is miffed that the left-leaning Publisher's Weekly gave his book a rather negative review: Nanny State recently received a short review from the trade publication Publishers Weekly. It was unfriendly. I came away with the feeling that the reviewer hadn�t actually read the book. (I won�t bore you with the specifics.) But then again, who knows, perhaps the review was deserved.
As this is my first book, though, I decided to investigate other Publisher Weekly reviews on Amazon.com. Did a negative review effect sales? Did the reviewer typically betray a ideological position as this one had? This curiosity led to non-scientific stroll around Amazon.com and a discovery. One that Tammy Bruce had already noted. I work in mainstream media. Though I�m not someone who buys into the widespread liberal media meme, the one-sidedness of the PW reviews was inescapable. After all, a provocative or combative political book can be well written and worth reading even if you disagree with the central thesis. I�ve reviewed books for almost a decade. I know this can happen.
I wrote about the bias of Publisher's Weekly in a post here, after finding the same negative reviews of conservative books and positive ones of liberal books. Tammy Bruce states that "conservative authors agree, you know you've done a good job when you've made Publisher's Weekly collective head explode. ... if PW is foaming at the mouth about a book, and uses the words "screed," "strident," or "unfortunately," (in an effort to appear thoughtful), I consider it a must-read and put it immediately on my list of books to get." So Mr. Harsanyi, congratulations, maybe that unfriendly review was just a hint that your book will be a real success.