I know that a new editor has taken over at the NYT Book Review recently. It was a big deal on all the bookblogs. I did read the whole thing last week and I appreciate some of the new subtle changes he has made. There were several more fiction reviews, a nice piece on new erotic fiction by Emily Nussbaum, a nice take down of David Brooks, and just some good book choices. Included was a review of Kent Haruf’s Eventide, his follow up to . It was a good review in my opinion, agreeing with some of the things I had thought but articulated in a better way. But today, they have another review of Eventide, this time by Michiko Kakutani, everyone’s favorite cranky reviewer. What gives? Why give so much space to a mediocre book, especially one that you know many other newspapers and other Plainsongpublications are going to review? I seriously want an answer, so if anyone has an opinion, go ahead and give it. I personally would rather see them review more books, rather than review the same books twice. I remember they did the same with Joseph Wilson’s book The Politics of Truthas well.
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My guess is that the editors from different areas don’t talk to each other, and because of departmental rivalry and backbiting refuse to drop reviews even when they duplicate content already discussed in another section of the paper.
If that’s the case, it’s embarrassing when it happens once, but points to a systemic failure of editorial oversight when it happens regularly.
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That could be the case, but it happens too often to be an oversight. The two instances I mention are not the only time it has happened. It seems to be a regular practice and that is what mystifies me. Why review a book twice in the same paper?
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