Having written quite a few book reviews in my career -- and somehow avoided ever using "florilegium" or "moral torque" -- I have a more positive view of criticism, particularly of literature.
Art and music, being mostly conducted in media other than words, have value as topics for critics, too, but maybe less so? Their subjects need to be seen or heard to be fully understood, while books can be quoted and described in their own medium. Book reviews are a great way to find out about books, either to decide whether you'd be interested in reading them or, in lengthy pieces like
TNY's, just to learn a little about their subjects without necessarily reading the whole books.
A friend and former colleague was books editor at the paper where I worked. Just today, she was lamenting the dwindling books coverage in many papers -- most shockingly recently the
Washington Post., where as I understand it they ended all reviews, including ones by their main books critic, Ron Charles, who got famous by posting funny book-related videos (here's one
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/entertainment/nick-reveals-what-really-happened-before-the-great-gatsby/2021/01/04/cd47e111-2408-4e3a-a391-53dfdacb492a_video.html). At my old paper, the guy who became books editor after my friend retired is still writing reviews but they're not hiring any freelancers to write them, as they formerly did.
My friend said she used to receive 1,000 books a month for possible reviewing! Reviewers would get a copy of their book but the rest she sold at twice-a-year sales and donated the proceeds to some reading-related organization. I would go into those sales and think, look at all these books (maybe 6,000 if my friend was accurate!) that hardly anybody will ever hear of.
Of course, there are other places to look for book information besides newspapers -- the
New Yorker is one of the great ones and seems likely to be around for a while, let's hope. But newspapers were a big part of getting the word out about books, so ending reviews hurts authors as well as readers.
That said, the last book review I wrote -- on
THE SIRENS? CALL: How Attention Became the World?s Most Endangered Resource, by Chris Hayes, a TV star, which Barack Obama recommended, got fewer pageviews than any other story I wrote last year. Far fewer. And pageviews are practically a religion in newspapers these days.
