Hey You! Why is the Friday’s Read it or Rant late so often?

Well faithful readers, and by that I mean my mom, I am actually reading the books before I review them. Cover to Cover, and some times that takes longer than a week. It turns out that I am in the minority of reviewers, the professional’s out there either just skim books, or listen to a couple of tracks on a cd, or even simply make an educated guess.

For example, Maxim published a review of the Black Crowes’ new album, Warpaint. It didn’t like it much, giving it only 2.5 stars out of 5. There was just one problem. The album hadn’t been released yet, and advance copies hadn’t been made available. So how had the Maxim reviewer heard the album? Turns out he hadn’t. Maxim explained to the Black Crowes that the reviewer made an “educated guess.” Maxim later released this statement: “It is Maxim’s editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers.”

This is not a new practice, as the Scottish reverend Sidney Smith famously remarked, “I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.” So anyway, it may be late, but I really do READ the books I am reviewing, so take that disgruntled reader! **plbzzzzz**

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