The Art of the Book Review

Devlin, Paul; Devlin, Paul

"The Art of the Book Review" will consider several perspectives on the aesthetic form of book reviews.
I imagine this special session as unfolding from last year's lively special session "Reviewing Academic Books" (2024 #391), in which some of the paradoxes and contradictions of the form became apparent in the discussion. The book review can be thought of as uneasily and problematically adjacent to both scholarship and marketing, but its form as a genre with its own expectations, choreography, canons, standards, and intellectual/artistic benchmarks for ambition remains under-explored and under-theorized.
There is not much scholarship on this topic yet because the form has yet to undergo a thorough scholarly investigation. Last year's session #391 and this proposed panel might be thought of as a beginning (possibly among several beginnings) of that consideration.
The session will consist of three papers of fifteen minutes each, plus a comment period of about ten minutes by a respondent, plus fifteen minutes to twenty minutes of unstructured discussion.
Robert Metaxatos: an analysis of the style and substance of one of the most influential book reviewers of the of the current moment, Merve Emre. Metaxatos will “explore how the residuum of scholarship in tastemaking helps Emre shape the form of three recent reviews; her writing here tends not to focus upon the reviewed book, a strategic abstention that accords the structure of the review an argument of its own about the proper way to engage with books more broadly.” From this standpoint, Metaxatos will then examine the contemporary “ethical shift” in book reviewing. Diana Filar: an investigation into how the Goodreads platform is a canvas for new approaches to reviewing. Informed by the studies of publishing history by Mark McGurl and Dan Sinykin, Filar will ask the how “the pressure Goodreads places on publishers, readers, and authors relates to the form of the book review itself.” Paul Devlin: a close reading and contextualized historical analysis of a few enduring book reviews, two positive (Walter Benjamin’s two reviews of Karl Gröber’s cultural history of toys, 1928) and one negative (Ralph Ellison’s review of LeRoi Jones’s Blues People, which helped to establish the reputation of The New York Review of Books in 1964). Douglas Dowland (respondent): Dowland is a scholar of nonfiction and experienced reviewer who closely follows contemporary reviewing.
Diversity of voices: this panel features three speakers at three distinct career stages. It also features diversity of subject matter under the umbrella of the topic. Robert Metaxatos is a doctoral student discussing an innovative reviewer of the 2010s and 20s. Diana Filar is a second-year tenure-track assistant professor and up-and-coming reviewer discussing mostly amateur reviewers shaped by an internet platform. Paul Devlin is a tenured associate professor and experienced reviewer/review editor discussing enduring reviews of the twentieth century.

70 The Art of the Book Review: Calls for Papers