I’m currently having a debate with myself over how to write a book review that is due tomorrow. The book is about television and by a well recognised author in the field. My problem is I really don’t like it, didn’t get anything out of it, thought it was repeitious of previous work, and was at time too chock full of ideas to be coherent. There wasn’t one or two arguments. There were hundreds (well maybe a slight exaggeration) but too many. It was more like an edited collection than a book on a single topic. Perhaps this was the point, but for me it made for frustrating, confusing reading where the point was elusive, always a page turn away.

So my question is, do I write what I really think? Or do I write what would be expected to be written about a book by a respected and well regarded author? Or should I damn with faint praise? Because I would suspect that these things are political. And one needs to be moderate with one’s opinions when one is a very tiny fish in a huge pond of researchers, which is currently being drained in a direction in which the tiny fish is not really a big fan. That is, if the tiny fish wants to avoid being found floating belly up above the undersea castle and fake plastic fern, with next stop flushsville.