Glenn Fleishman writes that the real issue is review copies and uncorrected page proofs.

Well, who's responsible for tossing those out and around so freely? The publishers. Why blame the book-reviewers for selling off these books? They're shipped out in huge quantities that nobody could possibly afford to keep, and sent in complete lack of consideration of whether the reviewer is actually interested in them.

TAG's beef should be with the publishers, who increase costs and possibly diminish sales by being so free with review copies. (If they were more discriminating with these copies, a few lesser reviews might not get written, but the number of paid sales lost thereby could well be less than the number of people, cut off the freebie list, who might buy the book.)

And who's responsible for making uncorrected proofs a reasonable substitute for the finished book? The publisher. I remember when uncorrected proofs came in loose galleys. Then they were bound in plain ugly construction paper. Now many of them look more like a published trade paperback than anything else.

But how many review copies are there for sale used, anyway? The Strand in NYC is notoriously full of them. I've been there, and I know. I've never seen another book store with even a tenth as many new review copies, not even in London. (And if you have, let me know: I'd like to shop there. Don't blame me: blame the publishers.)