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Maureen Corrigan

Book Critic, Fresh Air

Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.

Corrigan served as a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her book So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures was published by Little, Brown in September 2014. Corrigan is represented by Trinity Ray at The Tuesday Lecture Agency: [email protected]

Corrigan's literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading! was published in 2005. Corrigan is also a reviewer and columnist for The Washington Post 's Book World. In addition to serving on the advisory panel of The American Heritage Dictionary, she has chaired the Mystery and Suspense judges' panel of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

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Wednesday August 21, 2024

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Book Reviews

Frazier's 'paradise bronx' makes you want to linger in nyc's 'drive-through borough'.

August 21, 2024 • Ian Frazier’s signature voice — droll, ruminative, generous — draws readers in. But his underlying subject here is even bigger than the Bronx: It’s the way the past “bleeds through” the present.

Monday August 19, 2024

A Wilder Shore Penguin Random House hide caption

'A Wilder Shore' charts the course of a famous bohemian marriage

August 19, 2024 • Camille Peri's lively and substantive dual biography of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson offers a glimpse of their unconventional marriage — and an inspiration for living fearlessly.

Wednesday July 24, 2024

Someone Like Us Penguin Random House hide caption

'Someone Like Us' is a fresh, idiosyncratic novel about immigrating to the U.S.

July 24, 2024 • Dinaw Mengestu's ingenuity and eloquence as a writer are on display in this novel about an Ethiopian American man who returns home only to learn that his father has just died.

Tuesday July 16, 2024

This absorbing debut novel about writing takes its cue from 'Mrs. Dalloway'

July 16, 2024 • Rosalind Brown's debut novel, Practice , centers on an undergraduate student trying to write an essay on Shakespeare. Along the way, we are treated to the fleeting insights of the the brain at work.

Tuesday June 25, 2024

Maureen Corrigan picks four crime and suspense novels for the summer. NPR hide caption

4 crime and suspense novels make for hot summer reading

June 25, 2024 • There’s something about the shadowy moral recesses of crime and suspense fiction that makes those genres especially appealing as temperatures soar. Here are four novels that turn the heat up.

Thursday June 20, 2024

When Women Ran Fifth Avenue Doubleday hide caption

2 books offer just the right summer mix of humor and nostalgia

June 20, 2024 • Catherine Newman's novel Sandwich centers on a woman vacationing with her young adult children and her elderly parents. Julie Satow’s When Women Ran Fifth Avenue profiles three NYC department stores.

Monday June 10, 2024

An arresting memoir of 'consent' asks: does a marriage's end excuse its beginning.

June 10, 2024 • Jill Ciment was 17 in 1970 when she got involved with the 47-year-old teacher who would become her husband. Now widowed, she reconsiders the relationship — and its "poisonous" beginnings.

Monday May 13, 2024

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Claire Messud's sweeping novel borrows from her own 'Strange Eventful History'

May 13, 2024 • Messud draws from her grandfather's handwritten memoir as she tells a cosmopolitan, multigenerational story about a family forced to move from Algeria to Europe to South and North America.

Thursday May 9, 2024

Silence and secrets permeate an immigrant enclave in colm tóibín's 'long island'.

May 9, 2024 • Tóibín's latest, a sequel to his 2009 novel, Brooklyn , is a devastating portrait of an Irish immigrant whose Italian American husband is expecting a baby with another woman.

Thursday April 25, 2024

A new collection of Emily Dickinson's letters has been published by Harvard's Belknap Press, edited by Dickinson scholars Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell. Three Lions/Getty Images hide caption

This collection may be the closest we'll ever come to a Dickinson autobiography

April 25, 2024 • The Letters of Emily Dickinson collects 1,304 letters, starting with one she wrote at age 11. Her singular voice comes into its own in the letters of the 1860s, which often blur into poems.

Tuesday April 9, 2024

Contrarian lionel shriver deftly satirizes anti-intellectualism in 'mania'.

April 9, 2024 • Shriver's new novel is one of her best. It takes place in an alternative America, where the last acceptable bias — discrimination against people considered not so smart — is being stamped out.

Tuesday March 19, 2024

'James' reimagines Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' with mordant humor, and horror

March 19, 2024 • Percival Everett's retelling of Mark Twain's 1885 classic focuses on Huck's enslaved companion. James is a tale so inspired, you won't be able to imagine reading the original without it.

Wednesday March 13, 2024

Big-box store workers find themselves shut out of the American Dream in 'Help Wanted'

March 13, 2024 • Adelle Waldman's novel is a workplace ensemble set in a Costco-like store. But, because Help Wanted is a group portrait, it tends to visit, rather than settle in with, its working class characters.

Tuesday March 5, 2024

'grief is for people' is an idiosyncratic reflection on friendship and loss.

March 5, 2024 • Sloane Crosley's memoir about a friend who died by suicide takes the form of a "traditional" elegy, but there's nothing traditional about Crosley's arresting observations on being engulfed by grief.

Monday March 4, 2024

Founded in 1955, the Village Voice stopped publishing print editions in in 2017. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

This oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness

March 4, 2024 • Tricia Romano's The Freaks Came Out To Write chronicles the passion and talent that made a great American newspaper — and the forces that killed it.

