How to Review a Book Responsibly

www.ExactingEditor.com/Review3D.html

How To Review a Book Responsibly

Before the World Wide Web ensnared us, were you short of worthwhile things to read? I wasn’t. Is your attention span longer or shorter than it was 10 years ago? Sorry to hear that. And what are you doing, this year, when it comes to the choice of serious books versus scrolling web pages? Unless you became a speed-reader, that is a repeating tradeoff.

It’s also the only one of those opening questions with a non-depressing answer. Given the attention-splintering essence of screen media, it strikes me as counterintuitive, but: The Internet seems to have been good for total book sales.

One development I especially applaud is the ability to do three-dimensional book reviews. No, not the pseudo-reviews one finds on amazon.com (a third of which are by friends and relatives, and sometimes staff, of the author). I mean reviews that make room for the author, the reader, and the reviewer. The web allows this kind of three-dimensional format, and this essay details the how and why.

Obligations of the Book Reviewer

The reviewer should be fair to the person who wrote the book – hmmmm, does that strike you as a controversial stance? -- plus explain the book to a potential reader in ways that go beyond paraphrasing and offering dissents.

I grew up reading book reviews in The New Republic, some of which ran to 3,000 words. Serious bibliophiles still want that kind of exhaustive (not the same thing as exhausting) analysis. A review does not have to be 3,000 words to cover all the bases I recommend; but the longer it is, the better chance it has of doing so.

Now, can you get away with that kind of thing on the web? Only if you don’t make it your opening act. You have to satisfy the webbified audience first; without violating substance, you have to meet the serious book purchaser of today on “form."

Leading with a long essay is guaranteed to lose half the over-45 group and over nine-tenths of the Gen-Xers and millennials. They want the highlights (and maybe a few lowlights). The best way to deliver them is a “book review in brief," where you, the reviewer, answer some core questions tersely. Such as:

Who should read this book? Types of people, holding what jobs, theorizer or executive, how old are they, and so on -- just be specific. Also, who shouldn’t waste their energy on it? (Save someone the 26 bucks.) Who are the book's authors, and how did they get here? What's their core message? What were they trying to say? Should we take the author or authors seriously, even if disagreeing with this book's message? Does another book do the same job better? Does the research seem solid enough? And what about the prose style? Clear? Average? Muddy?

Only then can you serve up an essay – the place where you get to say anything you want. (Well, not anything – more on the need for self-restraint in a minute.) I mean you get to critique the book. You, your views, your dissents or huzzahs. Pick tactical fights, turn the floodlight on the best chapter, etc. This form goes back at least a hundred years.

What else? Create a third section, one where your role is minimal. All you need to do here is run the stage-lighting competently, and let both the author and reader become the beneficiaries. What do I mean? Pick the best six, eight or dozen passages from the book – the ones that convey the core message and also show writing style – and reproduce them.

Doing so is fair to author, and extremely enlightening to the reader you are in part representing. By contrast, I see book reviews all the time that lack even one quote from the book. Big mistake. Tell me -- the reader of the review and potential purchaser of the book -- how well the author can use the language; that’s a separate evaluation from the depth of the research, etc.

In fact don’t just say XYZ book is “well-written," show me how it’s written. Not with garden-variety samples either, but with extracts that convey the distilled essence of the book we are both looking at.

The Six Basics of a Good Review

Whether you like my three-dimensional format or not, I urge you to consider the following guidelines for a responsible book review. Like most everything else on this “Exacting Editor" site, I refer to works of non-fiction. And you can meet these standards whether your word-count is 300 or 3,000, and whether on hard copy or web.

ONE, describe the author’s purpose. Find the passage that explains it best and quote that passage.

TWO, stick with that purpose. Use it as one of your measuring rods. If you think the author failed to carry out his or her purpose, say that. Being critical is justified as long as you use the author’s own declared standard.

THREE, if you think the author should have written a different book, well – come on, that’s not a review, that’s retroactive micromanagement! Some reviewers even use a review to lay out the book they wish they had written. Bad show. Instead, toward the review’s end, confine yourself to making a suggestion for that author’s next book: “Now I’d like to see her tackle…"

FOUR, what if the author never stated a purpose? (That can happen when a hyper-intuitive cranks out a book: He or she knew the objective so well it didn’t need to be shared with us.) Or, what if the author has a hidden agenda, diverging sharply from the book’s stated purpose?

In either case you, as the reviewer, should step up to the plate: Do some inferring, some deducing. If the motivation is palpably malign, put on your private investigator’s hat. “A reasonable person could conclude that the author is really…" People produce books to grind hidden psychological axes all the time. Sometimes they don’t even know what is driving them. If you do, spill the beans (but don’t get sued).

FIVE – and entirely apart from the purpose – is this book a “quality product"? Did you catch more than three typos? How about factual errors? Mention those in the review. If the author (or the publisher) is sloppy, I’d like to know. All potential buyers of that book deserve to know.

SIX, state the number of pages, list price, the year it came out, and the ISBN number (unless your editor is somehow against including this info). If something is outstanding about the bibliography or other source-listing, a word on that realm will be appreciated by those of us in the hard core.

Finally, a point about the process, as opposed to creating a responsible review: Never review a book that the author, editor or magazine publisher did not give you free of charge, or reimburse you for. The Internet has changed a lot of things in information-management, but one rule endures: Anyone who’s decent enough to produce a review for no pay shouldn’t have had to buy the book as well. You can quote me on that.