If you have heard this program a few times you may have realized I don't review books here. I lavish praise on books I enjoyed and don't even mention ones I didn't like very much. No formal reviews, no rules.

Maybe that's why I enjoyed reading the results of a recent survey of book critics who are members of the National Book Critics Circle.

The particular question that caught my attention asks, "Is it ever ethical to review a book without reading the entire book?" The answer was a resounding NO. Three-quarters of the surveyed critics said read it or forget it. Only eight in a hundred said it would be OK to skip parts.

I would admit, if asked, that I have skipped parts of books featured here. Of course, I believe this is not necessarily a bad thing -- skimming is exactly how many people read books. We skip things that are boring, or abstruse, irrelevant, or badly written.

Yet I've never faked it. When I talk about a non-fiction book I know it well, even if I didn't read some pages here and there. Novels? I read every word, the back cover, the author's note, the dedication, the afterword, the typeface description, the publisher ad for forthcoming titles, the blurbs on the back. And I study the author's photo for further clues.

My kind of convenient (some might call it lazy) non-fiction page skimming is officially frowned on by the paid reviewing community. I know this because for the first time in their 34-year history, the NBCC publicly posted internal survey results.

The comments on this particular question were fascinating. "Is it ever ethical to review a book without reading the entire thing?"

"Rare but theoretically possible. A new dictionary, say," one critic wrote.

"Yes, if the reviewer says he/she did not finish the book and why (it may have been deadly dull)." Another person said skipping is permissible "Only when the book is SO bad one can't finish it."

Another comment I could have written: "Yes, provided it is a book of essays, short stories, or the like, and the reviewer has read enough to constitute a fair sampling."

Here, in the woodsy offices of Words on Books, it's not like there's an editor who assigns me books to review, let alone pays for the resulting essay. The program is my thing and I do as I like, Program Director and Program Advisory Council permitting, of course.

Paid reviewers sometimes face the question of how to deal with embargoed titles, which are potentially high-impact books few are allowed to see in advance of publication. When there's a new Harry Potter novel, for example, or an especially hot political or celebrity title, the publisher basically builds a wall around it.

Booksellers hear about these books many months in advance, but often are told something like "It's a non-fiction hard cover by a famous author." The bookseller signs up for X number of copies in advance and prays it's worthy.

Book reviews in newspapers and magazines, however, must appear close to publication day. While these critics may be authorized to unpack an embargoed book before anyone else, it often is only a day or two in advance. Thus this comment from a frustrated reviewer:

"Occasionally, I've had to do a 'crash' review on some embargoed book -- to read and review the thing in 48 or even 24 hours. Anyone who thinks about it for half a second realizes that 'reading the entire book' in this case really means 'scanning it,' like you would when cramming for a test. I have never hailed a book I hadn't read in its entirety. I have condemned books whose every word I didn't read because by the time I quit, there was nothing the author could do to redeem it."

It's more relaxed than that around here, and that's the way we like it.

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