Nowadays I barely scan the “Review.” I haven’t purchased a book reviewed or featured in ads there in ages. (I’ve received some hardbounds as gifts which I often give away to schools when I finish—these are mostly non-fiction doorstops, lengthy tomes weighing ten times my Kindle.) When I finish scanning (max five minutes), I usually say to myself, “What a waste of time!” and wonder if there are other uses for this Sunday insert. I’ve come up with a few over the years: If you have a bird, paper the bottom of its cage with it. If you buy fresh fish, wrap it with it. If you need to start a fire (real wood or charcoal), it’s ideal because it burns well. I’m sure I’ve imagined other uses, but memory fails…because that insert is so immemorable and irrelevant to my reading life.

Harsh? You might object, or you might have other recommended uses and reasons for them. Mine are:

Only traditionally published books appear there. Except for some dying PODs who continue to swindle their authors by buying ads (after getting a second mortgage to pay for their spots, they might say, “Look at me! My book appeared in the NY Times ‘Book Review’!”), books and authors featured there are generally from the big NYC publishing conglomerates (the Big Five, soon to be Four) because the Times is a big NYC publisher itself and therefore biased to hell. Small presses and self-publishers are snubbed, which is sad, because I find the most interesting and entertaining books come from them, not the Big Five traditional publishers. (I can’t say I’ve read any traditionally published fiction lately except that coming from small presses!) This bias converts many readers into lemmings who follow the snooty crowd over the cliff and look down their noses at small-press and self-published books, doing just what the Big Five and their sycophant, the Times, wants them to do. It also negatively influences the Times‘s hiring and business practices for its reviewers, of course.

Reviews and interviews are little more than ads for the books or for their authors’ branding, both invariably those from the Big Five. Frankly, I don’t care about authors who sell their souls to these conglomerates for low royalties; they’ve drunk their Kool-Aid, so they must suffer the consequences (i.e. exploitation). Only the formulaic old mares and stallions in the Big Five’s stables get any help; new authors suffer and are tossed aside at the first book that doesn’t sell well.

Above all, the reviews are worthless to me because they don’t provide me enough information to make intelligent decisions about my book purchases. There’s usually no cover image (probably because those for most traditionally published books look like something done on PowerPoint); no “peek inside” (don’t think Amazon, because nearly every online retailer offers a cover image and “peek inside”), and libraries and bookstores at least allow you to browse—that could be done with a few excerpts, but I’ll admit it’s hard to do in a newspaper and subtracts from the reviewer’s bloviating space; and they don’t tell you whether a paper or ebook version is available.

Of course, no prices are mentioned either, but a large percentage of books in the “Review” are too expensive for many readers (including me). Most people won’t pay $25+ for a book these days, especially if they’re avid readers (I won’t pay more than $6!).

The Big Five need to join the rest of us in the 21^st century—they’re stuck in the 20^th pushing expensive hardbounds, either publishing them long before the paper and ebook “bargain” versions, which are rarely bargains, or charging almost as much for the latter as the hardbounds.

Reviewers (they don’t deserve the name “critics”) are like those “foodies” reviewing posh NYC restaurants no one can afford. You’d think the Times‘s reviewers would find the most interesting books to review, but they don’t. “Kiss my derriere!” to get a review is their business model—and yes, they’d say “derriere” because they’re snobs, mostly focused on fads or creating them. Big Five books also skip the hard themes, and books containing them will also be skipped by the reviewers unless they want to create an op-ed instead of a review, or some scandal or shock value (“I ate some savory roasted grasshoppers at ‘Ye Olde Downtown Bar & Grill'” the foodie would say). Many reviewers in the “Review” have never written a book or are disgruntled writers who don’t know how to tell a good story, morphing that old adage into “Those who can tell a good story, write them; those who can’t, become professional reviewers for the Times.”

These are some of my reasons for my recommended uses of the NY Times “Book Review.” The bottom line that summarizes everything? The “Review” has little relevance for me in my reading life. I’d prefer that they save some trees by not publishing it!

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Comments are always welcome.

“Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series. These seven novels – The Midas Bomb to Gaia and the Goliaths, start in Manhattan but some end up going national or international. All are “evergreen” in the sense that they’re as current and entertaining as the day I finished their manuscripts. Ideal for binge-reading, or just jump in anywhere—they all are stand-alone tales filled with mystery, suspense, and thrills. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

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