Well
confession time, I have RSS feeds to various review pages of UK and US
national papers and magazines( The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle,
The Daily Telegraph, Washington Post, London Review of Books, New York
Review of books,) I also belong to various book swap sites such as
Bookmooch, and ReaditSwapit that have book reviews in their Forums and
RSS feed them. Finally I also have RSS feeds to 50 book challenge and
email alerts from Goodreads.
So
daily scan( yes daily and several times a day...who mentioned OCD?) for
any reviews of books mostly to alert me to books that I have missed
that I would like. If it’s a fan review I quickly get a sense if I
would like the book sometimes from why they didn't like it!! Once a
book has caught my attention I will go on to Amazon, Librarything and
Goodreads to see what the community consensus is. Scanning the reviews
soon gives you an idea of how well the book matches the ambition and
skills of the writer.
Yes
what type of review tips the balance for you? It has to be said that a
lot of the fan reviews are too often the book page blurb and a
paragraph on why I like/don't like it. Even worse are the reviews on
some sites that are a list of titles and one liners why I like/don't
like it. On the other hand, too many of the professional reviews are on
the other side of the camp in that the writer shows how much they know
about the subject or theme of the book but you also struggle to know if
the book is any good.
So the ideal review for me puts the book
in to context...what genre, what traditions are they writing in, what's
interesting about the author and this book. Secondly, I like to see an
outline about the plot, characters, factual content etc so I can get a
sense of what the author is trying to do. Thirdly, in the light of the
first two factors, a review of how the author has managed to make it
work in terms of characterisations, styles, plot credibility etc
I
supposed it’s akin to a good review of say of a play by Shakespeare. I
am told what's the Director's interpretation is and the past history of
interpretations as well as what this means for the choice of set,
costume, period, casting, lighting, staging etc. And then its discussed
how successful this was and why. Here as in the book review I want to
read a critical analysis that illuminates why the play/book
works/doesn’t work.
Yes
you say but this is still only one persons view but by knowing the
assumptions and perspective of this reviewer( this one likes
experimental, cutting edge but this one low brow easy reads) you can
quickly spot if you are on the same wavelength. I also love the notion
of aggregating the responses of reviewers, I don't think we have a
booksite that is akin to the http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/site that
collates all the film reviews and gives you the reader a community
consensus. The Sunday papers sometimes do a pick of the critics which
gives you the consensus on a book, or film. In books its more likely to
be the readers rather then critics consensus that is aggregated. For
example like Goodreads and Library thing.com aggregate the ratings. As
do the Amazon sites with the possibility of manipulation (see this link
for what dirty tricks may lie behind a books rating
http://muse-books.livejournal.com/47745.html) but we don't have a poll
of the polls.
And what do you do with all these reviews you may
ask? Well I wishlist all the books that catch my eye on to my book swap
sites and then wait until they pop up free. Well that's the theory, in
practise I also buy some as well...oh and of course at some time read
them!