On Reading Book Reviews

I have written before about the many periodicals I read, and especially the book reviews I devour. I want to focus again here on how I relish magazines whose purpose is to write about books, and other magazines that include book reviews. In the former category, I subscribe to and read The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, the San Francisco Chronicle Books Section, The Women’s Review of Books, and the London Review of Books. I also read the book reviews in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, Vanity Fair, and occasionally other magazines. I thoroughly enjoy reading these. First and foremost, I learn about the newest books and get ideas about what to read next. Second, I learn about books that I don’t necessarily want to read myself, but I want to know something about. Third, I learn interesting things from the non-book-review sections of book review publications, such as the columns by authors, the debates, the bestseller lists, and other accompanying material; examples include The New York Times Book Review’s “Open Book,” “TBR: Inside the List,” “By the Book,” and “Bookends” columns. Fourth, and this is something more amorphous but important to me: Reading these publications and reviews makes me feel connected to the world of literature.