tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post4575000560381883355..comments2024-03-11T16:29:13.619-05:00Comments on Lingwë - Musings of a Fish: How to review booksJason Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-54875122435780280842012-11-14T03:49:17.575-06:002012-11-14T03:49:17.575-06:00Book reviews, and opinions on them can be extremel...Book reviews, and opinions on them can be extremely subjective. I've read many books on Tolkien that I considered to be an endless trot of the blatantly obvious, or a re-hashing of what has been said at least a dozen times before. However, the reviewers relished and praised these books from the rooftops. I've also read books that raised some thought-provoking and fundamental aspects and insights that I hadn't been aware of previously, but where the authors may have slipped a little on the facts (but not in a way that would invalidate the argument being made) or generally droned along in boring and unimaginative prose. The reviewers ripped them apart for that while totally missing if not ignoring the real gems that made these contributions valuable. So sometimes reviews can tell us as much about the reviewer as about the book. I know reviewing is not an easy task and of the few reviews I myself have written I am not one bit proud. A review is only as valuable as one's preparedness to trust the reviewer, so I tend to lend the most credence to those reviewers whose previous opinions tend to overlap with my own. But is this attitude not one that can ultimately lead my cart into the deepest rut? Sometimes it is necessary to ignore the reviewers and try different stuff out anyway, in spite of whast others say.Andy Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01942445460732496214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-27862119239242319862012-11-06T12:23:54.283-06:002012-11-06T12:23:54.283-06:00Thank you very much, Saranna! I know what you mean...Thank you very much, Saranna! I know what you mean about some book reviews being so good you almost feel you’ve read the book. Another experience I’ve had is reading a review that really excites me about reading the book <i>being</i> reviewed, only to find that a lot of the best ideas in the review were the <i>reviewer’s</i>, and not from the book at all. This happens with Tom Shippey’s reviews all the time! And these, come to think of it, are frequently in the TLS. :)Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-69033903279723304172012-11-05T10:25:00.022-06:002012-11-05T10:25:00.022-06:00Excellent summary Jason, leading me to blush rathe...Excellent summary Jason, leading me to blush rather at some reviews I have perpetrated in the past..... I can see why Cat wants to use it as a teaching guide. Since retiring I have been taking the TLS each week, and reading it, reading every review even in subjects that are not familiar to me. The very best reviews therein do follow your outline more or less exactly, and certainly all of them focus on the work, not on the opinions/feelings of the reviewer. I often joke that many TLS reviews are so good that you don't need to read the book as well - certainly I feel they keep me in touch with the vast multiplicity of 'stuff out there I am never going to have time to read', as well as leading me to things I must (a) buy) or (b) get hold of to read.Sarannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10875490083776087957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-75683881280904610712012-11-01T15:33:08.498-05:002012-11-01T15:33:08.498-05:00Cat, yes, of course, please share! :)Cat, yes, of course, please share! :)Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-68109609958451660042012-10-24T09:07:09.200-05:002012-10-24T09:07:09.200-05:00Fabulous explanation, Jase! May I share it with my...Fabulous explanation, Jase! May I share it with my students?<br /><br />I always enjoy your book reviews because they are so thorough. The few reviews I've written on Amazon and Good Reads are very concise because I don't repeat the publisher info and other reviews. Since I only review books I like, they are not as vicious as Poe's. :)The Cat Bastethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08766507614966971022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-19858892864672175412012-10-23T22:13:14.616-05:002012-10-23T22:13:14.616-05:00What Troels mentioned in his comment I would like ...What Troels mentioned in his comment I would like to stress as well - the percentages given should be adjustable if the book in question has to be put into a larger perspective. <br /><br />If you review a piece of fiction, for example, it might not be wise to give away too much of the story and rather compare it to other books of the genre in question so the reader would have a "check list" of things he/she would appreciate in any given book; with a review of secondary literature in a highly technical field you'd expect your audience to be extremely knowledgeable without you having to tell them what is going in - let's just dice and slice 'em if you don't like 'em.