Good News for Newspaper-Based Book Reviewing

Scott McLemee reports for Inside Higher Ed on an uptick in reviews for university press non-fiction, at least at the Austin American-Statesman, where Roger Gathman launched a new column Sunday. In his article, McLemee praises Gathman for “[taking] on two specialized (if controversial and widely discussed) works of scholarship… [H]e engaged with their arguments in as much depth as one humanly can, given the length restrictions of any newspaper other than the New York Review of Books.”

Before folks declare the “crisis in book reviewing” over—those folks who believe it exists, anyway—it’s important to remember that this is just one monthly column by a single reviewer. But it is heartwarming to see more space given anywhere to smartly written reviews of serious books, and for that we are thankful.

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