Interview with Amazon’s most prolific book reviewer
Interview with Amazon’s most prolific book reviewer. She’s up over 8600 reviews and reads 4-5 books per day.
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Reader comments
Matt DowellApr 06, 2005 at 10:58AM
Let's assume she speed reads. I know a woman that was trained to speed read (as an exeriment in the 2nd grade) and she says it kind of ruins reading novels, there is no pace.
Anyhoo, they don't go into that. Bastards.
Runky FunkyApr 06, 2005 at 11:12AM
I dunno. Sounds hard to believe she could even speed read that much material, and still have time to write anything worth reading. She said "I have one basic criterion: A book should entertain me and take me away from the rest of the world."
but there can't be much world to take her away from if she's reading and writing as much as she claims...
NataliApr 06, 2005 at 11:13AM
For some reason, it makes me feel like she's defeating the point of a good book - to linger over words and paragraphs and enjoy the story, characters, dialogue, setting, and the way in which the writer executes it all in one fell swoop. Sure, she gives great reviews (irony strikes : I was looking at her stuff just yesterday afternoon), but at what price? To me, it feels like she's actually doing authors a disservice by not loitering over their work long enough to appreciate/dissect it properly.
Nevertheless, I admire her. She's contributing a great service to Amazon and their clients, and certainly has something worthwhile to say. Perhaps she just has the time and motivation that we all wish we could dedicate to books. I take it that this http://harrietklausner.wwwi.com/ is her website?
HernanApr 06, 2005 at 12:01PM
"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It involves Russia."
Woody Allen
BrianApr 06, 2005 at 12:40PM
The internet is just a tool that lets people share their obsessions with complete strangers.
NatalieApr 06, 2005 at 12:55PM
I do some freelance book reviewing, and I'm a pretty fast reader--I simply cannot believe that Klausner reads anywhere between 4 to 6 books a day in their entirety. I read 7 books this past weekend and it damn near killed me and I did a fair amount of skimming because I had a deadline to make. Of course, I don't have the luxury of putting down a book that I'm not enjoying, either.
It amazes me, though, that she's getting so much publicity from the mainstream press now--she's been doing this speed reading, never read a book she didn't like, review thing for years. I first ran across her in 1998 on DOROTHY-L and she was well-established at that point and the subject of occasional flame wars over this very issue--does she or doesn't she read all those books she claims to read?
I find her reviews, for the most part, horribly written and occasionally incoherent. Like this one. It's a shame, too, as that book is one of the best books I've read so far this year.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.