In the Irish Times Martin Doyle considers Reviewing Irish books: the good, the bad and the ugly truth -- and asks a a variety of local reviewers and critic for their opinions on the matter.
Since practically everyone know everyone the small market/literary field exacerbates the usual problems -- and it's interesting to hear what the reviewers think about this.
Meanwhile, in the US (well, on the Internet -- indeed billed as '' Online Only') at n + 1 Nell Zink (a hot new thing on the literary scene -- and often sold/advertised as Discovered by Franzen) (p)reviewd Jonathan Franzen'snew upcoming novel, Purity, offering Early thoughts on Purity by Jonathan Franzen.
Except that after a couple of hours they pulled that content, 'explaining', as you can now read there:
Jezebel suggests: "In all likelihood, Zink's post was taken down because of an embargo" -- but given the PW and Kirkus coverage, it was broken long ago , if it ever existed .....
I know publishers like to (think they can) manage, if not control how coverage of their books plays out, but I wish they wouldn't try so hard. (Apparently the Kakutani's early review last week of some widely anticipated (in some circles) title that was 'embargoed' rankled, too; see, for example, coverage here.)
(Given that the focus at the complete review is on fiction in translation, books I cover tend to have been reviewed elsewhere (like in their original language ...) earlier anyway. And the really big titles -- like Houellebecq's Submission -- have often been widely reviewed even in English long before their US/UK publication dates ..... (No Publishers Weekly review for that one yet, however.))
Since practically everyone know everyone the small market/literary field exacerbates the usual problems -- and it's interesting to hear what the reviewers think about this.
Meanwhile, in the US (well, on the Internet -- indeed billed as '' Online Only') at n + 1 Nell Zink (a hot new thing on the literary scene -- and often sold/advertised as Discovered by Franzen) (p)reviewd Jonathan Franzen's
Update: this page is temporarily unavailable. Bowing to publishing convention, we are going to hold this pre-review until closer to the book's release date.I have no idea what this 'publishing convention' is, or why they're bowing to it: reviews of Purity have been up at Publishers Weekly (posted 18 May) and Kirkus Reviews (posted 6 May) for months; the title is fair game, and I'm disappointed I haven't seen more coverage elsewhere yet.
Jezebel suggests: "In all likelihood, Zink's post was taken down because of an embargo" -- but given the PW and Kirkus coverage, it was broken long ago , if it ever existed .....
I know publishers like to (think they can) manage, if not control how coverage of their books plays out, but I wish they wouldn't try so hard. (Apparently the Kakutani's early review last week of some widely anticipated (in some circles) title that was 'embargoed' rankled, too; see, for example, coverage here.)
(Given that the focus at the complete review is on fiction in translation, books I cover tend to have been reviewed elsewhere (like in their original language ...) earlier anyway. And the really big titles -- like Houellebecq's Submission -- have often been widely reviewed even in English long before their US/UK publication dates ..... (No Publishers Weekly review for that one yet, however.))
