Books are having a moment.

There’s a massive international community of readers and writers finding connection and conversation on social media. The New York Times estimated that the #BookTok hashtag on TikTok was responsible for the sale of 20 million books in 2021 alone. The #Bookstagram hashtag on Instagram has been used more than 100 million times, and the pages of Threads and Bluesky are alive with blind items about bookish happenings. Even Baltimore had its own book festival scandal this year.

So with interest in the written word at an apparent fever pitch, it was a rude awakening last week when the Associated Press, which touts a daily reach of 4 billion people, announced the end of its regular book reviews. The deciding factor: a lack of digital engagement and the overwhelming effort and time it takes.

Professional critics and authors alike mourned the decision as the end of an era that prized expertise and skill, while others dismissed that concern as elitism at a time when opinion and influence has been democratized.

“We’re moving into a post-knowledge world, where expertise is irrelevant. ‘My opinion is at least as good as your knowledge’ has become the attitude,” said Scott Eyman, film historian, author of several nonfiction books on Hollywood history and the former books editor and arts critic for The Palm Beach Post, for which I once reviewed both movies and music.

To me, a well-written review is defined by nuance and context, whether it’s done by a paid professional or by an amateur TikTokker. I have read and watched a lot of social media criticism with depth, and a lot that’s more “Go girl! I like this cover!” There’s room for both.

“It’s not about handing down a verdict and saying, ‘Discussion over.’ It’s not saying, ‘I liked it,’ or, ‘I didn’t like it,’” said journalist and author Mark Harris, formerly a columnist and executive of Entertainment Weekly, once my go-to read as a lover of the arts who also writes about them.

“That’s just an opinion. Anyone can do that. I think good criticism opens the door to a piece of art and invites you to walk through and experience that with the person writing the criticism,” he said. “I feel like we’ve been seeing for a while now how critical writing in newspapers and magazines have suffered death by a thousand cuts.”

Harris, myself and Eyman have, as the latter put it, “a foot in both camps,” having had experience as journalists and as authors whose work has been critiqued. Eyman experienced the power of an AP review with his 2020 book, “Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise.” He was unable to promote the book on tour because of the pandemic, but “the AP ran a rave review. I wasn’t traveling or getting on an airplane, so I know it sold a lot of copies. The AP’s reach, even in 2020, was extraordinary.”

So what’s the big deal with the AP? For one, Harris notes, those reviews were made available to readers whose papers don’t have in-house critics. But he and Eyman think this decision is part of a larger societal move away from professional criticism in general.

The New York Times recently announced the reassigning of four of their cultural critics in an effort “to bring different perspectives to core disciplines as we help our coverage expand beyond the traditional review.” On Bluesky, Time magazine film critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote that the move by the New York Times and other publications making similar changes was “part of a larger pattern of a war against the tradition of arts & letters, and against expertise in general.”

When Harris posted his concern about the AP’s decision on Bluesky, he was called “incredibly arrogant.”

“It is not gatekeeping to value some opinions more than others,” he told me. “Some opinions are more valuable,” based on things like “expertise, perspective, writing skill, analytical skill and style.”

I agree that I’m more likely to listen to the recommendations of a reviewer whose experience I trust — who has the ability to put a book, movie, show or play in a cultural context with more than just their personal likes and dislikes.

Still, I have experienced gatekeeping as a critic, not because of what I did or didn’t know — and I know a lot — but because it was assumed my knowledge was inadequate.

A college professor once said he’d never heard of a Black female film critic, so I couldn’t be one. Once I was a critic, some readers literally wrote demanding my credentials because, as one guy said, “I saw your picture and thought ‘What could she know about rock music?’” My editor made me delete the initial email I was about to send back to said reader.

There should absolutely be newer, diverse writers, schooled in every imaginable discipline, especially those that didn’t exist a decade ago and in which they are uniquely skilled. But it can’t just be an echo chamber of fan discussions whose worth is determined by the number of clicks.

“What clicks don’t measure is intent, story or devotion of feeling. They don’t measure how important a particular thing is for the reader,” Harris said.

Eyman did a lot of promotion, including about 40 podcasts, for 2023’s “Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex and Politics Collided.” But unlike the AP, whose reach is wide and certain, he didn’t know who was tuning in to hear him talk.

“I don’t know if anyone sees the podcasts,” he said. “There’s no way to ascertain whether I’m wasting my time or not. What scares me is that I don’t know what they’re [news outlets] looking for. They’re throwing things against the wall, hoping that something sticks.”

The popularity of books isn’t going anywhere, even if some forms of traditional criticism are. Harris said just having this discussion about the AP’s changes is positive.

“That this got all this reaction really did startle me and make me happy, to think this many people engage about book reviews,” he said. ”That’s something good.”