The interview I did last night was really interesting. The interviewer is a sociologist and she is doing research on book reviewing and the development of literary taste. We talked on the phone for an hour. As a person who never does all that much talking I was tuckered out afterwards. But the hour flew by.

The kinds of things she asked me were varied like, how do I decide what book I am going to read next? My answer was long and rambling and basically came down to it depended on my mood and me apologizing for being so imprecise. She asked about the last novel I reviewed that I liked (The Master) and what was it I liked about it. She asked about the last book I reviewed that I didn’t like and I couldn’t think of one!

We talked about whether knowing biographical information about an author was important in writing a review. I said sometimes and then she asked me to explain the difference between when it was and wasn’t useful and how did I decide on that. She also asked about why I began blogging (selfish reasons, I wanted to find other to talk about books with), who I imagined my audience to be (since I am always surprised I have any kind of audience I am self-centered and imagine myself as the reader) and whether I ever got tired of reviewing or talking about books (no, if I did I’d stop blogging).

The conversation also touched on publishers and marketing and the decline of book reviewing in the print media and why I thought that might be (I said that I didn’t think the big conglomerates that owned print media outlets value books and literature). We talked about the differences between print and online reviewing as well.

There are some things I am missing but that was the most of it. She is going to be publishing a journal article and a monograph on her research findings. It was fun and sort of stressful and all rather surreal.