In “Another Year in the Books,” the NY Times’s critics confirmed once again that they don’t know much about books people read (article on Friday, 12/6/2019). First, let me state that I haven’t read any books they listed—they just don’t appeal to me. Second, they’re all Big Five books—the Times’s editors and critics ignore small press and self-published books. Third, the latter books feature less trite and formulaic works and more new voices—it’s rare that anyone in the latter group gets past the Big Five’s gatekeepers AKA agents these days.

Other people’s lists of 2019’s top books are even more questionable. GMA came out with one, and I suppose Oprah will pontificate about her choices too. These are often more about PR for the people making the lists, so they’re doubly worthless. The people making them don’t have any qualifications at all.

Of course, most book critics are like literary agents: they don’t recognize their biases (I probably should call them prejudices) as they arrogantly pontificate about what readers should be reading and pretend to be the only ones who know the marketplace for books. Avid readers like me generally ignore them and for good reason.

It’s not that Big Five books are overpriced—they are, of course. Like I said, good, exciting storytellers are less likely to be found among Big Five authors now. We want stories that grab us and make us think. And none of us like to be told what to read.

Have you ever heard of Dwight Garner, Parul Segal, and Jennifer Szalai? How about Holland Cotter and other Times critics? No? That’s because they’re not writers. Yet they have the audacity to tell us what to read. That’s stooping even lower than literary agents in a sense, who are only prejudicial toward authors’ manuscripts and not books already published (they don’t care about them then—they mostly just look for their commissions).

I can paraphrase that adage about teaching: Those who can write a novel do so; those who can’t become book critics. That’s true for most artistic disciplines, more so than about teachers who get a bum rap–some people (like me) just love to work with young people. It also means critics might be frustrated people like many agents, so another agenda might be taking out their frustrations on real authors as well. Whether intentional or not, that seems to be the effect. Nothing personal about that agenda, I suppose, but it doesn’t help the people who actually write books.

In science, one’s critics are one’s fellow scientists. That makes it easier for a scientist to accept a paper’s rejection—at least it did for me. My fellow scientists were peers; I had some respect for them. Book critics and literary agents are not writers’ peers because they’re not writers; I have little respect for most of them. It’s hard to accept rejections from people who have never written a novel. Readers can reject me, but they should also reject the critics and their questionable choices.

I suppose book critics are readers, but let’s consider some statistics. Each book critic in that Times article chose maybe ten books. Let’s say that each critic read one hundred books during 2019 (that’s probably being generous, but it’s maybe the right order of magnitude—ten is obviously too few, and one thousand is out of the question). But many thousands of books were published in 2019!

You’re getting the idea: How does a critic know those ten books or so they’ve chosen are “the best in 2019” out of the thousands published that year? You’re right! They can’t possibly know. They’ve just chosen the best ones from those few they’ve read or ones colleagues tell them about, who are also critics with limited samplings taken from all those published books. Unlike critics who have often seen the entire limited sample of new Broadway plays (emphasis on “new”–redos don’t count), literary critics haven’t read the thousands of good books by good authors that have been published. They therefore have no business pontificating about the best of those books!

As an avid reader, I can’t possibly accept book critics’ opinions, if only for that statistical analysis that shows they have no right to make those opinions. And, with their emphasis on Big Five books, they show they’re only part of a publishing establishment that’s out to bamboozle readers. I ignore what they say or write as a consequence.

If you’re a reader (presumably you are if you’re reading this blog, even if you’re a writer too), you should ignore all that book critics opine too. Make your own reading choices the way I do, the old-fashioned way: browse until you find something that interests you and then read that book…or not, if it turns out that your choice was a bad one. Ignore the book critics. Don’t let them tell you what to read. They have no idea what your preferences are, so you shouldn’t pay any attention to theirs. In fact, you’re the only person who knows your preferences, and you should always exercise them when finding a book to read.

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Comments are always welcome!

The Last Humans. Penny Castro surfaces from a forensics dive for the LA County Sheriff’s Department to find the apocalypse. She and a few others have a genetic resistance to the contagion in the biological attack that spread around the world, even to those who launched the attack. Her struggles to survive and protect the foster family of survivors she acquires make for a post-apocalyptic thriller that will make you wonder what you would do in similar circumstances. Available where all books are sold—in ebook and print formats at Amazon and the publisher, Black Opal Books, in ebook formats at Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.), and at your favorite bookstore (if they don’t have it, ask them to order you a copy). A sequel is in the pipeline.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 19th, 2019 at 3:16 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.