good counsel

The reviewer stated, “No excerpt from this book could do it justice.” This is like the defense lawyer who, being worried about self-incrimination, doesn’t want her/his defendant to take the stand.

review work

It’s harder to review a book of poems than to write one.

eat it or read it

From the book review of SUPER-INFINITE: The Transformations of John Donne, by Katherine Rundell:

Rundell’s own style can dazzle, though at times the wit feels a bit strained, as when she describes Donne’s unreadable tract “Pseudo-Martyr” as “so dense it would be swifter to eat it than to read it."

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I can think of a poem or two that one might say was "so dense it would be swifter to eat it than to read it."

book bludgeon

A critic who likes to remind the reader how much better the old books are than the new ones.