The seven deadlies

This list of The Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing is at least one word short. “Luminous” in a review is a never-fail warning that the author spends so much energy crafting nice sentences that such niceties as story, plot and characterization fall by the wayside. I’m glad to see “resonant” made it into the comments — it’s a fine word for bell-making, but in criticism it’s the equivalent of a black-velvet painting. (Bird-dogged by Jeff.)