Comments on: On The Skirmish Line http://davidthayer.booksquare.com/archives/2006/11/15/552/ One more bite of the apple. Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:32:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: david i http://davidthayer.booksquare.com/archives/2006/11/15/552/#comment-17293 david i Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:54:52 +0000 http://davidthayer.booksquare.com/archives/2006/11/15/552/#comment-17293 Excuse me if I don't understand this argument about free books somehow having a corrupting influence on bloggers' reviews. For starters, I don't understand how this corrupting influence acts selectively on bloggers but somehow spares folks who work for the NYT Review of Books. But even more baffling is the idea that someone will get a book, dislike it, but give it a favorable review because it was...FREE! It is hard to see how getting free copies of books one dislikes reading is much of a carrot. Is the deal that if you give rave reviews to bad books, they will stop sending them? (First Prize: A week in Moscow! Second Prize: TWO weeks in Moscow!) My Full Disclosure: I am not a reviewer. I'm not even a blogger. A publisher has never given me a free book, although once long ago I did get six books for $1 when I joined the Book-of-the-Month Club. (It's a sucker's deal. You never remember to fill out the little card making your next selection in time, and so they automatically send you their Featured Selection, and you accumulate piles of books you don't want to read. Sort of like being a reviewer, but more expensive.) Excuse me if I don’t understand this argument about free books somehow having a corrupting influence on bloggers’ reviews. For starters, I don’t understand how this corrupting influence acts selectively on bloggers but somehow spares folks who work for the NYT Review of Books.

But even more baffling is the idea that someone will get a book, dislike it, but give it a favorable review because it was…FREE!

It is hard to see how getting free copies of books one dislikes reading is much of a carrot. Is the deal that if you give rave reviews to bad books, they will stop sending them? (First Prize: A week in Moscow! Second Prize: TWO weeks in Moscow!)

My Full Disclosure: I am not a reviewer. I’m not even a blogger. A publisher has never given me a free book, although once long ago I did get six books for $1 when I joined the Book-of-the-Month Club. (It’s a sucker’s deal. You never remember to fill out the little card making your next selection in time, and so they automatically send you their Featured Selection, and you accumulate piles of books you don’t want to read. Sort of like being a reviewer, but more expensive.)

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