Literary Smackdown
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Robert J. Wiersema vs. Timothy Taylor: Review or eschew?
We've teamed up with The Next Chapter to present The Canada Writes Literary Smackdowns, an essay series in which authors sound off on various writing topics. No writers were injured in the making of this series.
Battle Three: Should authors write book reviews? Robert J. Wiersema is a veritable reviewing machine, while Timothy Taylor gets queasy just thinking about judging the work of his peers. Are you on Team Robert or Team Timothy?
You can also hear Robert and Timothy go head to head on The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers.
Why do I review? I do it because I believe.
I know - that sounds utterly twee, doesn't it? I can't help it: I believe in books.
That might make me the last romantic, and you would think that after more than two decades as a bookseller and a decade as a reviewer I would have been broken on the wheel long ago, but every book I open is a promise. It is untapped potential for wonder.
But what does that have to do with reviewing?
Everything. As it has everything to do with bookselling. As it has everything to do with being a reader, plain and simple.
What we love, we want to celebrate: it really is as simple as that. When I read something like The Birth House or Mercy Among the Children or The Night Circus, I want to tell the world about it. At the bookstore, my hands shake as I press copies of these books - and dozens of others - onto people looking for what to read next. I talk about them on tv and on the radio. And I write about them. That's what reviews are: one reader talking to another about books.
Yes, there is a craft to reviewing. Yes, there is a lot of work to it, and background, and training, but at base, it's one reader talking to another.
It is, of course, never that simple.
Let's face it: no reader is going to love every book they read. Nor should they.
As a reader, that's fine. If you don't like a book, you probably don't talk about it.
As a reviewer, I don't have that as an option.
It comes down to integrity. Having a position that allows me to celebrate what I love, I have a responsibility to that position to be honest, and to criticize that which I don't love.
As a writer myself, I know what goes into the writing of a book, the hours - years - of solitude and struggle. And I recognize that it doesn't always succeed (and that's as true of my work as it is of anything I'm reviewing). I bring that empathy, that understanding, to the conversation.
Given that understanding, it's not pleasant to give a critical review, but sometimes it's necessary in order for the conversation to go on.
I have spent my entire adult life participating in that ongoing conversation that incorporates every reader. I've talked books in bars, recommended them in bookstores, blurbed them on their jackets, and discussed them in the media. As a reader, I think that's my responsibility. I think that's every reader's responsibility: to talk books, to keep the conversation alive.
Robert J. Wiersema is an independent bookseller, a reviewer who contributes regularly to several national newspapers and numerous other publications, and the bestselling author of two novels, Before I Wake and Bedtime Story. His latest book is Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
