If nobody....

[Paul Whybrow]

“If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Hampl
Patricia Hampl

 

[Hannah F]

I disagree. Reading, in itself, can be an immersive, participant sport.

 

[Peyton Stafford]

Agreed. From a publishing perspective, reviews drive reading or deter it. Whether nincompoops on Goodreads one-starring Jane Austen and five-starring some trash, the reviews count, even more for reviews in respected publications. An undergrad college student phoned me today for advice about becoming a book publisher. He wants to write and publish middle grade fiction. I steered him toward a publishing program at his university, but what stuck in my mind was that he had no idea how important book reviews remain. He had not heard of Publishers Weekly or Library Journal. Published and read reviews drive our industry.