Monday February 19, 2024

You'll savor the off-beat mysteries served up by 'The Kamogawa Food Detectives'

February 19, 2024 • Hisashi Kashiwai's charming novel centers on a diner where carefully reconstructed meals help unlock mysteries of memory and regret.

Thursday February 15, 2024

In 'cahokia jazz,' alternate history mashes up with hardboiled noir.

February 15, 2024 • Francis Spufford's novel imagines a 1920s city in which Native Americans still hold territory and political power, and the "color line" doesn't exist — until a grisly murder disrupts everything.

Wednesday January 24, 2024

A would-be 'martyr' searches for meaning in this wry debut novel.

January 24, 2024 • Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! is very much its own creation, but you might think of it as an Iranian American spin on John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces — wedded to Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch.

Wednesday January 17, 2024

'You Only Call When You're in Trouble' is a witty novel to get you through the winter

January 17, 2024 • Stephen McCauley's comic novel offers readers the gift of laughter as well as a more expansive image of what family can be. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says it was a perfect January read.

Monday January 1, 2024

'prophet song' is a beautifully-written, slow descent into fascism.

January 1, 2024 • Most of the characters in Paul Lynch's Booker Prize-winning novel don't want to believe that tyranny is taking shape before their eyes, even as power is cut off and democratic freedoms evaporate.

Wednesday December 6, 2023

In a year of book bans, Maureen Corrigan's top 10 affirm the joy of reading widely

December 6, 2023 • Fresh Air 's book critic says 2023 was an outstanding year for reading. Corrigan shares 10 of her favorite titles – a wide-ranging list of fiction and nonfiction.

Thursday November 30, 2023

A theater critic and a hotel maid are on the case in 2 captivating mystery novels

November 30, 2023 • A critic becomes an amateur detective in order to avoid becoming a murder suspect in Alexis Soloski's Here in the Dark. In The Mystery Guest, by Nita Prose, a hotel's maid has to clean up a real mess.

Monday November 13, 2023

Claire Keegan's 'stories of women and men' explore what goes wrong between them

November 13, 2023 • Book critic Maureen Corrigan says her only frustration with Keegan's work is that she wants more of it. So she was happy to read her nuanced, three-story collection, So Late in the Day.

Monday October 30, 2023

Alice McDermott's 'Absolution' transports her signature characters to Vietnam

October 30, 2023 • McDermott's latest novel, which centers on two American women who meet in Saigon in 1963, explores themes of religion, humility and insistent charitable intervention.

The Path to Becoming a Book Reviewer: Tips, Tricks, and Where to Start

Are you an avid reader with a passion for sharing your thoughts and insights about books? If so, becoming a book reviewer could be the perfect way to utilize your expertise while engaging with a wider audience. In this article, we will delve into the world of book reviewing, offering essential tips, effective strategies, and guidance on how to get started on this exciting journey.

A good starting point is to study book reviews written by others. Magazines and newspapers often provide reviews, which can serve as examples of how authors summarize and evaluate books. The Internet also offers platforms dedicated to book reviews, but it’s worth noting that some reviews found on these sites are of poor quality and primarily aimed at selling books through affiliate links. For exceptional reviews, have a look at popular newspapers like USA Today.

Whilst making a living solely from book reviewing is unlikely, if you target the right market, you could potentially earn up to $30 per book review, with $10 to $25 being the average payment. Furthermore, some reviewers receive copies of the books they review as compensation. Certain consumer magazines pay hundreds of dollars for reviews, but they usually work with established writers and subject experts, expecting them to craft a critique or essay about a specific book.

So, now that is out of the way, read on for 10 tips on helping you become a reviewer of books.

Table of Contents

1. Cultivate a Passion for Reading

Becoming a book reviewer requires a genuine love for reading. Immerse yourself in a wide range of genres and explore both popular and lesser-known titles. This broad exposure will help you develop a diverse understanding of literature and enable you to offer valuable insights across various genres.

2. Sharpen Your Writing Skills

Strong writing skills are crucial for expressing your thoughts and evaluations effectively. Practice articulating your opinions, summarizing plots, and discussing literary elements. Consider taking writing courses or workshops to refine your craft and ensure that your reviews are engaging, concise, helpful and well-structured.

3. Build Your Knowledge Base

Expand your knowledge base by staying updated with current literary trends, award-winning works, and upcoming releases. Familiarize yourself with different authors, writing styles, and publishing houses. This will not only enhance the quality of your reviews but also help you identify your areas of expertise.

4. Read Professional Book Reviews

Study book reviews published in respected publications such as newspapers like USA Today, magazines, and online platforms. Analyse how experienced reviewers summarize plotlines, assess literary elements, and provide critical analyses. This will help you understand different reviewing styles and develop your unique voice.

5. Engage in Book Communities

Join book clubs, online forums, and social media groups dedicated to literature. Engaging with fellow book enthusiasts will not only expose you to diverse perspectives but also provide networking opportunities within the book reviewing community. Participating in discussions and sharing your insights will help you refine your analytical skills.

6. Establish an Online Presence

Creating your own online platform , such as a blog or website, can be an effective way to showcase your book reviews and reach a wider audience. Share your thoughts, recommendations, and analysis of books you have read. Engage with readers through comments and encourage discussions around the books you review.

