CRITICAL HIT AWARDS: March 2012

Welcome back to the Critical Hit Awards for book reviews. This is a round-up, a recommended reading list, and—why not?—a terribly prestigious and coveted prize. Nominate your favorite review of the month by tweeting it at @electriclit with the hashtag #criticalhit or cast your vote in the comments section below.

 

Going negative is not just a pickup strategy or a blueprint for a presidential campaign. It’s also a great approach for book reviews. Two of our winners this month are frightfully and hilariously negative. Which makes sense, in a realm as conflicted and contentious as the literary arts. Let’s hope the negative ink leads to positive change.
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CRITICAL HIT AWARDS: February 2012

Welcome back to the Critical Hit Awards for book reviews. This is a round-up, a recommended reading list, and—why not?—a terribly prestigious and coveted prize. Nominate your favorite review of the month by tweeting it at @electriclit with the hashtag #criticalhit or cast your vote in the comments section below.

 

Hard to believe, but in a month when Luc Sante dropped some knowledge about Patti Smith, Ben Marcus got everyone talking about The Flame Alphabet, and our beloved readers came through with some great nominations, none of those book reviews actually won. I know, I know. You’re aghast. Well, the competition for Critical Hit Awards is brutal. Here are this month’s winners.

(Thanks to @CalJoPo, @t_nesbit, @TradePaperbacks, @benasam, @msnowe, and @thelazyw for nominating book reviews this month!)
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CRITICAL HIT AWARDS: January 2012

Welcome back to the Critical Hit Awards for book reviews. This is a round-up, a recommended reading list, and—why not?—a terribly prestigious and coveted prize. Nominate your favorite review of the month by tweeting it at @electriclit with the hashtag #criticalhit or cast your vote in the comments section below.

 

Normally I use this space to remind you how exciting and informative book reviews can be. But I really want to share a quote from a book review by Joshua Cohen instead:

The Department of Homeland Security’s Analytic Red Cell Unit employs thriller novelists to envision terrorism scenarios: Brad Meltzer and Brad Thor and writers not named Brad receive assignments like, “Think of a way to blow up the Super Bowl.” When I first heard about this unit a few years ago, I started going to parties, drinking too much, and telling everyone I’d been recruited to Red Cell 2: We were a group of literary novelists, tasked with envisioning the terror scenarios the thriller novelists were envisioning before they envisioned them. This was in the event that any of the thrillerists went rogue. (Soon I was hinting at the existence of a Red Cell 3, assembled to predict our predictions of predictions. It was staffed entirely by poets in Brooklyn.)

See? And that wasn’t even the best review of the month.

 

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CRITICAL HIT AWARDS: December 2011

Welcome back to the Critical Hit Awards for book reviews. This is a round-up, a recommended reading list, and—why not?—a terribly prestigious and coveted prize. Nominate your favorite review of the month by tweeting it at @electriclit with the hashtag #criticalhit.

In an award-winning review this month, John Lanchester says: “It’s a sad story; Boomerang is a sad book, as well as a vivid and funny and enlightening one.” Sadness is probably not the first emotion we associate with the global financial crisis, which Boomerang is about. Instead we talk about anger, disgust, or dread. Lanchester’s remark is a reminder of how rarely we discuss current events in terms of personal sadness, and how a good book can speak to that sadness in a way that ultimately fortifies us. This month’s award winners are all fortifying in their own ways.

Thanks to @TradePaperbacks, @MattTanner, @jonathanscrowe and @CamTerwilliger for nominating book reviews this month!

 

Best Field Guide

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Reviewed by Dennis Lim in Bookforum

A vast novel like 1Q84 requires more than a few inches of coverage and a perfunctory thumbs up or down. Dennis Lim maps out Murakami’s major themes, notes the arguments of his detractors, and patiently insists that 1Q84 is worth the hype. His review is an ideal warm-up for embarking on Murakami’s 900-page magnum opus.

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CRITICAL HIT AWARDS: November 2011

Welcome back to the Critical Hit Awards for book reviews. This is a round-up, a recommended reading list, and—why not?—a terribly prestigious and coveted prize. Nominate your favorite review of the month by tweeting it at @electriclit with the hashtag #criticalhit.

Fickle appraisers, take heart! Two critics, both known for their fiery opinions and mutable positions, have been vindicated (somewhat) in recent months. Kerry Howley’s review of Dwight MacDonald’s Masscult and Midcult won a Critical Hit Award in October, in part for explaining how MacDonald defended his “shifting set of beliefs.” And this month everyone is talking about Pauline Kael, who reviewed movies “with her nervous system as a guide.” Love something today, hate it tomorrow—we don’t mind, as long as you make it interesting.

Congratulations to @bookmarkwoman for nominating a review this month and winning a free audiobook of The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides from Macmillan Audio!

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CRITICAL HIT AWARDS: October 2011

We’re back with more award-worthy book reviews and a new visual signature.

Behold—the official medal of the Critical Hit Awards! Designed by Matt Tanner, it’s a striking representation of… well, just look. Any time a tyrannosaur hits something with its laser vision, it’s critical.

Think of this medal as a mark of high literary distinction. Book reviewers who win one are encouraged to flash it like a badge, tattoo it on their breasts, trace it with sequins on the backs of their denim jackets, etc.

Thanks to everyone who nominated a book review this month! And congratulations to Matthew Gallaway, whose nomination won him an audiobook of Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams from Macmillan Audio! This month we’re giving away an audiobook of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot (details below).

And now, October’s winners:

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