Talk:The Enemy of My Enemy (Michael book)

Comment

Should there be a link to realpolitik to explain the title? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu (talk • contribs) 15:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge to author's bio

I'm proposing that this article merge into the author's bio. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 12:46, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

• Don't merge. I would follow the approach taken in bands/albums, where if the band is notable the album deserves its own page. Here, the book page can even be augmented with the review from the main article, and I believe there may be other reviews that can be added. Also, giving the book its own page allows us to preserve the benefit of its cats, and it photo.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment: This is clearly not Wikipedia policy. Item #5 says,

"The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable."

That is clearly not the case here. The book must be considered by its own merits. In fact, I don't see how it's sufficiently notable (per WP:NB) to deserve its own article. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 04:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

The reviews reflect its notability -- and note there are other reviews, such as here, here, and here and in the Jerusalem Post.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Book reviews are obligatory gestures; they do not imply that the book being reviewed is notable. It appears the book has the best chance of satisfying criterion #3 of Wikipedia:Notability (books): "The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement." To demonstrate this, we need to cite reliable sources which have, in turn, cited this book as its "reliable source" for information on the far-right. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 05:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

That's incorrect. Read criterion 1 of wp:nb.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I didn't see "reviews". I would consider most book reviews to be "trivial". In fact, a book might be severely criticized in multiple reviews; this shouldn't make the book notable. In such a case, these "multiple reviews" imply a lack of notability. Apparently, this has been the subject of debate: Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#multiple review do not mean notability. I'm not sure where consensus is. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 06:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

JWS asked me to comment. of course book reviews count. Not only do they count, they're the usual way of establishing the notability of books. Almost by definition, they're the main form of writing about books. True, for many sort of books this makes it very easy to show them notable. But if reviews did not count, it would be very hard in most cases to show any as notable, except only the famous ones. And one of the few things generally agreed on about notability is that it is much less than famous. Like all sources, it is necessary for the reviews to be substantial reviews from reliable sources, sources that employ editorial control and discrimination. (For example, it is normally agreed that home town reviews of a book by a little known author are not discriminate, because a local newspaper will feel obliged to cover every such book regardless--those sort of reviews are indeed what JWS refers to as obligatory gestures. It's also agreed that the mere inclusion in a list of books received, or books for christmas, or the like , is not substantial.) Most published book reviews are , however, by no means trivial or obligatory. The publication I review reference books for, CHOICE, makes a considerable effort to be highly selective & is one of the sources where even a single review proves notability. And I point out that severe criticism of a book does not make it non-notable, just as with severe criticism of a film or a product. Something can be notable for being notably awful.

In this particular case, that it has reviews from sources of a high level, both academic and non-academic , which adds to the significance. Given that it is on a politically controversial topic, I'd look for more, especially ones from a different political perspective than the Weekly Standard. Usually, I list all the substantial reviews I can find. DGG ( talk ) 08:17, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! I had assumed that most any book gets a published review, so it's nothing special. But like you said, many reviews come from highly selective sources; such reviews imply notability. In this case, the reviews come from reliable (and I assume selective) academic sources, so the book is notable. Thanks again, Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 14:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Title disambiguation

The guideline about disambiguating book titles says to disambiguate article about books based on the type of literary work and only add the author's name if "further disambiguation" is needed. Currently the disambiguation page lists The Enemy of My Enemy (novel), The Enemy of My Enemy (Charlie Jade), The Enemy of My Enemy (Robin Hood), in addition to this article. Although there is a novel with the same title, there are no other non-fiction "book"s with the same title. Using "(book)" as a disambiguator implies the work is "non-fiction", and, so far, only this book is the only non-fiction book with this title, so this article doesn't need the author's name added to the disambiguating text. Additionally, because the author's first and last names are both recognizable first names in English, including the author's name in the disambiguator is confusing, as it is not very obvious one is referring to a book written by this particular author. It might be more obvious if the author had a different name. One of the sources gets around this by referring to the author in the possessive, calling it "George Michael's book", and I think this would perhaps be a better way to disambiguation, if it were needed. But, in this case I think it is unnecessary. To me, it would be better if books were disambiguated by their year of publication, as this would allow disambiguation of two distinctly different books under the same title published by the same author but published in different years. This can happen if an author revises a book to account for developments over the time between publications. These sorts of re-publications are not merely reprints of the original or simply a new edition with corrections, but are revisions of the author's thinking, too. So can be considered separate literary works. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 03:59, 12 November 2022 (UTC)