Booksquare suggests that Amazon reviewer Harriet Klausner (profiled in today's Wall Street Journal by Joanne Kaufman) isn't exactly a discovery of such stunning new finds as Tess Gerritsen, pointing out that Gerritsen's career kick-started several years before.
However, I'm curious why the Wall Street Journal didn't make an effort to verify Klausner's extraordinary claims. Kaufman only describes Klausner's voice as "more than a few dips of helium," but makes no reference to the geography of her home or Ms. Klausner's appearance. I'm wondering if Kaufman even spoke with Ms. Klausner in person. After all, if Klausner has read over 8,000 books and reviewed them in a mere five years, wouldn't it be worth a trip to Atlanta to observe just how she does it?
Posted by DrMabuse at March 29, 2005 11:54 AMActually Ed, it refers to "Ms. Klausner's Atlanta home" and it looks like they've drawn a little picture of her. I assume that's Harriet anyway, and not Joanne Kaufman. By the way, for an afternoon's worth of good reading, you can randomly sample bios of Amazon's top reviewers:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/top-reviewers-list/-/1/
Posted by: Kevin Guilfoile at March 29, 2005 01:47 PMMaybe Kaufman is practicing Jayson Blair's "reporting from Brooklyn" method.
Posted by: Pete at March 30, 2005 07:24 AM