THE YEAR IN REVIEW - 2001
By Alex Good
December 31, 2001
Time again for a quick look back at the year that was.
The story online was consistent with 2000. Traffic at goodreports.net continued to increase,
finishing the year at around 500 unique visitors a day. I realize that may not
sound like a lot, but it's not bad for what
is, in effect, a personal homepage. Breaking it down further, the traffic seemed
to track the academic year, an
observation that finds some explanation in the number of e-mails I receive asking for assistance in writing
term papers. April and December were the biggest months, while July and August
were very slow. The most popular feature, aside from the Reviews,
continued to be The Puffies.
And now for a little rant.
Last year in this space I made proud mention of how I had
reviewed a handful of self-published works as well as a number of
small press publications where the author had contacted me directly (I don't
usually respond to promotional e-mails sent by publicity departments or agents). The
experience of this past year, however, has turned me against this practice. In
particular, I am thinking of two occasions in 2001 when I had authors get in touch with me wondering if I would
review their self-published work. When I replied favourably and said that I would take a look, but
could not guarantee a positive review, they both responded with some
bitterness and made a point of telling me I would not be receiving a copy. While
I couldn't really blame them - of course, if I wasn't going to give them a plug I was no
use to them whatsoever - I was still surprised at how offended they were.
As a result, in September I implemented a draconian new policy with regard to
receiving books for review. I don't.
So much for the story of running the site. What about the year in books?
Always keeping in mind my caveat that it is impossible for one person to
read more than a small fraction of what gets published, I would have to say that this was another bad
year for fiction. Yes, the novel is in decline. In the coming year I hope to say more about this. In
the meantime, I also have to wonder what is happening to the writing of
popular history. Too many of these books just go through the motions, without any flash of
original analysis,
insight or opinion. There are plenty of academic and professional historians out
there, but what has happened to our real intellectuals? Canadians used to be good at this kind
of thing.
If you're looking for reviews that accentuate the negative, my personal list of dogs of the year would
have to include The Body Artist,
The Trouble With Democracy,
John
Adams, Fury,
and All Families Are Psychotic. How does this stuff
get published? The Adams book was the only one to do well, and the biggest story surrounding it
was the embarrassing discovery that McCullough had misattributed a prominent quote. My
New Year's resolution is to stop wasting my time on such junk.
What's in store? Last year I concluded my Year in Review essay by saying
that I would be cutting back on the number of updates quite severely. As things turned out, this didn't happen. The
updates held fairly constant, even to the News
page. But this year I mean it. I just have too many other things going on.
The idea of making this a
review-only site has occurred to me, both because I feel that reviews, even of books
that no one is likely to read, are more important than industry commentary, as
well as the fact, obvious to long-time goodreports.net readers, that I
have begun to repeat myself. But then, as Northrop Frye once defensively
remarked, how can you trust a literary critic who doesn't repeat himself? In my Essays
and News columns I think I
have put forward a coherent view of what is happening, and I don't imagine I will be adding much to
it. On the other hand, I am also aware of the fact that there aren't a lot of alternative
news sources available for Canadian readers. And so, while there's
no question I'm going to be doing less in the coming year, I'll try to keep the whole site
going for a while yet.
Finally, I would like to again thank you, the reader.
Best wishes for a safe and happy New Year,
Alex Good
alex@goodreports.net
