Book Review

Definition: A book review is your opinion about a piece of writing supported by facts and incidents from the book you are reviewing. The purpose is to let the reader know whether it is useful to read the book you are reviewing.

Start: At the beginning of your review give the title, author, publisher, date of publication, number of pages, cost (if known), ISBN number.

Non-fiction:

Non-fiction includes critical writings, collections of essays, histories, textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, scientific works, political analyses, and other types of specialist writing. For the purposes of Communicative Writing, you may also review an article written for an academic journal.

Non-fiction reviews usually have two main parts:

• a summary of the contents of the book and
• a commentary evaluating the book.

In addition to summarizing and commenting on a book, a good review introduces the reader to the field of study by comparing the work under review with other works on the same topic. This presumes you have some expertise in the field; however, in the case of books written as an introduction to the field, you should be able to write a good review even if you are unfamiliar with the topic.

Thesis: What is the writer's thesis and is it developed sufficiently in the book? Tell your reader what ideas the writer talks about in the book. What is the purpose of the writer in writing the book? Say if the book succeeded in its purpose, i.e., did it inform you? convince you? change your way of thinking?

Organization: Is the book well indexed? Does it have a clear table of contents? Does the writer introduce his/her ideas clearly? Do the chapters have a logical progression throughout the book? Does it include a complete, up-to-date bibliography?

Audience: For whom is the book written? general readers or those with a specialist background in the topic? How much background knowledge of the topic is required to understand the book?

Difficulty: Is the level of difficulty suited to the intended audience?

Timeliness: Is the topic of the work timely? What was the date of the latest revision? Does the author take into account the most recent developments or discoveries in the field?

Final Evaluation:

You may criticize a non-fiction book for:

• including off-topic material
• failing to include important material
• not dealing with other arguments or opinions
• unconvincing arguments
• unclear writing
• poor organization.

Fiction:

a. Discuss the plot of the book and perhaps some of the main characters.

b. Give enough of the plot so that your readers will know if they want to read the book themselves. Don't give the climax of the story away, though, especially in a murder mystery.

c. Did the book succeed in entertaining you?

d. You may criticize a fiction book for:

• boring you
• having a transparent plot
• having an unbelievable ending
• having unbelievable characters
• having poor dialogue

A Book Report versus A Book Review

Don't confuse a book report and a book review. A book report summarizes the contents of a book; however, when you review a book you are giving your opinion about it. For that reason you should:

a. criticize what you do not like and say why you don't like it.

b. criticize what you think does not work and say why it doesn't work.

c. praise what you like and say why you like it.

d. praise what you think works and say why it works.

Finally, will your review convince someone to buy or not buy; read or not read the book you have reviewed? Remember, whenever you praise or criticize a work, you can be criticized yourself if you failed to understand the book.

Use these ideas as guidelines when writing a review, but remember to write in complete sentences and paragraphs.

Example Reviews and an Opportunity to get Published

• Amazon.com the American on-line store, publishes reviews of books they sell.
• Readers can submit reviews and give the book a rating of one to five stars.
• Try to find the book you wish to review and see what others have said about it. (However, if you are reviewing a book written in Japanese that has not been translated into English, you won't find it.)
• After you write your review, submit it to Amazon for display on their site.

References:

Harry Teitelbaum How to Write Book Reports. New York: Macmillan, 1995.