Sambit's Book Reviews

To start my review of blogs, I will do one that is devoted to book reviews (the first one was my own blog, but since I am perfect, I get an A+ anyway).

Here it is:

samreviews.blogspot.com/

Here is the problem with this blog - he reviews books that no one reads anymore. Either they are too old (like Hemingway's) or too irrelevant (like the 50 billion Hindu books he reviews). In fact, there is only one book he reviewed worth reviewing - that of Jim Collins.

Sure, Bertrand Russell - one of the authors he reviews - was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, but he is like, well, dead. No use beating up on his works anymore. Instead, his knowledge has been incorporated by the scientific establishments, hashed about, and either accepted or rejected thru scientific research and mathematic journals - pretty much long before I was born. It is useless to do a book review on stuff that is either completely accepted or disproven.

As I have written in my excellent blog Iconoclast, in order to make a book review worthwhile, it a. must be about a recent book, and b. it must be used to demonstrate some fact of life - the subject matter of the book is not necessarily all that important. This is the Vissarion Belinsky school of literary reviews - yes, he died over 150 years ago, and no one outside of Russia has ever heard of him, and he was a flaming socialist (then again, so was every revolutionary in 1845), but this philosophy is a good standard on which to base these things.

Otherwise, the book review is not worth reading. Sure you want to know about whether a book is good or not, but most literary critics really do not have a clue as to what is good or not anyway. That is because they want to show their sophistication by reviewing really pretentious pieces of work (books, songs, artwork, etc.) and acting like they like them. It's like with music. So-called experts, known as DJ's, think that a band like White Stripes or Mad Season is the greatest thing since sliced bread, because it somehow makes them sophisticated (as if - this is pop music!) but they continue to denigrate Stairway. Go figure!

Unless said book review is in the Sunday Times. Then you sound really important when you spout the review at a midtown Manhattan cocktail party. Because it's from the Times, which is the tree of knowledge, if you live in midtown Manhattan. And if they are not at an opera or a disco in Manhattan, they are at a cocktail party. At least that is what I think happens, since I have never been anywhere near Manhattan anyway, but sometimes it is useful to base opinions off of stereotypes.

In any case, by addressing content, he fails to really get his point across. And he is not a writer for the New York Times Sunday Supplement. Hence, this blog is not worth going to, unless you are looking to get some sleep.

Grade: C