So I think that the way that I would answer this question is different from the way that I would answer a question that’s just about the value of book reviewing and criticism in general. Obviously, I have views about that, and I think that book reviewing and criticism in general are valuable. However, as I wrote in the piece, I think that there’s something particularly and uniquely valuable about a newspaper book section. And you’re right. There are very few left. The Wall Street Journal has one. The Boston Globe has books coverage, but not a huge book section, I believe. And then the Times Book Review is really the only one that is still a standalone section, like a magazine that comes on Sundays that you take out of the newspaper. That used to be common, and now it’s just The Times. I think that what those kinds of book review sections do is they allow a general interest reader an entree into the world of literature and ideas.

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But the point of a general interest newspaper is that it can expose you to things that you didn’t know that you were interested in already, and you can become interested in them. So somebody who thinks that they’re only interested in politics, or someone who thinks that they’re only interested in art reviews or restaurant reviews or news about the local DC area—which they can also no longer find in the Washington Post, which no longer has a Metro section—might just stumble upon a book review, and that is a way for people to discover that they care about books and ideas.

We must encourage one another to read, to seek out criticism on art, and continually re-evaluate how it intersects with our own viewpoints. We will drown in disinformation and misinformation if we fail to be critical, curious readers.