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New York Times Book Review

Rexedgar

Rexedgar

Yo-Semite!
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There was an author interviewed on one of the morning shows that was of interest because of my family history. I will probably get the book. I sent a heads up to my sister who is even more into our family’s history. I went looking for the book, “Fatherland,” online and found a NYT review. The author has written for the NYT in the past. The review follows and I am interested in first impressions of the review.

Bilger sifts through his German grandfather’s confounding identities—teacher, soldier, party chief, traitor . . . Fatherland maintains the momentum of the best mysteries and a commendable balance, considering all the forms of intergenerational trauma present here . . . His subject matter is sensitive, but his sensuality remains intact; you can almost taste the schnitzel.”—The New York Times
 
Sounds like holocaust boilerplate.
 
My post has to do with the NYT review.
The review follows and I am interested in first impressions of the review.
 
It's a great review from a highly influential newspaper. I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter, but if I were, the review would steer me to that book.
 
No one finds this sentence off?


His subject matter is sensitive, but his sensuality remains intact;

Sensitive/sensuality?

Wouldn’t “sensitivity” have been a better word? ”Sensual” has a physical aspect, where’s @nota bene when you need her?
 
Rexedgar said:
No one finds this sentence off?


His subject matter is sensitive, but his sensuality remains intact;

Sensitive/sensuality?

Wouldn’t “sensitivity” have been a better word? ”Sensual” has a physical aspect, where’s @nota bene when you need her?
Click to expand...
I immediately found the two words in conflict, but was expecting following sentences to clear up what the author of the sentence meant by using them. I have not, yet, read the review. I was reading the thread first. If the review is available by link, I will read it now. :)
 
Burkhard Bilger: Fatherland:

Karl Gönner was a schoolteacher and Nazi party member from the Black Forest. In 1940, he was sent to a village in occupied France and tasked with turning its children into proper Germans. A fervent Nazi when the war began, he grew close to the villagers over the next four years, till he came to think of himself as their protector, shielding them from his own party’s brutality. Yet he was arrested in 1946 and accused of war crimes. Was he guilty or innocent? A vicious collaborator or just an ordinary man, struggling to atone for his country’s crimes? Bilger goes to Germany to find out.
Click to expand...


Fatherland: A Memoir of World War Two, Conscience and Family Secrets Written by a New Yorker Staff Writer : Bilger, Burkhard: Amazon.de: Bücher

Fatherland: A Memoir of World War Two, Conscience and Family Secrets Written by a New Yorker Staff Writer : Bilger, Burkhard: Amazon.de: Bücher
www.amazon.de
 
Robert Harris: Fatherland:

Fatherland is a 1992 alternative history detective novel by English writer and journalist Robert Harris. Set in a universe in which Nazi Germany won World War II, the story's protagonist is an officer of the Kripo, the criminal police, who is investigating the murder of a Nazi government official who participated at the Wannsee Conference. A plot is thus discovered to eliminate all of those who attended the conference, to help improve German relations with the United States.

The novel subverts some of the conventions of the detective novel. It begins with a murder and diligent police detective investigating and eventually solving it. However, since the murderer is highly placed in the Nazi regime, solving the mystery does not result in the detective pursuing and arresting the murderer. The contrary occurs: the murderer pursuing and arresting the detective.

The novel was an immediate best-seller in the UK and has sold over three million copies and been translated into 25 languages.
Click to expand...

en.wikipedia.org

Fatherland (novel) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
One thing to note is that these book reviews are usually paid for by the publisher, and there is a certain bit of bias when it comes to giving the book a good rating.
 
Please mention only ten books which write true and comprehensive stories/information on MOSSAD activities
 
Rexedgar said:
No one finds this sentence off?


His subject matter is sensitive, but his sensuality remains intact;

Sensitive/sensuality?

Wouldn’t “sensitivity” have been a better word? ”Sensual” has a physical aspect, where’s @nota bene when you need her?
Click to expand...
No, I don't find off. I will admit it would be easier to grasp in the context of the full review.
 
PoS said:
One thing to note is that these book reviews are usually paid for by the publisher, and there is a certain bit of bias when it comes to giving the book a good rating.
Click to expand...
That's not true.
 