7. Start Small and Gain Experience

Begin by reviewing books on platforms like Amazon or Goodreads . Providing thoughtful and informative reviews can help you establish credibility and visibility within the book community. Consider approaching local newspapers, magazines, or online publications to contribute your reviews. Some platforms may offer compensation or free books as a form of payment.

8. Research Potential Review Outlets

Explore publishing houses, magazines, and newspapers that accept book reviews. Research their submission guidelines and familiarize yourself with their preferred reviewing style and requirements. Start with smaller or non-paying publications to build your portfolio and gain experience before targeting larger and more prestigious outlets.

9. Develop a Unique Perspective

As you gain experience, strive to develop a distinctive and authentic reviewing style. Personalize your reviews by incorporating your own voice, opinions, and insights. Avoid summarizing the plot extensively, as readers can find this information elsewhere. Instead, focus on analyzing the key themes, writing style, character development, and the overall impact of the book.

10. Seek Feedback and Learn from Criticism

Embrace feedback from readers, fellow reviewers, and editors. Constructive criticism will help you refine your reviewing skills and enhance the quality of your work. Embrace continuous learning and improvement as you grow in your journey as a book reviewer.

Becoming a book reviewer is a fulfilling endeavor for passionate readers who enjoy sharing their love for literature with others. By cultivating your writing skills, expanding your knowledge base, and engaging with the book community, you can establish yourself as a trusted voice in the world of book reviews. Remember, building a successful career as a book reviewer takes time and dedication, so be patient, keep reading, and continue refining your skills. Happy reviewing!

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Literary Criticism

"Writing only leads to more writing." — Colette

Freudulence

Jamieson Webster invokes Sigmund Freud and Ambassador William C. Bullitt in an attempt to psychoanalyze political leaders, in an essay from the LARB...

Jamieson Webster Aug 24

Memoir & Essay

Biography & Autobiography

Stupidity for Dummies

Aaron Schuster explores the intersection of Flaubert, language, and ChatGPT in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”

Aaron Schuster Aug 21

Gossip as a Literary Genre, or Gossip as “L’Écriture feminine”?

Francesca Peacock roots through the archives for a deeper understanding of scandal and speech in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”

Francesca Peacock Aug 13

Gender & Sexuality

America’s War on Theater

Daniel Blank reviews James Shapiro’s “The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.”

Daniel Blank Jul 22

Cultural Studies

Meeting as Wonderstruck Kin

Marissa Grunes reviews Renée Bergland’s “Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science.”

Marissa Grunes Jul 21

Science & Technology

Environment

Reconfiguring the Categories

Yelena Furman reviews Karolina Krasuska’s “Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction.”

Yelena Furman Jul 15

The Gap at the End of the World

In an excerpt from LARB Quarterly no. 41, “Truth,” Cynthia Cruz seeks truth in melancholia, Hegel, and capitalist civilization’s possible futures.

Cynthia Cruz Jul 8

What Is the Point of Such Inhumane Programs? On Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska’s “Microhistories of Memory”

Harry Waksberg reviews a new book about a German television series about the Holocaust, written by Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska.

Harry Waksberg Jun 7

Another World, Another Life: On Anaïs Ngbanzo’s “Who Are You Dorothy Dean?”

Conor Williams reviews a new biography of Dorothy Dean, edited by Anaïs Ngbanzo.

Conor Williams Jun 2

Art & Architecture

The Commonsense Critic: A Personal Tribute to Helen Vendler

Cinque Henderson writes a personal tribute for Helen Vendler.

Cinque Henderson May 29

Mythic Appetites: On Meta-Desires, Marriage, and Meals in the Personal Essay

Kristen Malone Poli examines the true hunger at the heart of the divorce plot.

Kristen Malone Poli May 9

Theft of the Commons: On David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu’s “Who Owns This Sentence?”

Jessica Rizzo reviews David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu’s “Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs.”

Jessica Rizzo May 4

When You Write

How to Become a Book Reviewer

Do you love to read? Do you love giving your feedback on books? If this sounds like you, then the idea of becoming a book reviewer might be perfect for what you’re looking for!

If you’ve been looking for a way to make money through your love of books, becoming a reviewer might be the answer. It’s not as simple as just reading and writing about them, but it’s always an option if you want to share your thoughts on what you think is worth reading.

Book reviewers are an integral part of a book’s success, although they’re not given their due credit.

They are one of the few people in the publishing industry who don’t place their work on shelves but instead are responsible for producing quality content about books.

“I want to become a book reviewer.” You’ve likely heard that sentence or one like it countless times—maybe you’ve said it yourself.

If you’re thinking of starting down the path of becoming a book reviewer, you may be wondering how to get started on your journey. That’s where this article comes in.

This article will teach you all about how to become a book reviewer and what that entails. These are five great steps to get started on your own journey towards becoming a professional book critic, so read on and get started today!

What is a Book Reviewer?

What does a book reviewer really do?

Well, book reviewers are professionals in the publishing industry who evaluate books and share their reading experiences with others. They could work for publishers, websites focused on literary topics, or be freelancers.

Book reviewers try to be unbiased and fair when reviewing the book so that their opinion is based mostly on what is written in the book, not outside influences.

A book reviewer publishes reviews on books to help people decide whether or not they want to read them. A reviewer might also publish the full text of the book for free, but most are not given that privilege. They are usually given an advance copy of the book, which is then reviewed with a specific word count in mind. Book reviewers are responsible for reading and reviewing all their assigned books before the deadline.

