It's profoundly saddening to read that AP will no longer be assigning or running book reviews because readers don't engage with them enough and they take too much effort to plan and assign. People complain about critics as gatekeepers; wait until all that's left is marketing.
The devaluation of skill, experience, and expertise is a crisis across cultural journalism right now--it's being felt profoundly in theater. It's great that anyone can post a review, but that does not, even in the smallest way, replace what's being thrown away.
And with all due respect to those who find it useful, TikTok is not a replacement for what is being lost.
Word. (Literally)
100 percent.
Hell no, it isn't. In fact, Tik Tok was one not-small factor in the political nightmare in which we find ourselves now.
One of those things that it’s sad anyone even has to say out loud
Their rationale is that it’s better than reading because it saves time and it’s the same information.
correct.
Yes
Artists and writers serve an educational function, not merely the function to entertain or affirm specific tastes. Has Theatre done enough to cultivate an intelligent audience that will want intelligent discussions? www.americantheatre.org/2024/06/06/t... ... www.americantheatre.org/2024/03/28/c...
howlround.com/dont-let-hap...
(Ha - responded before reading entire thread) bsky.app/profile/mbba...
This crisis is being felt profoundly in any profession based on expertise.
Bleak, bleak, bleak.
There has been a parallel decline in theatre criticism and technical theatre excellence in my area. I can’t prove that the lack of anyone to credibly call out sloppy lighting/set/etc. work (or praise the opposite) is moving people to spend less time on polish, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Theater tech professional here: it’s not that we don’t care, it’s that every theater cut their technical staff down to the bare bone to survive the pandemic, and most of them never hired back up. We are expected to do the same quality of work in a shorter period with fewer staff. It’s impossible.
I’ll buy that for the set folks, but as a lighting designer myself I do not buy that as an explanation for why some of my peers appear to have gotten worse at programming cues when it’s literally the same people.
Ah, I’m a costumer, so I can’t speak for the lighting folks! I can tell you there are fewer people sewing but somehow just as many costumes required as ever.
For costumes, as with sets, I will totally accept that explanation.
Our local Costco no longer has a book section. We asked at checkout what happened. Told that people aren’t buying them. They might have a smaller section during the holidays. 😔
Mark Hamill, you’re the bomb!
Here’s one example why book reviews can be awesome:
Feel exactly the same way about the demise of travel guide books.
That’s pretty lame. I haven’t reviewed any very new books, I don’t have the money, but book reviewing is something I think is valuable regardless of immediate interaction. It’s fun to share about content you’ve engaged with, & people like to hear different perspectives on sometimes familiar stories.
What’s the road back?
Fwiw, I didn’t know that AP did run book reviews
They run in a lot of papers that can't afford to staff book reviewers or hire their own freelancers.
apnews.com/hub/book-rev...
Every week it seems I have to read a “BookTok” sensation for my job and oh how I pine for gatekeepers to keep these books away from me.
Culture will always have gatekeepers—the question is what kind: independent critics raised the level of cultural discourse, but what follows them (PR firms for the most powerful interests, as you suggest) have no such inherent concern. The result is an increasingly dumbed-down cultural landscape
Someone smarter than me presenting an argument for or against a work of art. Clive Bell, Kenneth Tynan, Arlene Croce, Peter Schjeldahl, Anatole Broyard. . . . How I learned discernment.
I like book reviews… it’s helped me find some great books.
I didn’t even know they had book reviews. They need to promote them!
Just curious though if it wasn't always marketing. Would an unknown author be able to get a book in front of the AP for consideration or would the author need a PR firm or publishing house?
Hopefully they bring them back once things aren't so crazy politically. Right now I totally understand a journalism entity being careful about where they spend their resources.
In journalism, nothing is ever brought back.
Unfortunately institutionalized book reviews might just be replaced by social media book influencers then
I don’t take any pleasure in this news but if I was a reviewer of anything I’d make sure I had a presence on Tik Tok or YouTube etc even if the end goal was to drive people to my print review.
We are becoming a nation of idiots.
A lot of book reviews happen on good reads and through online communities. AP isn’t as huge as you imagine for books.
Goodreads is awful.
For sure, point being that the review game has moved past the AP.
Cue the “just start a newsletter!” chorus
Without the AP, how will I know what are Goodreads? Kirkus! Some LibraryThing should cause a Book Riot to form a Booklist for a Library Journal. It's 2025. Instead of reviews written by people assigned the book, I can read ones from people interested in it.
Even more saddening that so many people just don’t read books anymore. I can’t imagine life without reading, and book reviews are often good reads themselves.
I've been a movie critic for more than 40 years but I've also done many book reviews. Early on an editor told me that people who might not read the book will read the review, and I should write with them in mind.
I mean that’s arguably the entire point of New York Review of Books
The collapse of the literary criticism is a big part of why so many of your favorite authors don't have entries at Wikipedia...
I still see a need for academic book reviews, mainly because I am poor and cannot buy all of them.
Everybody wants a review these days; it’s exhausting. We don’t have that much time on our hands. Sounds like a lame excuse when they probably just don’t want to pay people anymore for this feature!
Film critic for more than 40 years. It's only since the pandemic that indie filmmakers have contacted me directly requesting a review when their films hit streaming. I can't do them all but do try to spotlight such films when I can.
This has already happened with theatre, particularly local theatre outside of Broadway (which has been significantly swayed by marketing for decades). Are any of the J schools providing insights on arts and culture reviews and analysis?
Yes, the schools are. But many of these industries gatekeep themselves and it's impossible to talk to them. They definitely aren't going to open their doors to a college student who and give time for what is just a class assignment
I sense that the book reviews with the most engagement are on YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit
None of those are sources I would trust with expertise sufficient to review a nonfiction book.
