Kirkus Reviews, the publication that booksellers, librarians, and mainstream reviewers used to determine what's worth selling, buying, and reviewing again, is dead. In its obituary for the esteemed publication, the New York Observer points out that it wasn't so esteemed at the time of its closing. In fact, some in the publishing industry downright loathed Kirkus for its codgerish tone and predilection for bad reviews.

But other people were really unhappy to see the mag go under. Who they are and why they care, after the jump.

If you guessed other book reviewers, congratulations! You win absolutely nothing, because this was the obvious answer.

Here's Chip McGrath, a former editor of the New York Times Book Review, in that Observer article:

"I think people relied on it a lot....It was an early warning system. ... At the very time that we're inundated with stuff, that's the moment when you also need some gatekeepers, tastemakers, guides. Not that any of these are foolproof, but without them, it's just sort of chaos. How do you get your head around it at all?"

Seeing as the people reading the New York Times Book Review probably weren't also reading trade pubs like Kirkus (or Editor & Publisher, which also closed), who was? People like McGrath. With Kirkus, critics reviewing books for a general audience knew what was worth reading (and thus reviewing in long purply prose), and what wasn't. The last bit of value that Kirkus held, then, was as a source of information and income for other professional book reviewers.

Let's meditate on the lunacy of this for a minute: Imagine that there was a magazine that reviewed telephones in 300 words, and its sole job was to tell other magazines that reviewed telephones which telephones were worth reviewing in 800 words.

The problem, as others in the Observer article point out, is that the Web is peopled with shit-talkers, and most of them do for free what Kirkus charged money for (bad reviews). That's not to say it wasn't helpful to have people like Mark Athitakis and Jonathan Taylor doing a cursory–and professional–sorting of the wheat and the chaff (the two have written about their respective experiences reviewing for Kirkus here and here), but that, as the closing of Kirkus demonstrates, nobody is willing to pay for the "service" of negative reviews if it's going to hurt their ability to sell books.

The publication did serve some good for readers. Even though online booksellers like Amazon have such a wide reach that there's probably a customer for every book, even the terrible ones, Kirkus was a check against the site's near-unregulated comment policy. There is simply no way to know why someone gives a book a low rating on Amazon; sometimes the customer reviews are thoughtful, sometimes they're trash, but there's no getting around the fact that ulterior motivations can wildly alter a product's rating, and there's no way to discern what those motives are. (Caveat: Those same motives sometimes appear in edited publications like WaPo's Book World, but when they do, there's often a clarification.)

What might the future hold?

Music sites that are winning online are winning because the people who run them are writing–for the most part–about music that they like and that their readers like (and yes, some of them are getting bashed by the dinos for their niche stations, but whatever the fuck ever). Brooklyn Vegan isn't obligated to review Some Orchestra's umpteenth  Stravinsky arrangement,  Arts Desk isn't obligated to review Toby Keith's new album. We can, and sometimes do, review stuff we don't like, but it's not the same type of gate-keeping that Kirkus did for books. In other words, no one is not reviewing an album because we said it wasn't worth the effort. In fact, I'd argue no one in the music-writing world gets paid for that service.

And let's face it: Unless there are high hopes for a book and it somehow fails, (or, in the case of Dan Brown, is so wildly popular that not to review it is to appear out of touch with what the country is reading), most outlets only review stuff that their reviewers like. Without the dinos patrolling the gates, we're going to see more of Eliot van Buskirk's "reviewer as DJ" principle at work, which means more positive reviews of fewer books, fewer negative reviews of anything.

Like the card above? Send it to a friend!

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., held an old-fashioned book burning last week (above is an AP video on the same).

Now, my people didn't burn books when I was growing up, but my youth pastor did ask me to toss my copy of Pyromania, and my grandfather, an Episcopal priest, refused to allow books written by Carl Jung inside his house. Also, I once had to scribble an ode to masturbation on a slip of paper during mass and throw it into a cauldron of fire.

Based on these criteria, I feel qualified to offer the following FAQ for attending a book burning.

Is it OK to swing by the grocery store on my way to the burning and just buy a new book? Or should I bring something from home?

Serious book burning is as much about purging one's soul of evil influence as purging America's retail shelves of the same. That said, only bring a book from home if you're sure that fellow congregates have read it, or skimmed the dust jacket in a moment of doubt. A book burning is a family event, not a chance for you to strut your perversions.

If the only irreligious book you have at home is Madonna's Sex, leave it there and pick up the new Dan Brown book on your way to the burning. Otherwise, your pastor will think you are making a mockery of the entire thing.

I have a lot of dog books at home, and not much else. Should I burn my dog books?

Novels about people who form emotional connections with their dogs are fucking disgusting, and the Lord will not abide. Where the Red Fern Grows? Go ahead and roast the copy you read to your kids. Your fellow burners have probably read these books too, and as such, are just as on the fence about it as you are. Remember: It's one thing to use a dog for sexual pleasure, it's an entirely different and unholy thing to write a book about it. Same goes for Shiloh, My Dog Skip, and–my personal favorite–the Lad series. Burn them all.

I really want to bring my friends to a book burning, but I'm worried that they'll think I'm crazy. What should I do?

Ask your friends if they have ever touched a hot stove, perhaps a cookie sheet fresh out of the oven, or a warm drill bit. If they say yes, ask them if they can imagine what it would be like to feel that pain for an eternity. Then tell them about the book burning and its importance to you. Remind them that good friends should be GGG–good, giving, and God-fearing.

And remember: You are crazy–crazy for the eternal truth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Setting things on fire arouses me. Should I feel bad about enjoying a book burning in a way that my fellow congregates would likely disapprove of if they knew?

Yes.

Some people in my congregation have suggested that we simply burn a Barnes and Noble bookstore to the ground. What do you think of this idea?

That is a foolish idea. It would be much wiser to find the warehouse from which Barnes and Noble ships its stock of Dan Brown books and light that place on fire.

I am functionally illiterate. Can I bring a DVD or VHS instead?

Yes, so long as it does not star Charlton Heston or Kirk Cameron.