From the editors.(Editorial)

Two recent articles on the state of book reviewing caught our eye, both of which told with depressing accuracy how lopsided the situation still is in terms of women's books getting reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. Writing in the March/April issue of the Women's Review of Books, Gail Pool reports a 2:1 ratio of men's books and male reviewers to women's books and female reviewers in 2006-2007, the same as Paula J. Caplan and Mary Anna Palko reported for 2002-2003. Sarah Seltzer, in "Hard Times: At the New York Times Book Review, All the Misogyny is Fit to Print," in the Spring 2008 issue of Bitch, finds that none of the NYTBR's "top five novels of 2007" was penned by a woman, and women's works constituted only 13 of 50 on the short list. Pool cites worse ratios for the New York Review of Books (approximately 4:1 for men's books to women's books; 5:1 for male reviewers to female reviewers), and 5:1 for either at the New Republic, but is also quick to add that "numbers don't tell the whole story." Indeed, Seltzer would agree, since the thesis of her article, as her subtitle reveals, is that books on women's issues are "routinely treated with a mixture of giggly naivete and barbed antifeminist prejudices"--and, what's more, these books and their authors are being trashed by snarky (Seltzer's word, but I like it) women reviewers. She challenges the NYTBR to hire noted feminist writers to review significant feminist works, instead of the likes of "gossip blogger" Ana Marie Cox, chosen to review one of Katha Pollitt's books, and "former ballet dancer and anal-sex memoirist" Toni Bentley, another. Pool surveys the literary web (and blogosphere) and doesn't find it a major countervailing force either--yet--but she does see the promise it holds, and thus she calls for the launching of online publications in which women's works and women reviewers will be taken seriously.

We at Feminist Collections try to do our part, too. We have no problem finding an abundance of books and other resources on women's ...