Reviewing Reviewers

Sarah Boxer in the New York Times:

Do you remember Charles and Ray Eames’s 1977 film “Powers of Ten,” in which the camera zooms back from the surface of the Earth to a far-off point in space? As the details of the planet recede and vanish, new features of the universe appear. Before you know it, you’ve been sucked into another order entirely.

Sometimes the Internet is like that. The traditional objects of culture – books, movies, art – are becoming ever more distant. In their place are reviews of reviews, museums of museums and many, many lists.

Ron Hogan, who writes a literary blog called Beatrice.com, recently began a second blog, Beatrix: A Book Review Review. He’s not the only one reviewing reviewers. The blogs Bookdwarf, Conversational Reading, The Elegant Variation, Golden Rule Jones, The Reading Experience and Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind – all gloss, grade or review other people’s book reviews. On Gawker.com, a writer known as Intern Alexis reviews The New York Times Book Review.

More here.  And our own Morgan Meis had already proposed the Review of the Review Review here first!