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misunderstanding

Misunderstanding Books: The Era of the Unsophisticated Reader

August 8, 2018

Some time ago, I read a bizarre “review” (more about it in a moment) of a book I had read myself. The reviewer had written something in the direction of “I kept reading thinking that it’d get better, but it never did. The story was left unresolved.” That was basically it, that was the review. I’ve talked before about reviewing books fairly, but today we’ll tackle another issue: that of misunderstanding books.

It goes without saying that this was not a review. You can’t spend two lines (or even two hundred) saying simply “I didn’t like it” and claim this is a review. Perhaps we could call it a “rating rationale” though semantics isn’t the crucial factor here. Rather, I’d like to focus on something far more serious. Something that has far-reaching consequences for the current state as well as the future of our societies.

misunderstanding books
“What do you mean ‘misunderstanding books?'”
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