A Quote by Kathryn Harrison

How much of a book review is about the reviewer? Sometimes it's mostly about the reviewer!

Kathryn Harrison

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Kathryn Harrison
American - Author
Born: March 20, 1961

Writers are funny about reviews: when they get a good one they ignore it-- but when they get a bad review they never forget it. Every writer I know is the same way: you get a hundred good reviews, and one bad, andyou remember only the bad. For years, you go on and fantasize about the reviewer who didn't like your book; you imagine him as a jerk, a wife-beater, a real ogre. And, in the meantime, the reviewer has forgotten all about the whole thing. But, twenty years later, the writer still remembers that one bad review.

Art Buchwald

There's an enormous difference between being a critic and a reviewer. The reviewer reacts to the experience of that book.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

So, you see, it's a real chore for me to write a book review because it's like a contest. It's like I'm writing that book review for every bad book reviewer I've ever known and it's a way of saying [thrusts a middle finger into the air] this is how you ought to do it. I like to rub their noses in it.

John Irving

The nightmare reviewer is the reviewer who has some sort of agenda that precludes him or her responding sincerely to the book. Often, that agenda is seeming clever and/or taking someone who has received more than her fair share of attention down a notch.

Curtis Sittenfeld

It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book.

Edward Abbey

If a reviewer is beating me up, I just say, 'Oh well, my writing is not to his or her taste.' And that's as far as it goes. Because I will simultaneously read a review where somebody says, 'Oh my God, I had so much fun reading this book and I learned so much.'

Dan Brown

I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.

Vladimir Nabokov

Most books reviews aren't very well-written. They tend to be more about the reviewer than the book.

Tibor Fischer

When an older writer tries to tell a younger writer through a review what kind of career she should be pursuing, it tends to speak to the reviewer's anxieties rather than the book itself.

Jennifer Weiner

I will say overwhelmingly what means so much more to me than the opinion of one reviewer are the letters I get from fans who tell me how a particular book has changed their life.

Jodi Picoult

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

Michael Dirda

I sometimes get tired because I can seldom read a book for pleasure. I'm like the play reviewer who happens to go to a play on an off day and can't help but view it critically.

Robert Cormier

A book reviewer is usually a barker before the door of a publisher's circus.

Austin O'Malley

I wouldn't call myself a 'literary critic,' just a book reviewer.

Neel Mukherjee

My mum and dad have made Twitter accounts, and they will send me links if there is a bad review and tell me they'll find out where the reviewer lives.

Lewis Capaldi

I was a latecomer to romance, although I did read gothics. My father used to work for the 'Fort Worth Star-Telegram,' and their book reviewer, author Leonard Sanders, would pass on the gothics for my dad to give to me since Leonard didn't review gothics. I gobbled up books by Mary Stewart, Madeleine Brent, Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney.

Lori Wilde

A Quote by Kathryn Harrison

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