Literary Criticism or Book Consumerism? Why Choose?

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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

Are You a Reader or a Book Consumer?

This piece from Kathleen Schmidt about literary criticism vs book consumerism really hits on some things I’m thinking about lately. Schmidt, a longtime publicist, focuses her critique on what she sees as publishers’ tendency to overvalue book reviews and publish too many books that won’t actually sell. It’s a thoughtful and interesting take, and I’d like to expand on it.

Schmidt draws her distinction based on the information people use to determine what to read: there are people who care about literary criticism, and then there are book consumers, who choose their books based on on social media, word-of-mouth, and, well, everything that isn’t a traditional book review. That distinction makes sense for someone advising authors and publishers on where to concentrate publicity. But for reading culture more broadly, I think a more useful question is what readers are actually looking for when they choose a book.

If BookTok trends are any indication, readers who gravitate to literary criticism and those who turn to social may be seeking fundamentally different experiences. Literary criticism prioritizes the work (“Is this good art?”), whereas social media and recommendation-based algorithms prioritize the consumer’s experience (“Will I enjoy this?”). Both are valid questions, and I would hazard that most readers employ both in their reading lives. Good art can also be pleasurable. A fun book can also have literary merit. That’s the dream! Book reviews were never a mass draw; it’s just harder to ignore that fact now that we have addictive, dopamine-fueled apps as a comparison.

As a reader who cares about books as art and wants to see literary gems continue to sit on shelves alongside the pop culture phenomena that underwrite their existence, I don’t share Schmidt’s suggestion that publishers should focus less on writers “who see literary criticism as the ultimate authority.” Consumer validation and critical validation aren’t mutually exclusive. A healthy book culture needs both.

From where I sit, it’s not the books that need to change, but the mindset. Criticism and consumerism can be complementary ways of engaging with literature. If readers and publishers can sustain space for both, our literary landscape will be all the richer for it.

Romance is the Next Big Book Banning Target

Kelly Jensen reports that romance is the far right’s next censorship target.

Over the last year, it’s become clearer and clearer that there is another target for the far-right in its relentless attacks on the intellectual freedom of people who aren’t subscribed to their rigid and bigoted morality: romance books. The same tactics deployed to create numerous laws and policies governing the books available “for children” in public schools and public libraries are being deployed here.

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