|
BookishThoughts.com has standards in two general areas, quality and decency. Such standards may seem arbitrary and subjective, but that doesn't stop us from having them. Our standards apply in different ways both to the writing (including fiction) we choose to publish and to the books and other materials which are reviewed or recommended at this site. We're not out to impose any specific moral or linguistic standard on anyone, but we'd rather offend people by having standards than by not having standards.
Quality of Writing: Good grammar, spelling, diction, etc., are a given. (Yes, we know there are people with philosophical objection even to this. We just disagree with them.) Crisp, energetic, original writing is always in short supply, but that's what we want to publish here. So if you choose to submit some of your writing, please don't be offended if we suggest some revisions prior to publishing it. We'll try not to cramp your style. Any such response, and any outright rejection, will always come with an explanation. What is and is not good writing is a subjective judgment to some extent, but that's what we're stuck with.
Quality of Books Reviewed: Books reviewed at this site may be the latest bestsellers, or they may be great literature, but they're just as likely to be neither. (Anybody want to review a Star Trek novel?) They don't have to be new or old or thick or thin or take any particular side on any political or philosophical issue. Their chief merit is that the reviewers, for whatever reasons, think they're worth writing about. If you've already read a book reviewed here, we hope the review will be an interesting or useful discussion for you. If you haven't read the book, we hope the review will help you decide whether you want to or not.
Decency: We'd like to be able to refer our mothers to our Web site without blushing -- not to mention other people we know with reasonable standards of decency -- so the writing published here will be fairly clean in terms of language, and we draw the line to exclude reviews of erotica, cheap romance novels, and any other writing that is replete with sexual material or gratuitous violence, or otherwise intended to appeal to the baser side of human nature. You're likely to find her, for example, reviews of Tom Clancy and Scott Turow novels -- so far -- but not erotica, no matter how literary. If you're reviewing anything (such as Turow and most of Clancy) with explicit sexual activity, or with language coarser than the occasional damn or hell, please find a way to warn readers with delicate sensibilities.
If you have questions about where we draw a particular line, please ask.
Note: BookishThoughts.com reserves the right to publish or not to publish submitted material at its sole discretion, and will not knowingly publish copyrighted material without prior written permission of the copyright owner.
|