The joy of nitpicking

Yes, there's been no shortage of writing about the death of the book review in print form.  When journalists are in particularly high form they broaden it to mean the end of all newspapers, and criticism. \

I for one hope the journalists are wrong.  When "lit crit," or criticism of any kind, really, is written well, it can be a pure joy to read.  Take a book like Lee Siegel's Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination.  Siegel's an essayist and critic for The New Republic and The New Yorker, and when he writes a book review, he often writes a BOOKS review--as is the case with his essay on the works of Barbara Kingsolver.  (Please note: if you love Barbara Kingsolver, this may not be the essay for you; at one point he refers to her "icy virtue," and he doesn't mean it in a good way.)  But the point is: he has an opinion on Kingsolver.  And he talks about her books in such a way that you can tell he's read them.

It's not all lofty stuff.  There's essays here on The Sopranos, the ridiculously over-televised funeral of Pope John Paul, Harry Potter, and Sex and the City.  For those readers who really like his TV criticism (and I'm sorry, but sometimes there's nothing more satisfying than criticizing TV programs), he's also published a title called Not Remotely Controlled.

So check these out and help prove all the naysayers wrong: if Lee Siegel has anything to say about it, criticism isn't dead, and neither is the printed word.