Almost out the door. But I did read a few good things today. Here’s one of them, a peek inside the little-known craft of writing reader’s reports. Think book reviews, but for a really small audience (and with a sometimes larger impact). From the Guardian (”Literature’s invisible arbiters,” by Esther Allen):
Worse, the power of a reader’s report is almost entirely negative. Barbara Epler of New Directions famously decided to publish the great WG Sebald on the strength of a negative reader’s report, but in general a bad report guarantees that a book won’t be published. A good report, however, is likely to be ignored. Worst of all, even when a good report does lead to publication - and the publisher finds a translator who’s up to the task - the translated book will probably be left to its own devices in the marketplace, with little or no publicity, and will therefore ultimately be deemed a failure. All of which leaves those of us who write reader’s reports in a rather ambiguous position.
