Padded book reports

Ever since I began this blog, I've written "reviews" of books I've read and enjoyed -- or at least of books that have stirred my interest.  I wasn't a literature major in college, and I don't have a mastery of the technical terms used in analyzing serious fiction.

What I have done is talk about the story, the plot.  Sometimes I tie certain aspects of the book into my own life experiences.  Sometimes I question the believability of portions of the plot, or of the dialogue of the characters.  But mainly -- since I rarely write about books that didn't seem worth my time by the time I finished them -- I just want to give my readers an incentive to read the book themselves, to be attracted by some of the same features that grabbed my own attention.

Only once have I been publicly criticized, and that was on Goodreads.  A reader of one of my reviews once commented, nicely, that it wasn't really a "review."  I sort of agreed -- too much summarization and too little critiquing is what I think he meant.  I worried a bit.  Lately, I find myself more often calling my reviews "impressions."  Which is what they really are.

Today, I read a letter to the editors of the New York Times Book Review, dealing with this issue.  The correspondent complains in part:

I read books to immerse myself in the world and characters the author creates, and I know that others read for the same reason.  So why do you publish reviews that summarize the plot?  And why do you expect so little from your reviewers that they seem comfortable turning in what amounts to a padded book report?

Ouch!

As for the failure to offer "spoiler alerts," mea culpa.  Consider this short essay to be a general spoiler alert for all my reviews, past and future.  If you're worried that I might give away too much of the plot, read them no more.

But my general reaction to this letter was happiness.  Happiness to discover that the reviewers of the prestigious NYT Book Review are being criticized for the same failings as those I suspect of myself.  I'm in good company.

Please continue to enjoy my occasional "padded book reports."