[ojm]

Just a note that probably need not be included. Years ago, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith started reviewing books for publications such as the New York Times Book Review. Reviewers who previously had been highly critical of his work suddenly suddenly were more complementary. As Galbraith suspected, the reviewers were concerned that he might in the future be assigned to review their book, and who wants the reviewer to already be angry at the author.

Which is why I take the reviews in Amazon a lot more seriously than the reviews in the major publications. I think more often than not, you can figure out who is writing an honest unbiased intelligent review and who has some sort of preset bias towards the work.