers,” a threat to intellectuals. It was absurd. But kind writers occasionally commented at the blog.

Then Goodreads replaced bloggers as the Arch-Enemy of Literary Critics. And it was not just critics, novelists also were warned away from Goodreads. Goodreads sells books but also can apparently ruin sales. The Goodread reviews I’ve read have been thoughtful and well-written, but perhaps that’s because I read OLD books. I suppose people prefer to hate NEW books.

Nowadays, vloggers and YouTube influencers are PROBABLY the biggest threat to critics. (Just kidding.). The medium of YouTube, descended from TV, seems to lend itself more to PR than reviews. I am certainly influenced; I bought a new edition of a Jane Austen book JUST FROM SEEING A VLOGGER HOLD IT UP IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA. (And I do love this book.) But there are many well- respected vloggers who do review books and inspire people to read them.

But to circle back to the beginning: the newspapers, where the problem may have begtun, are definitely in trouble  The AP (Associated Press) has announced it will discontinue its book reviews as of September 1. I did not know the AP published book reviews, but somebody depended on them.

I have faith that the best book review journals will survive, even if the newspapers do not, because there are so many readers out there. Cheers to readers, writers, bloggers, vloggers, critics, subscribers to literary journals, and anyone else I may have forgotten.