Why I Like to Review Books

 After my divorce, when I moved to Victoria Texas, I happened to meet the op-ed editor at the local newspaper. He was speaking at an organization meeting and a friend introduced me to him. As a nice friend will do, she told him something about me, namely that I had had (at that time) four novels published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a publishing house with a great reputation throughout the publishing world. He asked me if I ever did book reviews, and I answered not really, just some reader remarks on Amazon pages. He then asked, "Would you like to? It doesn't pay much but we need another reviewer." And so I said yes. He then invited me to come to his office at the newspaper, have my picture taken, and look over the books that were stacked on a shelf there waiting to be reviewed. He told me that once I had reviewed a book, I could keep the book, sell the book, or give it to the library. Gee whiz! What a great proposition for a nutty book person like me.

I don't remember the first book I reviewed, but I had decided that I wouldn't give scathing reviews to any book. If I hated it enough to give a decimating review I would simply take the book back to the editor's bookshelf and let the other reviewer have a go. My thinking on this is that my job was to give readers (a diminishing group of people, right?) a reason TO read a book not an excuse not to read one. That's not to say that I gave all glowing reviews. I didn't. But to trash a book, I decided, wouldn't do anybody any good. I reviewed for this newspaper until a new editor took the helm, one who did away with the book page in the Sunday edition, or began using boilerplate reviews lifed from other sources. So, in all, I reviewed for a little over two years. I was sad to see it end. I liked going into the newspaper office to pick up my books. It made me feel a little bit like Clark Kent, all those busy reporters at their computer screen. And no, I did not get wealthy. In fact, my writing has never made me wealthy. I had a bit of a run with my first novel, but it wasn't like having an oil well in my backyard or anything. 

Since then, I have reviewed books on a more serious scale for Amazon, although I have never made it to their recognized Top Reviewer status. And now, I am reviewing books for Reedsy Discover, an online review page. I have only done one review so far, and am on my second one. The way they do it is they send you a list of books that have been submitted for reviews, and you get to select the ones that seem interesting to you. They let you have three at a time. These are supposed to be pre-reviews meaning prior to the publish date of the books in question. They like to be one of the first post-production review sites after a book launches. This means when you pick up a book from their list of available books, you get a deadline along with it. I don't like deadlines much, so I chose books that have a longer than normal deadline, although I find myself feeling sorry for those that are approaching deadline and haven't had a reviewer chose them yet. So this week I picked up one of those and am madly reading to try to complete the book and the review by June 2, which is just around the corner. Why do I do these things to myself???

But as a writer I know that book reviews can really help a book fly. I'm not sure that the old traditional way of submitting to all the newspapers in the country works anymore. So many papers have deleted their book review sections. If you're lucky enough to get one in the New York Times, well great, because they have a vital and energetic book section, as do some of the other big players. But everybody is vying for those reviews and they're not so easy to get. It's probably difficult to decipher how book reviews translate to book sales. I know I have seen books touted as Best Sellers that later end up on remainder tables at Dollar General, so there seems to be a lot of falsehood in the book selling business period. And it is the one industry where returns are acceptable at any time for any reason in any amount. If a book store orders 30 books because they're having an author event, and they only sell ten copies, they can return the other 20 and reverse the shipping charges. It was an old mis-belief that if the author signed all the other copies for the store to sell as "signed copies" those books would not be returned, but that turns out to be just another wife's tale. I have seen returns go back to the publisher with the author's signature on the inside page anyway. 

It's a dicey business, and all the cards are stacked in the favor of everybody else besides the writer, which seems strange to people who don't know this, because without the writer actually writing the damned book there wouldn't be anything for anybody to sell in the first place. But alas, the trouble is publishers are overwhelmed with manuscripts coming at them from all direction. This is why few will take an unsolicited, or unagented, manuscript in the first place. And even still there are thousands that end up waiting to be read by some underling "reader" and hopefully passed on up the chain to an actual editor. The odds are against us all. And anybody who thinks they can write a novel because they learned to parse a sentence in language class in 5th grade—well, there's a little bit more to it than that. However if you're serious about it, keep writing. After you've written a couple of million words, you might get lucky. Off the subject of reviews, but felt it needed to be said—again. I'm sure I'm repeating myself by now.

Onward....

Promised Recap of River Cruise on the Rhine

 The worst part about travel to Europe is getting there. Airline travel is not what it used to be, even 25 years ago. You're crammed into the smallest space possible. There isn't even room anymore for my carry-on and my purse, which I have been sliding under the seat in front of me for all my adult life. My carry-on had to go in the overhead, and that left barely enough room for my purse. We were on United. I didn't know I would be wishing for that itty bit of leg-room when we got on the return flight eight days later.

But....Amsterdam. As we flew in I saw all the canals, but at that time, didn't know what they were for; I would soon learn. My first impression was that it was so flat and feature-less it reminded me of my hometown, Corpus Christi, and the surrounding wetlands there. We found the boys in the Amsterdam airport, and we caught our shuttle to the ship. Boat is really a more correct description, or even barge. They call them longships so I guess I will too. This was our second Viking cruise so we knew what to expect. The rooms are small but adequate. We had a balcony this time, which we used once.

The boys had booked us a reservation to a famous tulip farm and we barely had time to shovel some food into our mouths before our Uber arrived. The drive there was chaotic and traffic-bound, but we made it just in time for our reservation. What we all had forgotten about was that it was Good Friday. The place was absolutely packed with humanity. Soon forgotten, however, when we laid eyes on the spectacular tulips gardens that awaited us. We had to have been there at the peak time. It was almost overwhelming is was so fabulous. 

When we got back to the ship our rooms were ready so we had showers and got dressed for dinner. Two two best things about a Viking River Cruise are the food and the service. The staff onboard these ships are outstanding, as is the food. The third best thing is these ships only hold 125 people roughly, so there are no long lines for anything, no sitting in crowded places with strangers. We grabbed a table for four and that table was ours for the duration. 

The next day I finally learned what all those canals are about, and how carefully the Dutch people manage their water, since they live below sea level, it is a necessity. We drove through a polder, visited a cheese factory, and saw some centuries old windmills. Our guide was fantastic, funny, and really made the excursion memorable. 

The Netherlands turned out to be one of the highlights, as was Cologne, Germany where we had a fantastic Kölsch lunch of pork knuckle and potatoes. Another highlight was Strasbourg, France seeing the storks in their trees, walking through the old town with all the half-timbered building. I had been there before, and liked it even better this second time. A last real highlight was a drive through the Black Forest to the cuckoo clock factory, watching a glass blower at work, and a demonstration of how to make a Black Forest cake. All super fun and all great memories. 

We got sick, both Wayne and I, but it was allergies. Europe was in bloom and a crisp wind was blowing. The Viking staff tested us daily for Covid so we knew we were safe. We love the Viking cruises, but hate the travel days equally. The trip home was murderous, Lufthansa packed us in even tighter than United had, the only saving grace was Lufthansa serves better food. If we weren't such cheap-skates we would have sprung for Business Class seats, or at least Economy Plus. I'll remember it for future trips.

Onward...