Dominique Bouchet | University of Southern Denmark (original) (raw)
Papers by Dominique Bouchet
Consumption Markets & Culture, 2003
Book Review Editor Academics read book reviews the way gardeners read seed catalogues in February... more Book Review Editor Academics read book reviews the way gardeners read seed catalogues in February, the way children peruse toy catalogues in October. In the darkest depths of the semester, as the lecture notes, committee minutes, blue books, and dissertation proposals teeter in piles encircling our desks, we turn to book reviews to guide our plans for the next reading season, the next trip to our (local, independent) bookseller, the next late-night binge at an on-line bookmart. I doubt I'm alone in having remarked, ruefully, to a colleague or two, "oh, I don't read books, I read book reviews." It's not true, of course. We read books obsessively; it's what we do for a living. But we rely on the book reviews in our professional journals to carry us through the lean weeks, to inform us, even to excite us, about significant new books in our fields of study. We all know what we want a book review to do. We have all sighed in dismay over book reviews that spin off into self-indulgent essays that ignore the actual books and their authors. We have all ground our teeth over reviews that ploddingly recount the book's 'plot,' leaving us to wonder about the book'-s argument and its connection to the extant literature, not to mention its effectiveness. Whether it is part of a review essay on several books or focused on a single book, we want a book review to draw us into a disciplined conversation with the reviewer about what the book has to contribute to our knowledge, where it fits in the world of related scholarship, and on what terms the reviewer judged the effort successful or unsuccessful. We want reviews that speak accurately about the author's purpose, that speak informatively about the book's content, and that speak candidly about the reviewer's assessment. The JGAPE aspires to serving its readers with book reviews that meet these standards. We aim to provide reviews that are both stimulating and useful, the sort of reviews you can turn to for intellectual pleasure as well as for publishing news. To advance our dual purpose, we envision a book review section that comprises a mix of single book reviews and longer review essays. While we are
Consumption Markets & Culture, 2003
Book Review Editor Academics read book reviews the way gardeners read seed catalogues in February... more Book Review Editor Academics read book reviews the way gardeners read seed catalogues in February, the way children peruse toy catalogues in October. In the darkest depths of the semester, as the lecture notes, committee minutes, blue books, and dissertation proposals teeter in piles encircling our desks, we turn to book reviews to guide our plans for the next reading season, the next trip to our (local, independent) bookseller, the next late-night binge at an on-line bookmart. I doubt I'm alone in having remarked, ruefully, to a colleague or two, "oh, I don't read books, I read book reviews." It's not true, of course. We read books obsessively; it's what we do for a living. But we rely on the book reviews in our professional journals to carry us through the lean weeks, to inform us, even to excite us, about significant new books in our fields of study. We all know what we want a book review to do. We have all sighed in dismay over book reviews that spin off into self-indulgent essays that ignore the actual books and their authors. We have all ground our teeth over reviews that ploddingly recount the book's 'plot,' leaving us to wonder about the book'-s argument and its connection to the extant literature, not to mention its effectiveness. Whether it is part of a review essay on several books or focused on a single book, we want a book review to draw us into a disciplined conversation with the reviewer about what the book has to contribute to our knowledge, where it fits in the world of related scholarship, and on what terms the reviewer judged the effort successful or unsuccessful. We want reviews that speak accurately about the author's purpose, that speak informatively about the book's content, and that speak candidly about the reviewer's assessment. The JGAPE aspires to serving its readers with book reviews that meet these standards. We aim to provide reviews that are both stimulating and useful, the sort of reviews you can turn to for intellectual pleasure as well as for publishing news. To advance our dual purpose, we envision a book review section that comprises a mix of single book reviews and longer review essays. While we are