In your book, Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America, you refer to book reviewing as a "troubled" trade. What has gone wrong with reviewing?

Reviewing in America has always been a troubled trade. Since reviews first appeared in this country, people — even reviewers — have been complaining about them. You should read the insults heaped on reviewing in the 19th century! And many of the complaints, which have remained remarkably similar over time, are justified. Too many good books are ignored, too many reviews are hype. But there are many reasons reviewing hasn’t been better, including the fact that the field has never received financial or cultural support. The reviewing community hasn’t resolved those underlying problems.

How has book reviewing changed during the last 10 years with the rise of so many online review sites?

The main change has been the increasing number of self-published reviews with no editorial oversight. We’ve always had many amateur reviewers—unpaid reviewers writing for newspapers or literary magazines, specialists reviewing in their field. But in the past there were review editors, whose job was to choose worthwhile books, match them with knowledgeable reviewers with no conflict of interest, and edit the reviews for coherence and clarity. I see this role, if it’s well done, as important, partly for the integrity of the review, and partly for quality. In my experience as a writer and editor, writers need editors.

You also state that bad reviewing happens despite good intentions and that many intelligent people who love books can sometimes say unintelligent things about them? Would you elaborate?

What I meant is that reviewers set out to write good reviews, but constraints work against them: deadlines can force them to read and write quickly, a lack of space can force them to leave out important points, low fees limit the time they can devote to a book, the pressure to be “lively” too often leads to snappy rather than thoughtful writing. In the end, whatever reviewers’ intentions, reviews are often poorly written, poorly argued, filled with clichés and overpraise.

Do you think there's a lot of 'facile praise' among online review sites as opposed to print publications? If yes, why?

I think there’s a lot of facile praise both in print and online, and on the whole I believe the reasons are similar. One central reason is that we tend to think that being “fair” means being kind to the author rather than honest to the reader. The tendency to praise too highly is a tradition firmly embedded in American reviewing. I think it’s embedded in American culture.

There are some bloggers out there who have acquired fame as tough reviewers
because of their harsh, nasty, mean reviews. What, in your opinion, is behind their philosophy?

I think they’re trying to show how smart they are, especially how much smarter than the author whose book they’re writing about. These reviews seem to me more about self-promotion than criticism. But this isn’t limited to bloggers. Nasty reviewing has a long history in print, and there are some good satirical essays mocking this kind of oneupmanship.