Comments on: Backscratching in Our Time — Gina Kolata and Jerome Groopman http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/backscratching-in-our-time-gina-kolata-and-jerome-groopman/ Janice Harayda Reviews Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry for Adults and Children Thu, 16 May 2013 19:28:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/backscratching-in-our-time-gina-kolata-and-jerome-groopman/#comment-5330 Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:23:09 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/backscratching-in-our-time-gina-kolata-and-jerome-groopman/#comment-5330 Marcolm: You may have found the one book on literary politics that I hadn’t heard of until you mentioned it. A thousand thanks for a great lead for anyone interested in the hothouse world of publishing.

One comment on experts who blurb the books of unknowns: Those unknowns are often the experts’ former students (either in degree-granting programs or worshops). It’s interesting to map the educational connections of some of them …
Jan

]]> By: knightofswords http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/backscratching-in-our-time-gina-kolata-and-jerome-groopman/#comment-5327 Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:42:14 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/backscratching-in-our-time-gina-kolata-and-jerome-groopman/#comment-5327 If I mentioned this before in a comment here, I apologize, but as I think back to over 30 years ago, Richard Kostelanetz wrote a terse book (in “The End of Intelligent Writing: Literary Politics in America”) about this entire subject. One point: book reviews. In his opinion, gratuitous book reviewing in the “New York Review of Books” called for the publication to be renamed “The New York Review of Each Other’s Books.” When it comes to blurbs, I appreciate them when a known author or expert comments on the book of a new or relatively unknown writer. When I see name authors commenting on the books of other name authors, alarm bells go off. You’ve got a good example here.

Malcolm

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