Harriet Klausner, an esteemed Amazon reviewer who wrote more than 31,000 book reviews, has died.
The Georgia-base reader died on Oct. 15, at the age of 63. Klausner was an acquisitions librarian in Pennsylvania where she got her start writing reviews. At one time she was ranked as the #1 reviewer on Amazon. Her approach was somewhat controversial. TeleRead has the scoop:
She never gave any book a negative review. Often, her brief review blurbs betrayed a fairly imperfect understanding of what the book was about, casting doubt on whether she actually read them. Also, the Time piece noted her prolific reviewing habits meant publishers sent her free books at a rate of 50 per week, which included advanced review copies of books not yet available for sale. A blogger at “The Harriet Klausner Appreciation Society” noted that many of these books ended up resold on Half.com via her son’s account, and wondered whether Klausner’s positive reviews of them without disclosing she received them for free might constitute fraud under FTC regulations.
Klausner wrote Amazon reviews into her final days with her last review being posted on Oct. 12.