Some book reviewers specialize in a particular genre, but it is much easier for book reviewers to specialize when they establish themselves in the industry. A critic might specialize in romance novels, young adult literature, or historical fiction when they carve out their niche.

Why Would One Want to Become a Book Reviewer?

Many people, especially in the literary industry, have a passion for reading. Others enjoy recommending their favorite books to friends. One great way to combine these two passions is by becoming a book reviewer.

A book reviewer reviews books and then writes reviews for magazines, newspapers, or online publications, thereby making a name for themselves.

As a book reviewer, you’ll also get to read books for free before they come out!

The internet has opened up a whole new world for readers. With books becoming more and more accessible, people want to find reviews to help them decide if they want to buy the book or not.

I haven’t talked about monetary gains, have I?

Becoming a book reviewer offers an amazing opportunity to make money by reading and reviewing books. Sometimes, it is as simple as signing up for a book-reviewing site and then looking at the available listings of books that need reviews. If you find one that you’re interested in, you simply agree to review it and then wait for the book to arrive in the mail. Once you’ve finished reading the book, just write your honest review and submit it on the site.

5 Ways to Get Started as a Book Reviewer

So, how Do You Become A Book Reviewer?

If you love reading and think you have what it takes to be a reviewer, there are tons of ways that you can get started.

Here are some tips on how you can become a book reviewer:

Obvious Tip: Learn How to Review a Book

This is just a bonus tip because it’s obvious you either already know how to review a book or you are quite determined to learn.

But I thought it prudent to give you a brief lesson.

So, here’s how you go about it: The first thing to do is read the book. Once you’ve finished reading it, take a break from it and then read it again. This will help you to get a feel for the flow of the book, as well as help you to determine its strengths and weaknesses.

Once you’ve finished reading a second time, think about what questions other readers might have about the book that can be answered by other reading materials or study guides. By this you should have figured a focus area, an area you find impressive, i.e., strong character development, engrossing plot points, and impressive employment of literary devices.

The last step is to review the book yourself, either on Amazon or Goodreads, depending on where your audience is most active.

1) Join the Online Community and Find Other People to Talk About Books with

There is an online community of book reviewers who are willing to review books for a fee. Joining this community will enable you to find the best ways to get your foot in the door as a reviewer. You can also approach publishing companies and suggest that they use your services as a reviewer.

It is essential to find your tribe, the book reviewing tribe. Book reviews are a great way to expand your knowledge about new books, but they can also be a great way to make friends. If you’re shy, this might be the easiest way for you to meet people who are also reading.

Offer your opinion on other topics related to books in the book reviewing communities. The more you engage in these topics, the more people will be interested in your opinion. The great thing about blogging is that it’s not just about books. You can write about anything you’re passionate about and talk about it alongside the book.

2) Read Books

Take time to read as often as you can. One of the most important characteristics of book reviewers is that they love books, so reading frequently can showcase your love of reading by building a list of books you can discuss after finishing them. This can help you to develop reading and comprehension skills that can inform your work as a book reviewer by allowing you to practice reading different types of books and identifying points of interest.

Read books from all genres and eras. The more knowledgeable you are about what has been written, the better you will be able to judge a book. You might even want to read a few of the classics that everyone should know.

Read both fiction and nonfiction because reading both is a great way to improve your analytical skills. It can also teach you new things about the world and boost your creativity. Identify a genre you don’t currently read too much of, and use your book club as an excuse to broaden your horizons!

You can find books about almost any topic of interest, so you might try reading many books in different genres to determine which types of books you most enjoy reading and critiquing.

3) Start Writing and Commenting on Reviews

The first step to becoming a reviewer is to write reviews. Find a book that you would want to read and then write a review of it. You can find books on Amazon or anywhere that sells books, as well as at your local library. After the books, go back to Amazon and other sites like Goodreads and post comprehensive book reviews.

Alternatively or simultaneously you can comment on other critics’ reviews.

It is a lot more work to write a review than it is to read one, but it’s worth it for those of us who want to help authors. In the end, commenting on reviews will be a big help for your credibility as an author who reviews books.

You may be able to find some reviews that you agree with and post them on your blog or social media site. That way, if someone is looking for a book review of a certain topic and they see your comment on the reviews of the top three books for that topic, they’ll know that you’re an expert on that subject.

4) Generate a Readership

Apart from the views that you share in book reviewing communities, consistently offer your reviews to the preview to get a few avid followers.

We are all aware of the power of social media platforms or popular content creation websites. You have to take advantage of this and publish book reviews independently on popular online platforms. When you have a good following, it becomes easier for you to establish yourself as a book reviewer because now you have a community that engages with your content and values your critiques. Nowadays, becoming successful independently is a game of numbers, and when you grow this community, publishers and other related potential employers will be attracted.

A great way to start is to go on YouTube and make some video reviews in which you critique books. On your channel(s), you can also discuss other important things in the world of book publishing. You can also write book reviews in social media posts and link them to your blogs and YouTube channels.

5) Pitch to Magazines, Online Publications, and Newspapers

Having made some notable strides in your career as a book reviewer, the next step is to get your reviews in a reputable publication.

