What’s Worse Than Sock Puppet Book Reviews?

As Sam Leith points out in a short piece in the London Evening Standard, ”the Internet is a modern-day Grub Street… just look at the state of things in the 18th and 19th centuries. People routinely reviewed their friends, or even themselves, at different times in different publications under different aliases. The Times Literary Supplement only abandoned anonymity in 1974.” He continues: “But there’s no infallible way to make sock puppetry impossible, or prevent authors paying for good reviews… this is going to have to be self-policed.”