<br /><br />Just today I stumbled over a guy's page who has reviewed every single chapter of "The Lord of the Rings" in the course of about 18 months, writing more than 100,000 words about it. That would definitely be going too far in my opinion ... ;)Marcel R. Bülleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09537495830521624652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-70734952930343509582012-10-23T19:14:31.819-05:002012-10-23T19:14:31.819-05:00Interesting thoughts. I'd only add that I thin...Interesting thoughts. I'd only add that I think there is room for book reviews to serve as the place to development the reviewer's own arguments - _if_ these have a direct relevance to the contents of the book. Some of the most useful book reviews I've read have had sections of this nature, basically working from a detailed response to the book's contents.<br /><br />Also, I would actually emphasize error correction a lot more. The odd typo here and there isn't a big deal, but when quotes, cited forms, or relevant facts are in error, it's only helpful to have these corrected. If, for instance, a book gets updated for a new edition, this can be very useful.<br /><br />This has to have limits, of course. Even listing straightforward errors of fact for, say, Mark Hooker's <i>Tolkien and Welsh</i> would take up a very significant amount of space in a review, and give entirely the wrong impression about the book: it might have an obvious error every other page, but it's nonetheless a stimulating and worthwhile read.<br /><br />I should maybe add that most of the book reviews I read are in linguistics more than Tolkien, and that might skew my perspective on them a little. Especially on the usefulness of correcting errors - ghost-forms have always been a problem, and reviews are one of the more useful tools in stopping their proliferation.Nelsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08765254563756137957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-22490513276391901092012-10-23T14:44:24.357-05:002012-10-23T14:44:24.357-05:00I wish the fellow who reviewed my book in Mythlore...I wish the fellow who reviewed my book in Mythlore had had the benefit of this excellent advice! <br /><br />Oh wait. ;-)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15279917064560243314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-89655089830371315472012-10-23T11:31:57.261-05:002012-10-23T11:31:57.261-05:00Thank you for your thoughts, Troels. Very good poi...Thank you for your thoughts, Troels. Very good points, all of them. For what it's worth:<br /><br /><i>In many cases we will know what the author intends the book to be (because the author has put that in the book or has said so elsewhere), and I think this is usually worth covering</i><br /><br />I agree, and this is part of what I call describing what a book <i>should</i> have been (as opposed to what it <i>might</i> have been). So in my mind, the proportional chart already accounts for this, and allows a decent-sized chunk. The difference between <i>should</i> and <i>might</i> may seem subtle, but if the author of a book states an intention and then fails to meet his own goal, well, then the book certainly <i>should</i> have met it. Or else the goal was poorly stated, which is equally worth comment.Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-21869989141260816822012-10-23T02:17:02.902-05:002012-10-23T02:17:02.902-05:00I'm a frequent user of book reviews; buying my...I'm a frequent user of book reviews; buying my Tolkien books on a budget enforces the use of methods to choose where to spend my money (unless the budget is several times larger than mine) and reviews represent for me the best method for that. With that in mind, I agree entirely with your description of the purpose of reviews, and also that the focus should be on what the book actually is. <br /><br />With respect to bad books, I am grateful that there are those who will review even those and say what needs to be said, though I appreciate your position, and I also do hope that I will avoid such a situation myself. It is easier to have to point out a few weak contributions in a collection, or a weak chapter in a book, than having to through a whole book you dislike. <br /><br />You do, of course, say that your numbers are flexible, but I think I should prefer to stress this a bit more. <br /><br />The nature of the book to be reviewed, what the book purports to be relative to what it is, the nature of the medium in which the review is to appear, the audience of the review, any special circumstances of the review (e.g. what might appear as oddities in the choice of reviewer), all of these contribute to make the picture a bit more complex. <br /><br />In many cases we will know what the author intends the book to be (because the author has put that in the book or has said so elsewhere), and I think this is usually worth covering: in particular if there is a disparity between intention and reality (as perceived by the reviewer). We might throw in a small slice for that and shrink the rest of the pie proportionally. <br /><br />Apart from that, I will happily agree with your distribution of focus as a rough guideline for a large majority of reviews (and though I haven't so many reviews to my name yet, I hope that I do not stray too far from this).Troelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07515711722551393026noreply@blogger.com