Criticism of "Criticism of Criticism"

I lied.

I realized it pretty soon after I posted my "Criticism of Criticism" post. (I just updated this with a hyperlink, in case you're too lazy to scroll two posts down.)

I like to think I'm a pretty honest online reviewer, and generally I do my best to write my honest opinion of everything I review. But there have been a few instances where I've reviewed books for friends, or family of friends, or people who have tracked me down based on my Amazon reviews, and in some of those cases, I'm sure I've skewed my reviews a little, for predictable reasons--wanting to make a friend happy, wanting to make a stranger feel like they'd written a crappy book, wanting to encourage a stranger, wanting to make a friend feel crappy, whatever. And I also didn't always do the standard journalist full-disclosure-disclaimer. That isn't to say that those reviews were wholly inaccurate, but they were also probably not the same reviews I'd have written if I'd just plucked the same book off the shelf.

Why am I telling you this? Two words: Catholic Guilt. I'm pretty sure my main point's still pretty valid, though--online reviews supposedly indicate quality, but it's hard to gauge the quality of the reviews themselves. And nothing is ever really objective, anyway.

OK, this post has gotten way too meta-, or existential, or something. I'm going to go read Irrationality, by Stuart Sutherland, which discusses the formation of opinions with far more wit and knowledge and research than I ever could muster. Or maybe I'll read A Dog About Town, which, despite the corny cover art, is really a well-written and fun book. And I'm not just saying that because I'm friends with the author. Or am I?

(I'm not. Honest!)