The tedious thing about being a book reviewer is your obligation to be fair, thorough, and concise. You’re supposed to keep in mind that, quite possibly, all your readers will ever know about the book you’re reviewing is what you say in the review, so the poor author, who may have spent years writing the book, is to that extent at your mercy. You’re supposed to give a reasonably complete idea what’s in the book, not just what you found interesting about it, since you don’t know that what interests you will interest others. You’re supposed to put the author’s case in the most persuasive and plausible form, since she won’t get to reply in more than a few, inevitably inadequate paragraphs. You can’t just blather on, mentioning all the (often irrelevant) things the book made you think about and, in particular, dropping the names of other (often remotely) related books, just to demonstrate your cosmopolitan interests and vast erudition.
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george_scialabba
The previous symposium posts and comments are an embarrassment of riches. Doing them justice is out of the question, of course, but here goes.