John Mark Eberhart
jeberhart@kcstar.com

In a nutshell: What is the function of newspaper literary criticism at the present time? To help readers decide how best to spend the time they have, reading well -- for pleasure, knowledge, inspiration, enlightenment. And personally, my favorite thing is probably finding a gem of a book that no one has noticed and sharing my enthusiasm for it with readers. The most important thing is to create a dialogue involving writers, poets, readers and critics. And the scope of that dialogue is huge. You know, there are tens of thousands of books published every year -- far more books in any given 12-month period than there are movies, or art shows, or classical concerts in a given city. So the book critic for any publication is in the unique position of helping shape the intellectual landscape. Even the task of choosing which books to review is a big responsibility, and I take it seriously. But I learn from readers, too. That's the dialogue. It's how we learn: We keep talking.