Getting your reviews in a reputable publication will definitely increase your audience, raise your credibility as a reviewer, and increase your earnings from book reviews.

The publications might be print media or online as long as they are credible and pay a bit better (the money is important if we aren’t deceiving ourselves).

There are a couple of legit book review sites that one can join. These are some of the publications that I can recommend to you:

• Kirkus Reviews
• Publishers Weekly
• The US Review
• OneBookClub
• Booklist Publications

I’m not saying that they are the only good publications out there, just recommending the ones I’ve come across.

Print publications are even better because they are rarely fraudulent and the pay is usually better. So, apply for a book reviewing role in print media entities such as magazines, journals, and newspapers.

How Long Should a Book Review Be?

The length of a review should be dependent on the reader (or site) and what they want. It might be appropriate to write a brief review for readers who are interested in a few sentences, or it might require more detail for readers who need more information before deciding if they want to purchase the book.

Usually, reviews are about 350-2000 words. Be that as it may, you’ll find out that each site or publication comes up with its own guidelines which might take the word count out of this range.

How to Promote Your Book Reviewing Business

There are many ways to promote your book reviewing business, and you CAN create passive income generating streams from your promotion methods.

You can set up a blog and build a strong social media presence to connect with other authors and readers.

You can also directly contact the local literary businesses and offer your services as a book reviewer.

Skills You Need To Become a Good Book Reviewer

You don’t necessarily need an academic qualification to become a book reviewer, but there are a few skills that you might need as a book reviewer.

Here are some of them:

• Expert writing competences
• Impressive reading and comprehension skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Ability to isolate facts and be detail-oriented
• Ability to communicate clearly and comprehensively (and being able to express opinions concisely)
• Impressive impartiality/ open-minded nonpartisanship
• Ability to work independently
• Time management skills

Becoming a book reviewer is easy, it is becoming an established and well-respected reviewer that’s hard!

Becoming an established book reviewer takes wits, a lot of reading, and positioning yourself in the right places on reputable platforms. Your knowledge base needs to be up-to-date, you need to research a lot and absorb a lot of views from different types of authors .

If you’re that person who always critiques every piece of writing they read, you would make an excellent book reviewer. Why critique books for free when you could make an honest living out of it?

Recommended Reading...

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Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you click our links and make purchases. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

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How to write a book review in 3 steps.

If the idea of reading for free — or even getting paid to read — sounds like a dream come true, remember that it isn’t a pipe dream. There are many places aspiring book reviewers can read books for free, such as Reedsy Discovery — a new platform for reviewing indie books. Of course, if you’re giving serious thought to becoming a book reviewer, your first step should be learning how to write a book review. To that end, this post covers all the basics of literary criticism. Let’s get started!

The three main steps of writing a book review are simple:

• Provide a summary: What is story about? Who are the main characters and what is the main conflict? 
• Present your evaluation: What did you think of the book? What elements worked well, and which ones didn’t? 
• Give your recommendation: Would you recommend this book to others? If so, what kinds of readers will enjoy it?

You can also download our free book review templates and use it as a guide! Otherwise, let’s take a closer look at each element.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

How to write a review of a book

Step 1. provide a summary.

Have you ever watched a movie only to realize that all the good bits were already in the trailer? Well, you don’t want the review to do that. What you do want the summary to do is reveal the genre, theme, main conflict, and main characters in the story — without giving away spoilers or revealing how the story ends.

A good rule of thumb is not to mention anything that happens beyond the midpoint. Set the stage and give readers a sense of the book without explaining how the central issue is resolved.

Emily W. Thompson's review of The Crossing :

In [Michael] Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl. Read more...

Here are a few more reviews with well-written summaries for you to check out. The summary tend to be the longest part of the book review, so we won’t turn this post into a novel itself by pasting them all here: Le Cirque Navire reviewed by Anna Brill, The Heart of Stone reviewed by Kevin R. Dickinson, Fitting Out: The Friendship Experiment reviewed by Lianna Albrizio.

Non-fiction summary tip: The primary goal of a non-fiction summary is to provide context: what problems or issues has the book spotted, and how does it go about addressing them? Be sure to mention the authors of the title and what experience or expertise they bring to the title. Check Stefan Kløvning’s review of Creativity Cycling for an example of a summary that establishes the framework of the book within the context of its field.

Step 2. Present your evaluation

While you should absolutely weave your own personal take of a book into the review, your evaluation shouldn’t only be based on your subjective opinion. Along with presenting how you reacted to the story and how it affected you, you should also try to objectively critique the stronger and weaker elements of the story, and provide examples from the text to back up your points.

To help you write your evaluation, you should record your reactions and thoughts as you work your way through a novel you’re planning on reviewing. Here are some aspects of the book to keep in mind as you do.

Your evaluation might focus heartily on the book’s prose:

Donald Barker's review of Mercenary : 

Such are the bones of the story. But, of course, it is the manner in which Mr Gaughran puts the bones back together and fills them with life that makes “Mercenary” such a great read. The author’s style seems plain; it seems straightforward and even simple. But an attempt at imitation or emulation quickly proves that simple it is not. He employs short, punchy sentences that generate excellent dialogue dripping with irony, deadpan humour and wit. This, mixed with good descriptive prose, draws the characters – and what characters they are – along with the tumultuous events in which they participated amidst the stinking, steaming heat of the South American jungle, out from the past to the present; alive, scheming, drinking, womanising and fighting, onto the written page.

