Nate,
It does have *a function. It tells the reader that book x by y has appeared
and the reader may not have known that.
& very often publications make no reference to other publications by the
same author so that one has a problem even knowing what to look for.
Every reader will have poets that interest them to the degree that whatever
you - the editor - say about a particular book they will want to read that
book.
So I think it is better to list than not to list.
As to ratings, I think they are not terribly useful because there are so
many ways of valuing or not valuing a book. If you rate something very
highly or very low, that may tell me something... but for example 60% tells
me nothing at all because it could mean so many different things
I used to very much like Peter Manson's one and 2 line essays in _Object
Permanence...
So a review giving *reasons for valuing is best, but a list is better than
nothing
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nate and Jane Dorward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 05 December 2000 08:36
Subject: lists
| A question for readers of periodicals. I've been trying to deal with the
| rather large pile of books that have arrived at _Gig_ HQ in the past year.
| In large part the backlog is due to the Peter Riley issue, which took a
lot
| of time to produce & unlike other issues contained no reviews. Anyway,
many
| periodicals past & present have run "Books Received" lists. That is
| tempting, but as far as I can see does little more than assuage the
editor's
| guilt; are these lists really of great interest & use to readers? anyone
| really _use_ these sections of the journal? -- I tend to feel too that one
| of the primary jobs of a journal is to sort through the books received,
not
| just list them; otherwise it's a bit of a cop-out isn't it. (I suppose
one
| might circumvent this by marking which books were most worthwhile with a
| star.)
|
| all best --N
|
| Nate & Jane Dorward
| [log in to unmask]
| THE GIG magazine: http://www.geocities.com/ndorward/
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