Product Description

Discusses current literary trends in several features about books and authors: paperback talk, spring and fall review of new books, and children's and Christmas issues.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1040 in Magazine Subscriptions
• Format: Magazine Subscription

Amazon.com Review
Sold each week both separately and as part of the Sunday New York Times, the Book Review divides the published world into two parts for easy consumption: nonfiction, and fiction and poetry. There is no attempt to be comprehensive. Although scholarly books are regularly reviewed, the sort of thing chosen is likely to be no more arcane than a cultural history of Halloween or a new biography of Jesse James, along with, say, the memoirs of David Rockefeller. The reader of the Book Review can also expect to find the latest novel by Joyce Carol Oates or Pat Conroy as well as the efforts of one or two first novelists and the new book of poems by Billy Collins. What distinguishes the reviews from those of your hometown Sunday newspaper are principally three things: there are more of them (each issue runs some 20 pages), they are likely to be more searching and more critical (often the reviewers are at least as well-known as the authors reviewed), and each review has behind it the authority of the New York Times itself, whose cultural as well as political clout is simply unmatched in American life. For a book to sell, it doesn’t necessarily have to be considered in the Book Review. For a book to be taken seriously, it probably does--and readers who take themselves seriously invariably read the Book Review. --Terry Caesar

Customer Reviews

Fine but flawed, limited guide to contemporary publishing
The New York Times Book Review is designed for an archetypal NYTimes Reader: a person with a solid liberal-arts education with moderate-to-liberal political views who is eager to appear up-to-date with contemporary literature - serious fiction, popular biographies and non-fiction in the social sciences. Popular fiction, serious science and other subjects are usually omitted not by design but because of space constranits, I believe.

That said, most reviews seem to be thorough, fair and educational in themselves, although occasionally you will note that a reviewer may have a significant, important bias concerning the author s/he is reviewing. Some times this isn't revealed and leads to weeks of debate in the letters column.

In recent years more attention has been paid to so-called children's literature, which is helpful. The fiction best-seller lists are almost meaningless anymore, as they are crammed with thrillers and romances almost of the drug-store variety, but the non-fiction best-seller lists can be a way to find something new.

There are few specialty columns (or any columns at all, come to think of it), but the venerable Marilyn Stasio has done an excellent job of covering the huge mystery field and keeping readers up to date on their old favorites as well as promising newcomers.

The Times' book world tends to be occupied by authors who have already passed an invisible acid test of acceptability. You'll have to seek out truly new voices in less traditional publications. That said, the Times Book Review keeps you up-to-date on all of the important books and provides additional sustenance for the average, well-educated reader of somewhat broad tastes.

Respectable and important
I have been reading the NY Times Book Review for many many years. There rarely is a week when there is not some review of considerable interest to me. Though I oppose its political bias which is left liberal, I appreciate the solidity, and respectful way in which most reviews are written. There is a sense that for the Times books and culture in general have meaning and importance.
The 'Times ' tends to bet for its main articles on proven winners. A review in the Times can make a person's name, and many many are the writers whose books have arrived in the 'Times' offices never to be given a real look at.
The 'Times ' articles and reviews are not the longest and the deepest but they do often provide pleasant reads, and arouse real interest in the book in question.
The NY Times Book Review is still of first importance because the NY Times is .
I still try to skim through every week searching for the review or two that I really have to try to chew and digest.

A portal to current fiction and non-fiction
I've been a subscriber for nearly ten years, and I find in each issue many reviews that spark my interest. I think of the Book Review as a portal to contemporary, well-written fiction and non-fiction, and as a guide to how best to spend my reading time. Without a doubt, the best books I read every year I find in the NYBR.