You can give readers a sense of the book by drawing comparisons to other well-known titles or authors:

Laura Hartman's review of The Mystery of Ruby's Mistletoe :

Reading Ms. Donovan’s book is reminiscent to one of my favorite authors, Dame Agatha Christie. Setting up the suspects in a snowbound house, asking them to meet in the drawing room and the cleverly satisfying conclusion was extremely gratifying. I can picture Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot nodding at Ms. Donovan saying “Well done!”

Not everyone’s tastes are the same, and you can always acknowledge this by calling out specific story elements in your evaluation: 

Kevin R. Dickinson's review of The Heart of Stone :

Whether you enjoy Galley’s worldbuilding will depend heavily on preference. Galley delivers information piecemeal, letting the characters, not the author, navigate the reader through Hartlund. A notable example is the magic system, an enigmatic force that lacks the ridge structures of, say, a Brandon Sanderson novel. While the world’s magical workings are explained, you only learn what the characters know and many mysteries remain by the end. Similar choices throughout make the world feel expansive and authentic.

Non-fiction evaluation tip: A book’s topic is only as compelling as its supporting arguments. Your evaluation of a nonfiction book should address that: how clearly and effectively are the points communicated? Turn back to Stefan’s critique for an example of a non-fiction critique that covers key takeaways and readability, without giving away any “big reveals.”

Step 3. Give your recommendation 

At the end of the day, your critique needs to answer this question: is this a book you would (or wouldn’t) recommend to other readers? You might wrap up by comparing it to other books in the same genre, or authors with similar styles, such as: “Fans of so-and-so will enjoy this book.” 

Let’s take a look at a few more tips:

You don’t need to write, “I recommend this book” — you can make it clear by highlighting your favorable opinion:

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

Add more punch to your rating by mentioning what kind of audience will or won’t enjoy the book:

Charleigh Aleyna Reid's review of The King of FU :

I would recommend this book to anyone who grew up in the 90’s and would like to reminisce about the time, someone who is interested to see what it was like to be a 90’s kid, or perhaps anyone who is looking for a unique, funny story about someone’s life.

Unless you found the title absolutely abhorrent, a good way to balance out a less favorable book review it to share what you did like about the book — before ultimately stating why you wouldn’t recommend the novel:

Nicola O's review of Secrets of the Sea Lord :

Overall, there are plenty of enjoyable elements in this story and fans of Atlantis and mer mythology should give it a try. Despite this, it does not rise above a three-star rating, and while I had some difficulty pinning down why this is, I concluded that it comes from a surprisingly unsophisticated vocabulary. There are a couple of graphic sex scenes, which is absolutely fine in a paranormal romance, but if they were removed, I could easily imagine this as an appealing story for middle-schoolers.

Non-fiction recommendation tip: As with fiction book reviews, share why you did or didn’t enjoy the title. However, in one of the starkest divergences from fiction book reviews it’s more important than ever that you mention your expectations coming into the non-fiction book. For instance, if you’re a cow farmer who’s reading a book on the benefits of becoming a vegetarian, you’re coming in with a large and inherent bias that the book will struggle to alter. So your recommendation should cover your thoughts about the book, while clearly taking account your perspective before you started reading. Let’s look once more at Stefan’s review for an example of a rating that includes an explanation of the reviewer’s own bias.

Bonus tips for writing a book review

Let’s wrap up with a few final tips for writing a compelling review.

• Remember, this isn’t a book report. If someone wants the summary of a book, they can read the synopsis. People turn to book reviews for a fellow reader’s take on the book. And for that reason...
• Have an opinion. Even if your opinion is totally middle-of-the-line — you didn’t hate the book but you didn’t love it either — state that clearly, and explain why.
• Make your stance clear from the outset. Don’t save your opinion just for the evaluation/recommendation. Weave your thoughts about the book into your summary as well, so that readers have an idea of your opinion from the outset.
• Back up your points. Instead of just saying, “the prose was evocative” — show readers by providing an actual passage that displays this. Same goes for negative points — don’t simply tell readers you found a character unbelievable, reference a certain (non-spoiler) scene that backs this up.
• Provide the details. Don’t forget to weave the book’s information into the review: is this a debut author? Is this one installment of a series? What types of books has the author written before? What is their background? How many pages does the book have? Who published the book? What is the book’s price?
• Follow guidelines. Is the review you’re writing for Goodreads? For The New York Times ? The content and tone of your review will vary a good deal from publication to publication.
• Learn from others. One of the best ways to learn how to write a great review is to read other reviews! To help you out with that, we’ve published a post all about book review examples .

Writing book reviews can be a rewarding experience! As a book-lover yourself, it’s a great opportunity to help guide readers to their next favorite title. If you’re just getting started as a reviewer and could use a couple more tips and nudges in the right direction, check out our comprehensive blog post on how to become a book reviewer . And if you want to find out which review community is the right fit for you, we recommend taking this quick quiz:

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Finally, if you feel you've nailed the basics of how to write a book review, we recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can review books for free and are guaranteed people will read them. To register as a book reviewer, simply go here !

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Finding Book Reviews Online

Sources for general book reviews.

