A compromise that I would find useful is a list which would leave out the
obviously terrible books, a sort of "selected books received" or "books
received which may be worth a second look" ... And I second another idea,
that there should ideally be an indication of the nature of the publication,
e.g. "poems" "criticism" "theory".
Leona
> From: Nate and Jane Dorward <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Nate and Jane Dorward <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 13:39:45 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: lists
>
> Lawrence--hm, OK, I can see _some_ point to such listings. I should add
> that one reason I'm a little dubious though is that frankly some of the
> books I've got lately are genuinely terrible; I feel that even listing the
> information on how to acquire them is plugging them in a way, & I have mixed
> feelings about that! It's one thing to give a negative review--I try in
> negative reviews (of which there are two out of the five in the current
> issue, for instance) to quote substantial chunks from the book in question,
> so that a reader has the option of ignoring my opinions & forming his/her
> own opinion. (It's happened--I've had at least one reader say that he
> thought better or differently of the extracts I quoted than I did. Good to
> see that the strategy worked.) But just listing a book might propel the
> reader to make efforts--often considerable efforts, given the distribution
> problems involved in the small-press world--to obtain something that turns
> out not to be worthwhile at all. I suppose the ideal solution (if I had the
> space, which I don't!) would be to actually quote brief extracts from books
> to give the reader a chance to see what they're like.
>
> all best --N
>
> Nate & Jane Dorward
> [log in to unmask]
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