How Reviewing Works | Inside the Critics' Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times | Princeton Scholarship Online (2024)

How Reviewing Works | Inside the Critics' Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times | Princeton Scholarship Online (1) Inside the Critics' Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times

Phillipa K. Chong

Published:

2020

Online ISBN:

9780691186030

Print ISBN:

9780691167466

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Phillipa K. Chong

Phillipa K. Chong

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19–35

  • Published:

    January 2020

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Chong, Phillipa K., 'How Reviewing Works', Inside the Critics' Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton, NJ, 2020; online edn, Princeton Scholarship Online, 17 Sept. 2020), https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691167466.003.0002, accessed 14 July 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter presents the nuts and bolts of how reviewing works. This includes which books gets reviewed and which critic gets selected to write the review. Disabusing the reader of the idea that the “best” books get reviewed, the chapter emphasizes the practical constraints faced by editors when deciding which books deserve to be reviewed. It also addresses epistemic uncertainty surrounding who is qualified to review books in the absence of formal certification. But rather than answering this question philosophically, it is addressed through how reviewers come to be invited to write reviews and are paired with specific books for review.

Keywords: book reviewing, critic selection, editors, epistemic uncertainty, formal certification, book reviews, review assignments

Subject

Literary Theory and Cultural Studies

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