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The politics of political book reviews

When the left is writing for the left and the right is writing for the right, the role of the critic becomes futile.

By MARGO HAMMOND
Published July 2, 2006

Ever hear the mantra, "Too many books, not enough space?" Book editors now have a new complaint: "Too many political screeds, enough already."

"I have become very selective when it comes to political books," admitted Frank Wilson, book editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a recent post on Critical Mass, the new blog created by the National Book Critic Circle, the country's premier organization for newspaper and magazine book critics. "I look for the one that has something different to say - they're certainly rare enough - and is likely to be overlooked. The same holds true for febrile environmentalist tracts: I have little sympathy for the apocalyptic. The new ice age never showed up, the population bomb never went off, and I guess I missed the famine in the '80s."

"The ideological landscape has certainly changed since 2000; it's gotten a lot more fractious," Mary Ann Gwinn, book editor the Seattle Times, wrote on the blog. "Many books that are now published are more statements or screeds than books based on years of research, experience and analysis."

I, too, am tired of all the partisan and sensational books coming across my desk. My own philosophy in picking political books for review has been to choose those that engender discussion, not disgust. What we need, I figure, is more light not more heat. Why ask a reviewer to provide an intellectual evaluation of Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer's Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism? It would be an exercise in futility.

These name-calling books from the left and the right aren't meant to solicit thoughtful discourse; they are missiles, launched into the political fray to enrage the opposition.

The routine is well-known by now. The screedniks call their opponents "stupid," "a big fat idiot," "treasonous," "evil" or "godless." The sensational tirade makes the news and their books make it to the top of the bestseller lists. Their inflammatory style fires up their loyal followers and the ensuing publicity brings out the curious, wondering what all the hoopla is about. You always can count on the next Ann Coulter book and the next Michael Moore book to generate controversy, attention and sales.

Popularity, especially popularity achieved through this shock-jock system, is not the best criterion for choosing a political book to review. Such books, preaching to the converted, are not conducive to scrutiny. How can you engage in any meaningful discussion with someone who says that white men are stupid or liberals are godless? (Coulter argues that her book is not about liberals but about liberalism, but that is just a distinction without a difference.)

If the press pays attention to these verbal sleights of hand, we play into their attention-getting game. The problem is, of course, if we ignore them, we are accused of partisanship.

Earlier this month, Coulter in announcing the publication of Godless on her Web site, complained, "If the New York Times reviews it at all, they'll only talk about the Ann Coulter action-figure doll, so I think I'll write my own review." Coulter goes on to say, "The main problem with Godless is that I had to walk through the valley of darkness to find it. You will have to push past surly bookstore clerks, proceed past the weird people in the 'self-help' section, and finally past the stacks and stacks of Hillary Clinton's memoirs. If all else fails, ask for the 'hate speech' section of your local bookstore. Ironically, if you find Godless without asking for assistance, it's considered a minor miracle."

Well, miracles apparently are not as rare as they used to be: At St. Petersburg's Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores, I found Coulter's book in under 15 seconds.

Coulter's prediction in her "review" that her book would be ignored by the press is also disingenuous: She knew it would get carpet-bombing news coverage, both on television and in print (including the New York Times), thanks to the incendiary remarks she made in it about the four 9/11 widows who had become political activists ("I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much").

Books as political weapons, of course, are nothing new, but as the jeremiads of 'round-the-clock cable television and the Internet grow shriller, these books-as-attack-dogs have got to be more vicious to be heard above the din.

Will the rant cycle ever end? Valdis Krebs, a social network analyst from Cleveland, thinks it may already be winding down.

In 2003, and again in 2004, Krebs, the founder of orgnet.com, an online consulting company with such clients as IBM and Raytheon, created some curious social maps based on the online purchases of the 100 best-selling political books. Tracking what other books were also purchased by the buyers of these popular titles, he traced out a social network graph that showed two distinct divisions: on one side was a cluster of right-leaning books with criss-crossing connections to each other. On the other side was an equally tight community of readers, but this time of left-leaning books. In other words, readers on the left and right were not reading each other's books.

Between those "echo chambers," where most of the book purchases fell, were the books bought - and presumably read - by both sides. There were only a handful of these "bridge" books. "Polarization and the political food fight continues," Krebs concluded.

"If Krebs is right, we might as well skip the reading, and commence throwing books at each other," San Diego Tribune columnist Richard Louv wryly commented after Krebs posted his 2004 findings on orgnet.com.

Now Krebs is in the process of updating his study of book-buying patterns. Although his results won't be published for another few weeks, Krebs says that a preliminary look at the data is pointing to a shift in the pattern of how people are reading political books.

Those echo chambers may be breaking down.

The two groups don't seem to be so evenly divided this time around, Krebs told me. The group of right-leaning readers still appear to be tightly clustered, but the cluster is smaller, he said. Meanwhile the group of left-leaning readers seems to be loosening up. A middle group, leaning slightly to the left but not so tightly bound, seems to be emerging in the area occupied by the "bridge" books, said Krebs who will post his final results on the orgnet.com site in a few weeks.

"Maybe people are sick and tired of authors like Coulter and Moore and are picking up titles like Suskind," he offered, referring to Ron Suskind's One Percent Solution, a book critical of the Bush administration but written by a Wall Street Journal reporter.

Maybe book editors are not the only ones experiencing political screed fatigue.

[Last modified July 2, 2006, 06:39:48]