Readers may have noticed the recent evolution of the TLR Books Section—it is a little different now, more sprawling, more erratic, more personal, more discursive, more complimentary, longer. There is, in fact, a method to our madness, a point to our rotating postures, broad fancies, and deadly serious whimsy.
When Charles Angoff, Clarence Decker, and Peter Sammartino founded The Literary Review all those generations ago in 1957, their mandate was to publish international literature, yes, but also belles-lettres—that [sigh] wonderfully chameleonic form that allows us to indulge in it without assigning parameters. And so we have now long and short reviews of books, responses to books or authors, personal revelations tangentially related to books, and interviews about craft and conversations about techniques, and the occasional scrap of poetry. I’m sure we’d consider publishing a topographical map for a bobsled race if we were convinced it illuminated something important about a book.
In the meantime, here’s another terrific angle on the book review form—or perhaps more specifically on reading.
Thank you, Jeffery Sconce…