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Before you start your search you should know the title and author of the book being reviewed. The date of publication will sometimes also be required. Some databases offer a search option to limit search results to book reviews. Where not present, adding a keyword search that includes the phrase "book review" should help. Reviews of popular books are typically published close to their publication dates; find them via book-related websites and indexes that cover general interest periodicals. Reviews of scholarly books may take months to appear in scholarly journals. For more databases that cover scholarly journals, visit the Library of Congress E-Resources Online Catalog .

• Free Web Resources
• Book Review Databases
• Selected General Databases
• Historical Book Review Databases

Free contemporary book reviews are widely available on the web. The sources listed below are some of the most common places to find them.

• Amazon.com External Amazon.com offers book reviews of many of the book titles it sells. Some reviews are by professionals; many are by readers. Find a book and scroll down its entry to read the reviews, where present. For balance, try a variety of positive and negative reviews.
• Barnes & Noble External Barnes and Noble includes professional book reviews with the descriptions of many of the books it sells.
• Complete Review External The Complete Review contains a selected listing of old and new book titles with reviews and links to more reviews.
• GoodReads Reviews External GoodReads offers millions of book reviews contributed by its community members which include librarians, journalists, and many other readers.
• Kirkus Reviews External Kirkus Reviews includes reviews new and forthcoming fiction, non-fiction and Young Adult (YA) books. Kirkus also has a print magazine available by subscription.
• Library Journal Reviews+ External Library Journal reviews books on a wide array of popular and scholarly topics expected to interest a broad spectrum of libraries. Reviews from the most recent 24 months are free online.
• LibraryThing Reviews External LibraryThing Reviews are written by members of the LibraryThing community of readers and book collectors. Reviews are grouped in various ways, including by genre or may be searched by author or title.
• New York Times Book Review (free selections) External A free collection of book reviews published in The New York Times since 1981. A more extensive paid subscription database is also available.
• School Library Journal Reviews+ External Features reviews from School Library Journal from the most recent twenty-four months. Browse by genre, grade level, award winners and other criteria.

Subscription databases are great sources for current and recent book reviews. Many also include historical coverage.

• Children's Literature Review, Vols 1-216

These more general subscription databases cover a wide array of periodicals which include book reviews. Using the phrase "book review" in your search can be effective if no check-box option for book reviews is available in the database's search function.

Some researchers seek reviews that are decades or even centuries old, for example, to see how a book written in the 19th Century was reviewed when it was first released. This listing includes general and book review resources. For the general sources, be sure to Include the phrase "book review" in your search if no check-box option for book reviews is available.

• African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 (Series 1 and Series 2)
• American Business: Agricultural Newspapers
• American Business: Mercantile Newspapers
• American Gazettes: Newspapers of Record
• American Politics: Campaign Newspapers
• American Religion: Denominational Newspapers
• Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876: From Colonies to Nation
• Early American Newspapers, Series 2, 1758-1900: The New Republic
• Early American Newspapers, Series 3, 1783-1922: From Farm to City
• Early American Newspapers, Series 4, 1756-1922: The Rise of Industry
• Early American Newspapers, Series 5, 1777-1922: An Emerging World Power
• Early American Newspapers, Series 6, 1741-1922: Compromise and Disunion
• Early American Newspapers, Series 7: 1773-1922: Reform and Retrenchment
• Early American Newspapers, Series 8, 1844-1922: A Nation in Transition
• Early American Newspapers, Series 9, 1832-1922: Protest and Prosperity
• Early American Newspapers, Series 11, 1803-1899: From Agrarian Republic to World Power
• Early American Newspapers, Series 12, 1821-1900: The Specialized Press
• Early American Newspapers, Series 13, 1803-1916: The American West
• Early American Newspapers, Series 14, 1807-1880: The Expansion of Urban America
• Early American Newspapers, Series 15, 1822-1879: Immigrant Communities
• Early American Newspapers, Series 16, 1800-1877: Industry and the Environment
• Early American Newspapers Series 17, 1844-1922: American Heartland
• Early American Newspapers, Series 18, 1825-1879: Racial Awakening in the Northeast

C19 Index draws on the strength of established indexes such as the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (NSTC), The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index, Periodicals Index Online and the Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 18111849 to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.7 million books and official publications, 70,000 archival collections and 20.9 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers. C19 Index now provides integrated access to 13 bibliographic indexes, including more than three million records from British Periodicals Collections I and II, together with the expanded online edition of the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (DNCJ).

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ENGLISH: Research Guide | Book Reviews vs. Literary Criticism

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In This Section

In this section, you'll find:.

• Information on book reviews and where to find them
• Information on literary criticism  and where to find it

Book Reviews

Book reviews describe and analyze the contents of a book, and often make a recommendation about whether or not to read or purchase the book. Reviews vary in length from single paragraphs to full-length essays (remember writing book reports in middle school?).

Reviews of nonfiction books analyze the topics and/or arguments of the book. Reviewers judge the effectiveness of the authors' support for their arguments and assertions. An author should have some form of authority - they should have a credible reason for writing on the subject. Thus, a book review should cover the authors' credentials. Typically, book reviews compare the book to similar books on the subject. Pay attention to what reviewers consider to be important omissions and any potential biases.

Book Reviews - Fiction & Popular Works

Full-text book reviews from 1965-present, mostly for general fiction and non-fiction, the humanities, and the social sciences. Search for the book title (not the review title).

