The shrinking book review: John Freeman fights back
Freelance book reviewer John Freeman stepped down as president of the National Book Critics Circle over the weekend, ending perhaps the most challenging two-year term since the association got started in 1974.
"I felt no one was sticking up for book review sections in newspapers and magazines," Freeman says. "I thought I should do something. Also, I felt the National Book Critics Circle prize didn't have enough visibility."
Freeman led a national campaign to counter the decline in newspaper book review sections after The Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe, two papers with distinguished literary histories, cut back on space devoted to books. Other papers eliminated their books coverage altogether, as ad revenues and readers migrated to the Internet.
"I found out how hard it is to make book reviews seem important," he says. "It had to be done in a way both cogent, but not suggesting the sky is falling."
Freeman ramped up the Critics Circle website, Critical Mass, into a web magazine, soliciting essays on the significance of book reviews. He initiated regional events sponsored by the Critics Circle and local book stores, like the Recommendations panel that brought 90 people to Books & Books in Coral Gables last month.