Loulit01 said:
That's not true.
Click to expand...
As usual, you dont know anything.

www.wsj.com

Authors Buy Their Way Onto Best-Seller Lists

Some business-book authors hire a marketing firm that purchases books ahead of the publication date, creating a spike in sales that helps titles be able to claim best-seller status.
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com

buildbookbuzz.com

Trade book reviews: Behind the scenes with a professional reviewer - Build Book Buzz

Authors need the social proof that comes with trade book reviews to get library and bookstore distribution. A professional reviewer explains the process.
buildbookbuzz.com
 
PoS said:
As usual, you dont know anything.
Click to expand...
Of course I know nothing. It's not like I have personal experience in the field. It's not like the first thing I did every morning for years was go to work early so I could open the boxes of new books, lug them over to the book editor's desk, and wait for him to come in so we could go over them. OMG, what a great way to start the day!

Some of the books were review copies, and marked as such, no one in the general public had seen or read these books. Me first! I got to take home a review copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf!
The book editor and I would go over the day's arrivals. He was about 70-years-old and had been reviewing books for decades. He'd tell me about the books, and the authors he'd met, and which books he'd assign to reviewers and why. And I'd tell him about what I was reading and ask his advice.

I didn't get a say in the decisions, but I paid close attention to every word the man spoke. I was dreaming one day I'd get to read and review books for a living.

No reviewer took a penny from a publisher. They were paid by the newspaper or magazine that assigned the books.

Are there cases where publishers pay reviewers? Of course. Especially now on Amazon and on YouTube where any idiot can write a review with no training, no insight, even without having read the book. There have been threads on this forum about political parties buying thousands, or tens of thousands, of books to boost the sales of their preferred politicians.

Of course this shit happens. But you cannot sum up all book reviews in a single sentence:
PoS said:
One thing to note is that these book reviews are usually paid for by the publisher, and there is a certain bit of bias when it comes to giving the book a good rating.
Click to expand...
This is not the usual case.

Rose Fox is the director of BookLife Reviews, a paid review service just launched by Publishers Weekly, and was previously a senior reviews editor for PW and a freelance book reviewer. When they reached out to me about writing a guest post, I knew all my readers—self-published, traditionally published, and hybrid—could benefit from Rose’s 20 years of experience on all sides of book reviewing.

This is a paid review service just launched by Publishers Weekly.

Of course publishers pay them. But this isn't how the NYT Review of Books works. It's not how the L.A.Times, or Cleveland Plain Dealer, or Chicago Tribune, or Baltimore Sun, or The Oregonian works. It's not how magazines like The New Yorker or The Atlantic review books. And isn't how the paper I worked for reviewed books.

But, as usual, I know nothing.
 
Last edited:
Loulit01 said:
Of course I know nothing. It's not like I have personal experience in the field. It's not like the first thing I did every morning for years was go to work early so I could open the boxes of new books, lug them over to the book editor's desk, and wait for him to come in so we could go over them. OMG, what a great way to start the day!

Some of the books were review copies, and marked as such, no one in the general public had seen or read these books. Me first! I got to take home a review copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf!
The book editor and I would go over the day's arrivals. He was about 70-years-old and had been reviewing books for decades. He'd tell me about the books, and the authors he'd met, and which books he'd assign to reviewers and why. And I'd tell him about what I was reading and ask his advice.

I didn't get a say in the decisions, but I paid close attention to every word the man spoke. I was dreaming one day I'd get to read and review books for a living.

No reviewer took a penny from a publisher. They were paid by the newspaper or magazine that assigned the books.

Are there cases where publishers pay reviewers? Of course. Especially now on Amazon and on YouTube where any idiot can write a review with no training, no insight, even without having read the book. There have been threads on this forum about political parties buying thousands, or tens of thousands, of books to boost the sales of their preferred politicians.

Of course this shit happens. But you cannot sum up all book reviews in a single sentence:

This is not the usual case.

Rose Fox is the director of BookLife Reviews, a paid review service just launched by Publishers Weekly, and was previously a senior reviews editor for PW and a freelance book reviewer. When they reached out to me about writing a guest post, I knew all my readers—self-published, traditionally published, and hybrid—could benefit from Rose’s 20 years of experience on all sides of book reviewing.

This is a paid review service just launched by Publishers Weekly.

Of course publishers pay them. But this isn't how the NYT Review of Books works. It's not how the L.A.Times, or Cleveland Plain Dealer, or Chicago Tribune, or Baltimore Sun, or The Oregonian works. It's not how magazines like The New Yorker or The Atlantic review books. And isn't how the paper I worked for reviewed books.

But, as usual, I know nothing.
Click to expand...
LOL so because your silly little anecdote tells you otherwise, you ignore all the factual stories Ive posted?
 
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