I am a nerd. No, this is not a 12-step confession. It's the truth and I'm proud of it. I have my interests and I can be somewhat single-minded about them. I love books, especially about theology, and know way too much trivia about baseball, the Beatles and guitars. I am not cool and really don't care about pop culture.
(Note: According to my definition, a nerd is not the same as a geek. The latter is the type of person who cannot carry on a normal conversation and who you want to avoid. I hope I do not fit that category.)
But my nerdiness was tested recently when I saw the latest issue of The Sixteenth Century Journal. (For the record, I do not read this journal as it is not one of my interests. My job requires me to check the books reviewed in it against our catalog to see if we already have them.) For their fortieth anniversary (break out the party hats), they devoted their book review section to the best book reviews of the last forty years. Earlier they asked their readers to nominate those reviews that "most profoundly 'got your attention.'"
This is a new level of nerdiness than I could ever imagine. Not best books of the last 40 years, but the best reviews of books from the last 40 years.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think of a book review not as art, but utility. It is supposed to tell me enough of the book that I can make an intelligent decision as to whether I should buy it or at least check it our of the library. A good critical review will briefly acquaint me with the scholarly debate that surrounds the book. Review can also be helpful in determining a particular reviewer's view of a subject if he/she has not written about it elsewhere.
But a collection of the "best"? As my boss responded when I showed it to him, "And for that a tree died."
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