BookBrunch - Does book reviewing have a future?

Assuming readers still need the information supplied in good, sound book reviews, who then should be writing them - other writers and book trade professionals, or anyone blogging on the internet? Freelance writers paid by literary journals, or self-publishers' friends and relatives? The fact is that all these people weigh in with views on books, and as long as we retain the concept of free speech, they always will. As with any area of professional and creative activity however, it is good for the book review industry to examine its practices. In June 2013, Clive James did that in the New York Times, regretting the excessive good manners among American book reviewers (clearly the other type of American goes into politics). Lee Siegel replied in the New Yorker that the "hatchet job" no longer had a place. This type of review, he said, became less fashionable, and less damaging, when reviewing migrated over time from high-brow to middle-brow journals. Now "reading and writing" themselves were in jeopardy, and "the book review is dead".