Many newspapers still run reviews of some kind, but independent book review sections are, at least in American newspapers, nearly gone. They have either been eliminated or been folded into the paper’s general entertainment/lifestyle sections. A few of the nation’s more important magazines—Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, New Yorker, New Republic, New York Review of Books, American Scholar, Mother Jones, The Nation, The Sun, The Believer—run thoughtful, insightful book reviews. And respected online sites such as Slate do the same. Literary blogs have them as do booksellers’ web sites. But do all these reviews serve the reader or more importantly, do they serve the culture as the dying art of literary criticism used to do?

To be sure, literary criticism and book reviewing are different animals. Both deal with books, but there are degrees of reviewing—a New York Times Book Review piece will likely be a thorough exploration of a book and writer whereas what is found on Amazon is to a genuine book review what Velveeta is to a fine English cheddar. Yet even an excellent book review may be a poor stepchild of literary criticism.

This week, Henry Carrigan, BiblioBuffet’s most traditional book critic and reviewer, mourns what he sees as the death of literary criticism. “Many writers that our culture calls critics are simply ‘admirers’ and ‘stylists’,” he argues, “more taken with the elegant turn of a phrase or the lilting voice than with engagement of literature with culture. With the death of Susan Sontag in 2004 and the death of Elizabeth Hardwick in December, our culture lost two genuine literary critics, leaving behind only one or two writers whose critical writing transcends the banality of most book reviewers and engages the cultural, moral, political, and social worlds of literature.”

His ideas may be provoking, but Carrigan’s focus on the nature of culture and literature is worth contemplation and debate. You can find his entire piece, along with recommendations for significant books of literary criticism in this week’s Readings.

The Magic Carpet Ride is found in books, says Anne Michael in Seasoned Lightly, where she recalls her first time she realized “I can read, I can read!” It’s a touching essay that will bring back the joy of every reader’s early discovery of the joy of language. 

He is a fan of certain mysteries, and more than 20 years ago Paul Clark found two of his favorites actually met and became close friends in the late 1970s and, he imagines, “drank the heart right out of many a fine spring afternoon.” Who are they? Read this week’s A Walk Through My Bookshelves.

Traveling overseas without leaving home? Oh yes, it’s indeed possible to do that through bookmarks. This week, in On Marking Books, Laine Farley talks about bookmarks from Vietnam and Cambodia that emphasize the culture and history of these ancient lands.

A book is so much more than “a mere binding, a clump of paper bound together with a splatter of black ink,” says Amanda Joseph in this week’s Rants & Raves From Down Under. “It is “a symphony of words.” In her review of a new book on the history of books, she calls The World of the Book “a beautifully illustrated collection of the world’s greatest stories.” 

Must be something in the air with this issue’s focus by several columnists on reading—how they came to it, why it holds the importance it does in their lives. Lisa Guidarini, in Reviews & Reflections, affectionately remembers spending hours in bookstores while her mother was shopping, spending her allowance on cheaply produced editions that allowed her to consume the books at a prodigious rate. What will her children’s book-buying memories be, she wonders.

In keeping with my opening comments on book reviews and literary criticism, I want to tell you about Arts & Letters Daily with, among other things, links to 47 important book review sites. A&D Daily comes from the Chronicle of Higher Education and offers, in their words, “philosophy, aesthetics, literature, language, ideas, criticism, culture, history, music, art, trends, breakthroughs, disputes, gossip.” It is one of the most fantastic sites for those interested in wide-ranging, intelligent reading from many sources gathered together in one place. Their motto, “Veritas odit moras,” which means “Truth hates delay,” is from Seneca’s version of Oedipus. It seems particularly apt given that new material is posted six days a week. It has my highest recommendation.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren