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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019) and AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021).

Monday, January 03, 2011

How NOT to respond to a bad book review

I.e., like this.

Of course there's an issue of how you should respond, if at all. When arguments and conclusions are stake, rather than literary merit, some sort of response might sometimes be appropriate. We all get to defend our arguments and the conclusions we draw. In this case, though, silence might have been best.

H/T Kirstyn McDermott.

2 comments:

Metatwaddle said...

This is excellent, but I believe the gold medal in How Not To Respond to a Review still goes to Anne Rice. (The full text of her indignant reply to her reviewers can be found here -- it's been deleted from Amazon, which is really too bad)

Sean Wright said...

Thanks Russell. This is the second Author response to a bad review I have read in past couple of weeks. n the first situation the author actually came back and apologized for being an arse.