M.A.Orthofer at the Literary Saloon notes that the New York Times has consolidated all of its book review coverage — in the daily paper and in the The New York Times Book Review — under the purview of Pamela Paul. It's perhaps easy to bemoan every new change in the world of journalism as a mistake, but, uh, I think this is a mistake.

One of the consistent pleasures of reading the New York Times was finding book reviews in the paper that disagreed with book reviews in the Book Review. I used to love those intercenine moments when the institution disagreed with itself; to me, they highlighted one of the most important parts of reviewing: the fact that every review is subjective, and that it's possible for even employees of a single august institution to have differing opinions on a work of art. Now that the book reviews are all under one set of watchful eyes, I bet those moments of dissonance will never happen again, which is a real pity.