In his column (TKP, January 18), Pratyoush Onta argued that as long as media houses do not publish book-reviews by regularly setting aside certain number of pages, they are not pro-actively promoting books, and, by extension, "a culture of reading". True-sounding though this line of thought seems, in the interest of fostering a debate, one can make at least three arguments against it. First, such a line of thought narrowly assumes that only "good-length book reviews" promote books, and that anything else — profiles, interviews and even photographs of authors and short introductory blurbs about the books in the papers — does not count at all. This is why, Onta felt justified in taking some editors to task even when some of those harried professionals, by Onta’s own admission, have indeed been publishing occasional reviews, and carrying regular news and articles about books and authors. Second, such reasoning assumes that book-reviews are for all readers. They are not. By its nature, reading serious, intellectually engaging and polemically provocative reviews - the kind, it’s safe to think, Onta wants editors to publish more of a culturally elite avocation. Against this backdrop, I’d argue that our commercial newspapers, buffeted as they are by the forces of the market, know this fact well, and, this is why when they carry a regular page for serious reviews, it’s to enhance their own image — akin to, say, Toyota’s enhancing its image by sponsoring a traffic island garden in Babar Mahal. Third, such a conclusion assumes that book-reviews are necessarily fun to read. They are not. Often, my experience as a reader is that most reviews, in both Nepali and English languages, of Nepal-related books in our daily newspapers are dull, pretentious, badly written and just plain boring. In fact, reading a few of these reviews, one gets the impression of ostensibly learned people playing the role an evil school-master — pulling at your ears, hitting you on the head, slapping you on your cheeks and basically forcing you to read because, well, like cod-liver oil, reading reviews is supposed to be good for you. In light of this joyless process, is it any wonder that readers throw up their hands and end up demanding that editors serve news about "the kind and price of wigs worn by some of our most famous silver-screen actors"? Finally, away from reading and writing reviews, there is a time-proven method for promoting books. It’s a method that has promoted books ranging from that of Socrates to Salman Rushdie’s, and from Dor Bahadur Bista’s to Shova Bhattarai’s. It’s called courting controversies.