Tuesday, January 30, 2007
People say believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear / I can't help being confused / if it's true please tell me dear?
Amazon reviews are all well and good, but do you use them? I mean, have you come across a book, a 'listmania' list, an album, or even, god bless you, a 'video game' and been swayed by reviews.
I can think of two examples where I have been. Firstly, in the same way that i'd listen to an 'ask the audience' answer or the results of a mori poll. Don't necessarily do as they say, but use them as a useful barometer of opinion. Secondly, as an outrageous bit of ex post facto rationalisation when it is the end of the month and the only way I can justify an amazon purchase to myself is by arguing that so many other people think it is excellent that I must be missing out.
My new past-time: collecting amazon reader comments from books and albums I've read or thought about reading / buying.
"OK but songs not really good enough"
- amazon.co.uk review of Marvin Gaye's I want you.
"...there are entire chunks that just went right by me. For example, I am still not completely sure whether or not the male Quentin had sex with his sister Caddy, and if maybe he was her daughter Quentin's father (why else would she name her daughter after her brother?), or how exactly Benjy was castrated. And overall, I am simply not that impressed with the book." - amazon.com review of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
"Life on college campus...I liked the sports." - amazon.com review of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons
"Plenty of potential, but Jon Ronson came across as such a whining geek on his TV show that I'll never read anything by him again." amazon.co.uk review of Jon Ronson's Them.
