We apologize for our inability to control our base urges. There is something inside that makes us want to exult in the humanity of humans. Yes, this means that we derive far too much pleasure from people behaving badly. Today, we bring you a publicist taking exception to a bad review. A corollary of the Cookie Jar Theory is that people will flock to the scene of disaster because it probably makes us feel superior. Ignoring this review would have been the best thing the publicist could do for her book. Causing a scene undoes the scores of good reviews the book has apparently (we might do actual research later, but at the moment, we are pretending to work on Important Things) received. (Via Collected Miscellany)
Our Lesser Nature Exposed: We Love Train Wrecks
March 25th, 2005 · 2 Comments
by Booksquare
File Under: Books/Mags/Blogs
2 responses so far ↓
Caro // Mar 25, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Killing time before I can escape work, so I wandered over to Amazon to see what reviews the book had gotten. 22 reviews, of which 2 were negative, 5 were four stars and 15 were five stars. Of the ones where you could click to see the reviewer’s other reviews (8 were simply “a reader”, all positive), only one reviewer had ever reviewed more than one book.
Over on BN.com, five reviews, all five stars, but you can’t check history on those.
Just thought it was interesting.
Margaret Able // Mar 27, 2005 at 1:49 pm
What I thought was most interesting is that the supposedly Christian publicist had some decidedly un-Christian and markedly uncharitable things to say about Steph, not just as a reviewer, but as a person. Obviously, this publicist needs to get a heart, as well as a life (and some perspective wouldn’t hurt either).
Margaret from http://www.bookishmarginalia.blogspot.com