Chapter
What makes a book “good”?
Abstract
This chapter offers an overview of the study of evaluation in literature. It maps early sociological and institutional perspectives on reading as a social rather than solitary activity, in which both the meaning and evaluation of a text are socially conditioned and constructed. The chapter then considers more recent scholarship on two gateway moments that novels must pass: the evaluative judgments of acquisition editors, who decide which books …
Authors
Chong PK; Gualtieri G
Book title
The Routledge International Handbook of Valuation and Society
Pagination
pp. 197-206
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
DOI
10.4324/9781003229353-23