Consequently, space in the magazine is very tight. There are many books every month that we cannot possibly hope to review. This is particularly so now that the magazine is only 48 pages. On average we review about twelve non-fiction titles per month, together with about seven fiction titles, about five poetry, and about four children’s titles. It’s not a lot out of some 700 books per issue being published in the country.

Once the books have arrived from the publisher, I sort through them to try to arrive at the most important titles for the month, keeping in mind the different areas the magazine has to cover each issue. The process of sorting is time-consuming, a matter of weighing up one book against another, fully aware that the ones that miss out won't be reviewed at all. It is a difficult process because there are many worthy books that ideally would be reviewed – if space permitted. The only secondary option for those that miss out in the first round is the section of the magazine called ‘Shorts’. There the books only receive 200-word reviews, more like short notices, but at least the section represents a way of covering a few more of the 700 books on offer for that month.

The selection process has to address the question of a range of material, particularly when it comes to non-fiction, which includes areas as diverse as politics, biography, Aboriginal studies, cultural studies, art, feminism, history, and so on. It is important to cover as much terrain as possible in the books chosen for review.

Once the titles have been selected, it is a matter of my planning the reviewers to actually review the books, a process that often runs concurrently to the task of selecting the books themselves. I have a list of possible reviewers (plus a long waiting list of those who would like to review for the magazine) and I usually scan that list repeatedly, looking for inspiration with a particular book. I try to include a range of interstate reviewers, because ABR is a national magazine, even though it emerges from Melbourne. I also try to include some new reviewers, to give them some experience, because it seems to me that one of my functions is to help nurture a new generation of reviewers.

Once the reviewers are chosen, I ring each one to ensure that they are willing and available to review the book by the deadline for the next issue. Once that is agreed, I post the books to the reviewers and await the review. When the review arrives, it is simply a matter of doing the layout for the next issue.

It’s a simple process, but it can be dangerous, if I get carried away with the number of good books that have appeared in any one month. As happened to me over the last two months. In an effort to cover more and more of the titles received, I have commissioned too many reviews and so have to hold reviews over to next month. Soon I will be carrying enough extra reviews for a whole issue, which means it will be even harder to cope with the new books as they arrive. I take this opportunity to apologise to the reviewers whose work has been held over. I just have to be more ruthless about what it reviewed.