Review Reviews

                The New York Times review definitely seems more focused on putting the book into a context that fits within its own magazine’s previous reviews and maybe even the author’s specific reviews. It also focused a lot on comparing different aspects of recent nonfiction works (not only the relative merit of authors but also of magazines). However, once that was over and the reviewer had situated the book, the focus seemed to be much more about the content of the book and what the author was actually doing within the page. This was definitely different than most of the NPR review, NPR only gave a hint about the content of the book itself, deciding to focus mostly on praise for the author and the merit of his work in general. The New York Times also spent much more time on the author’s history and how that factored into his work. This could be accounted for by the fact that most people reading a New York Times book review are looking for slightly more description, more of a complete story, than those reading something on NPR or Amazon. This shows the range of each of these reviews. A review on NPR is more like an endorsement most of the times because, in general, NPR only reviews books that they think are worth reading. The New York Times however, (I just read a review of Jonathon Franzen’s Freedom from the Times that definitely proves this) can use the review as a sounding board for more of a general opinion piece about the state of modern writing and how the book actually fits into it. Amazon is different than both of these reviewers in that it is completely based on whether or not the person reading it should buy the book. Also, because other people can decide how “helpful” these reviews are, it is more of a public opinion, rather than individuals who may or may not reflect what is accepted in a larger context.