For more than two hundred years, book reviewers have influenced American readers, setting our literary agenda by helping us determine not only what we read but also what we think about what we read. And for nearly as long, critics of these critics have lambasted book reviews for their overpraise, hostility, banality, and bias. Faint Praise takes a hard and long-overdue look at the institution of book reviewing. Gail Pool, herself an accomplished reviewer and review editor, analyzes the inner workings of this troubled trade to show how it works and why it so often fails to work well. By demystifying this hidden process, Pool helps everyone understand how to read reviews—and better decide what to read.

Gail Pool is a freelance journalist and reviewer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a former editor of the Boston Review; she has been a book columnist for the Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and San Diego Union-Tribune; and she is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the editor of Other People’s Mail: An Anthology of Letter Stories (University of Missouri Press).