Saturday, February 04, 2006

Metacritic.com - We Deal with Criticism

Recently, I was made aware of this incredibly interesting and useful website by someone from one of my listservs. Metacritic is the Consumer Reports of the entertainment industry. It provides access to articles and critical reviews about the various forms of entertainment - film, video, music, books, games, and television. The creators of the site have developed a rating system thay call a Metascore to summarize the critical reviews of the books, movies, albums, etc. The reviews are weighted depending on the reputation of the individual critic. Here is the complete explanation of the calculation of the metascores.
"Metacritic's mission is to help you make an informed decision about how to spend your money on entertainment." I enjoy providing myself with the best possible entertainment at the lowest possible price. Of course, the library provides all these things for free.
Browse through the list of Metacritic's Best of 2005 in the book category. Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go at #18 jumped out at me; that was my personal favorite from last year. I also had to add a few more titles to my own To Read List (Turow's Ordinary Heroes, the #1 fiction title Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala, and the Orientalist by Tom Reiss.) This is one site that I will be visiting often.

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