The platforms themselves as sources, obviously not. But plenty of the creators on them are scholars or academics, it depends on how and where you look!
There are a ton of subjects that are quite toxic in the wrong hands. I’d rather find out about a biography of General Lee, say, from an AP reviewer. You’re asking people to do a lot of research into finding reviews for newly published books.
What if the youtuber used to work at AP?
I’m not asking people to do anything besides seek more literature however they can. Unfortunately, for many outside academia, that is video book reviews
It’s also stunning how fast stuff like this is happening
My father is an author trying to break into the scene as it were and my heart breaks for him and the world when he shows me articles like this. Truly a sad day for journalism in America.
I’ve worked in the book industry in a variety of jobs for 15 years and I still learned about so many amazing new books from booklists and reviews on NPR and other news sources.
While I agree with you on one level I do wonder if other ideas could discussed outside marketing (under trump the answer is no)
this is so devastating, and it's going to have a lot of bad effects downstream. journalists, freelance critics, and content creators draw on those reviews as sources, and learn to model book reviews after them.
(and I'm saying this as someone who used to cover books for a long-dead newspaper, and now creates in-depth books content independently)
god forbid but it's going to be more of this! www.cbc.ca/news/world/c...
Was AP only doing book reviews to have engagement with people who are busy reading books?!
Life changes. Organisms/organizations need to adapt. I'm sure people go to crowdsourced info for reviews, like Goodreads, just like Yelp and others for restaurant reviews.
2.4
Buddy do I have some bad news for you about Goodreads and Yelp.
It's actually *not* good when entire professions get deprofessionalized.
THIS!!!🥴🤯
Oh, by all means, Goodreads can supply us with literary criticism. Life changes. Civilizations crater.
And that is awful, dude
Pat fisher says just go to Goodreads! Thanks Pat!
Ok Boomer
On most questions, the crowd is, at best, seriously under-informed.
Life changes. You need to adapt to shutting the fuck up.
I would have blocked you for the condescending tone and the vacuous, unasked for psuedo-philosophy of “life changes. Organisms/organizations need to adapt.” Classic reply guy stuff. Mr. Harris is feeling more merciful I suppose.
I’m not.
nor i blockety block block
Take a look at the difference between the critic scores and the audience scores on Rottentomatoes. A person can be smart, but people are as thick as dogshit.
I would block you but then you wouldn’t see me telling you to eat shit, you ill-informed dunce.
Wait until books are ALL banned. People are crazy.
I’m more worried about the continued existence of books themselves.
The collapse of local journalism was the canary in the coal mine no one paid much attention to and here we are. When Gannett started purchasing mid-sized city papers, it didn't make a splash. When radio stations started getting absorbed into national entities, that further led to this point.
Local television stations quickly followed suit in the late 90's. It wasn't so long ago that the Bingham family owned the Courier Journal and the Louisville Times. That's right, a mid-sized city like Louisville had TWO daily newspapers until 1987 after the acquisition by Gannett earlier in
the decade. It's so quaint to recall just how exercised lots of folks were when Gannett rolled out COLOR NEWSPRINT in 1999. It was a thing. Now, far more shocking and yet not even the slightest bit of uproar, the Courier-Journal no longer publishes a Saturday print edition. Just stopped.
I hear Jim Cornette speak of his father who was at the Courier Journal?
Ugh that sucks
Not being flip here, I just don’t understand: What does “don’t engage with [book reviews] enough” mean? How do you engage with an AP book review? Comment about it here? Send them a letter with a comment? I’m genuinely confused.
It means those reviews aren't getting clicks. It means that they're not getting any proportional engagement vs the financial investment. I'm a HUGE fan (and subscriber to multiple sources) of book reviews, but I'm willing to concede that AP really isn't where book-lovers looked for reviews.
Thank you. Until yesterday I didn’t know AP *did* book reviews.
Same, honestly.
There are some current and WONDERFUL resources out there for book reviews; rather than mourning the AP's decision, I hope book/review lovers will amplify the ones who are investing time/energy/thought into it. Book reviews aren't dying - we just need to pivot and reinforce our engagement, imo.
So, readers do engage, just not enough? I'm sad to say I had no idea AP did book reviews. Bet I'm not alone. Maybe a little promotion of reviews would have gotten higher engagement?
It will be like listening to commercial radio (which I just spent a car ride doing): junk
some people are afraid of the knowledge other might gain from books
I'm a movie critic but I've also done book reviews. I tell people that outside of critics and word of mouth, everything you hear about a new release is part of a marketing campaign to separate you from your money.
www.goodreads.com
The majority of people rating stuff on goodreads haven’t even read the book! They rate books based on odd parasocial reactions to the authors or marketing. READing is the number one requirement for an actual journalist
GR is owned by Amazon, tho. A lot of folx left when that happened & rightly so. It's a cesspool.
Amazon owns a piece of @librarything.com but has no control. LT has reviews, and discussion groups full of thoughtful readers.
Thanks for your suggestion. 💙 I haven't done much research on LT. There are a couple on the list below that are woman &/or Black owned & I'm leaning toward those or another that has no corp entanglement at all. bsky.app/profile/char...
Book reviews “too much effort to plan and assign”? I suspect it’s a lot more predictable and manageable than breaking news or investigative journalism.
People engage with breaking news. Obviously, they don't engage with book reviews, so anything with that is a negative. Planning takes effort and money. Breaking news has none of that and you do it on the fly. That's why it's the best for business
I mean there was at least an illusion of standards maintained. With tik tok? There is none, and no institutions. Someone’s an influencer with some form of ethics now that then gets replaced by another over and over with someone who refuses to have any.
A blow.
Meanwhile "booktok" continues to grow. There's plenty of demand for book reviews.