Book review
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Redirect Template:Redirect A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit.<ref name="Princeton">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
A book review may be a primary source, an opinion piece, a summary review, or a scholarly view.<ref name="VirginiaTech">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Books can be reviewed for printed periodicals, magazines, and newspapers, as school work, or for book websites on the Internet. A book review's length may vary from a single paragraph to a substantial essay. Such a review may evaluate the book based on personal taste. Reviewers may use the occasion of a book review for an extended essay that can be closely or loosely related to the subject of the book, or to promulgate their ideas on the topic of a fiction or non-fiction work.
Some journals are devoted to book reviews, and reviews are indexed in databases such as the Book Review Index and Kirkus Reviews; but many more book reviews can be found in newspaper and scholarly databases such as Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and discipline-specific databases.
HistoryEdit
Photios I of Constantinople has been called "the inventor of the book review" for his work, Bibliotheca.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Types of reviewsEdit
Academic reviewsEdit
Academic book reviews are both a form of academic service and a contribution to the academic literature.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> They are frequently published as a section or part of academic journals.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref> They help the profession understand what has been happening in their profession, and work on the emerging intellectual challenges of their field.<ref name=":0" /> However, not all academics are incentivized to take on the work required in a book review, because they are often not rewarded for that work.<ref name=":0" /> Book reviews can be used to predict which monographs are likely to have subsequent citations.<ref name=":1" />
Newspaper and magazine reviewsEdit
Newspaper reviews became prominent in the 18h century, as a form of reader responses.<ref name="Lavin">Template:Cite journal</ref>
In academic criticism, popular book reviews in newspapers and magazine reviews are often used to evaluate the relative audience and impact of books during a period.<ref name="Lavin"/>
See alsoEdit
- Australian Book Review
- BookBrowse
- Booklist
- The Book Club Bible
- Claremont Review of Books
- Kirkus Reviews
- Library Journal
- Literary criticism
- London Review of Books
- National Book Critics Circle
- The New York Review of Books
- Publishers Weekly
- Self-Publishing Review
- Shelf Awareness
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Chen, C. C. (1976), Biomedical, Scientific and Technical Book Reviewing, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ.
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- Lindholm-Romantschuk, Y. (1998). Scholarly book reviewing in the social sciences and humanities. The flow of ideas within and among disciplines. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
- Miranda, E. O. (1996), "On book reviewing", Journal of Educational Thought, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 191–202.
- Motta-Roth, D. (1998), "Discourse analysis and academic book reviews: a study of text and disciplinary cultures", in Fortanet, I. (Ed), Genre Studies in English for Academic Purposes, Universitat Jaume, Castelló de la Plana, pp. 29–58.
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- Rampola, Mary Lynn (2010). "Critiques and book reviews", A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, Sixth Edition, pp. 26–28.
- Riley, L. E. & Spreitzer, E. A. (1970), "Book reviewing in the social sciences", The American Sociologist, Vol. 5 (November), pp. 358–363.
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- Snizek, W. E. & Fuhrman, E. R. (1979), "Some factors affecting the evaluative content of book reviews in sociology", The American Sociologist, Vol. 14 (May), pp. 108–114.
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External linksEdit
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- "Book reviews" at The Writing Center - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill