I had my first little Library Journal book review published last month, a review of Kurt Vonnegut’s final collection of essay and stories Armageddon in Retrospect. No one at the magazine indicated to me what self-archiving rights I had, so I don’t know if I can reproduce it, but the link to it is here.
Yesterday as well I spent the day reading a soon to be published book of philosophy, and wrote my little review in the late night. This morning I got an acknowledgment from my editor, and I had a chance to re-read what I had written.
It made me think how connected to this older kind of librarianship the act of writing book reviews continues to be. I admit that it is also connected to that aristocratic ideal that librarians would be the judge of good books, but I think I really enjoy looking over a book, considering why it would be good or useful, and giving my little judgment of its contents in order that other people can inform their decision.
I have always felt that I was more of a reader than a writer, or that I enjoyed the process of reading over the process of writing. But I do find it easy to write about books, regardless of how connected I am to the Internet or whatever is supposed to replace books.
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This entry was posted by Steven Chabot on Friday, May 2nd, 2008, at 10:59 am, and was filed in Books, Writing.
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