Saturday, March 14, 2009

'inflated little balloons'

So you think you're not a book reviewer? Think again. If you've ever said something is 'at once' this thing and the other; if you've ripped something apart and qualified your harshness with a 'that said'; if you've used a bunch of verbs (unflinching, rollicking, compelling) you probably have tried your hand at reviewing a book, um, 'seriously'.

My one complaint is that this list does not include that extremely annoying phrase 'clear-eyed'.

[via]

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On another note, I'm very upset with all of you. Why aren't y'all instantly responding by making your blogs little havens of sunshine and twittering birdsong in this dark world? Bah.

11 comments:

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

I made an origami penguin yesterday. Really. That said, I am no artist. Of any sort.

Tabula Rasa said...

i'm playing lexulous -- what's your excuse?

km said...

Guilty of having used every single one of those freaking ugly cliches.

Thanks for posting this. Next time I catch myself saying "at once", I am going to kick myself in the head.

Space Bar said...

kenny: please to put photo. esse est and all that.

tr: you mean, for not playing lexulous with you? i thought i just explained: i have a limited vocabulary - 'shimmering', 'rollicking', 'nuanced' i can do. the rest is all points lost to you.

km: i know. i kinda squirmed also. :D

Fëanor said...

You shouldn't squirm until you've used visceral and coruscating. Till then, you should just shudder delicately.

Space Bar said...

feanor: ok, i won't (she said obligingly). but i'm worried that might begin to enjoy all this delicate shuddering too much.

Anonymous said...

For your tag, can we please have a video of KM trying to kick himself in the head? It's already a clear winner, and it's not even been made.

parotechnics said...

I don't respond well to competitive environments. Thanks to your not a tag I am back in therapy

Space Bar said...

paro: therapy=packing? and what did i do?! it was not a competition!

Anonymous said...

okay,so the book-reviewer is not a woman of wealth but of taste atleast,and ofcourse has been around for a long,long time,so what about some sympathy?
the quality of criticism depends on the work under criticism,more often than not.

Anonymous said...

That's funny stuff. I'm so scared of writing "traditional" reviews simply because of those cliches. The only one I've done so far is of a scifi book by Todd Keisling, and thankfully, it isn't as bad as it could be.

(My favourite is "tour de force". There's nothing like a bit of French to fancy up your article.)