• The New York Review of Books Literary magazine with essays and reviews (of theater and more, not just books).

Book Reviews - Nonfiction & Scholarly Works

• H-Net Reviews The largest online professional reviewing archive, with approximately 46,000 free reviews of scholarly books.

Literary Criticism

Literary criticism is the term given to studies that define, classify, analyze, interpret, and evaluate works of literature. There are many types of literary criticism:

• Moral Criticism, Dramatic Construction (~360 BC-present)
• Formalism, New Criticism, Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (1930s-present)
• Psychoanalytic Criticism, Jungian Criticism(1930s-present)
• Marxist Criticism (1930s-present)
• Reader-Response Criticism (1960s-present)
• Structuralism/Semiotics (1920s-present)
• Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction (1966-present)
• New Historicism/Cultural Studies (1980s-present)
• Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present)
• Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)
• Gender/Queer Studies (1970s-present)
• Critical Race Theory (1970s-present)

Literary criticism may examine a particular literary work or it may look at an author's writings as a whole. 

Literary Criticism in Academic Journals

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Reviews of fiction, poetry, and criticism from small, regional, university, and avant-garde presses since 1977.

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12 of the Best Books of Literary Criticism Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Literary criticism (or even ‘literary theory’) goes back as far as ancient Greece, and Aristotle’s Poetics . But the rise of English Literature as a university subject, at the beginning of the twentieth century, led to literary criticism focusing on English literature – everything from Shakespeare to contemporary literature – being taken seriously.

Numerous masterpieces have been produced in the ‘genre’: here are a dozen of the most significant and notable works of literary criticism written in English.

Disclaimer: as an Amazon Associate, we get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

1. F. H. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy .

In 1904, this immeasurably influential study of Shakespeare’s tragedies appeared. It is still in print – as an affordable Penguin Classics edition – and although Bradley sometimes treats the characters a little too much as though they were real people rather than imaginary constructions, there’s a raft of lucid insights into the plays to be had. Given how early this landmark work of literary criticism was published, it’s still endlessly readable thanks to Bradley’s colloquial and relatable style.

2. I. A. Richards, Practical Criticism .

Published in 1929, this book is as much the write-up to an educational experiment as it is a work of traditional literary criticism. Richards, whose lectures were hugely popular at Cambridge during the 1920s, gave his students a series of short poems with the authors and dates removed. This encouraged students to respond to the words on the page, paying close attention to the form and style of the poem and their response to the poem’s features. Richards’s work would influence American New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century – and his most famous pupil, William Empson …

3. William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity .

William Empson (1906-1984) was a poet as well as a critic , and this probably helped him to get under the skin, as it were, of many of the poems he analyses in this pioneering work of poetry criticism, published in 1930 and written when he was still only in his early twenties (and completed shortly after he had been expelled from the University of Cambridge when contraceptives were found in his rooms).

Taking his examples from Geoffrey Chaucer as well as T. S. Eliot, Empson wittily examines the various ways in which poets generate ambiguity in their work, from simple examples to more complex and less easily resolved instances. Jonathan Bate called Empson the funniest critic of the twentieth century. He is also one of the most illuminating.

4. Caroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us .

This landmark work of literary analysis was first published in 1934, and is a fascinating study of Shakespeare’s writing and well worth reading. Spurgeon examines the images of Shakespeare’s plays in order to find out what sorts of images he most frequently draws on and what this might tell us about him, especially in terms of his relation to his contemporaries.

Stephen Fry has called it a sort of early version of what we’d now call digital fingerprinting, whereby digital analysis shows word frequencies and usage in Shakespeare’s work. It is a good study of what makes Shakespeare so peculiar alongside his fellow Elizabethan and Jacobean writers.

5. F. R. Leavis, The Great Tradition .

6. M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp .

Not to be confused with the title of a Hilary Mantel novel, this ground-breaking study of Romanticism was published in 1953 and showed how, until the Romantics, art was seen to reflect the world (like a mirror), whereas the Romantics – and various writers and critics who have come along since – thought that art should illuminate the world (like a light). Abrams was born in 1912 and died at the ripe old age of 102 in 2015; this remained his most significant work, and one of the most important mid-century works of literary criticism.

7. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism .

When literary critics of some reputation taught at summer schools in the mid-twentieth century, they would often teach ‘the poetry course’ or ‘the Shakespeare course’. When Frye turned up to teach, he’d be asked to teach ‘the Northrop Frye course’.

As this anecdote suggests, Frye’s influence on twentieth-century literary criticism was vast and distinguished, and he was writing at the peak of his powers when he penned this 1957 ‘anatomy’ of types of literature, adopting a structuralist approach to genre and form. Among other things, Frye’s book makes you want to go away and read all of the famous works of poetry, drama, and fiction which he draws upon.

8. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics .

Bringing together various ‘isms’ and literary theories from the twentieth century, including feminist literary criticism, Marxism, and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, Spivak offers what might be described as an intersectional analysis of the relationship between women and their language and culture, in both western and non-western cultures. This book is as much cultural theory as it is literary criticism, although it also contains some astute readings of Woolf’s To the Lighthouse , Yeats’s work, and Wordsworth’s The Prelude .

9. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic .

Published in 1979, this joint-authored book is a vast and highly readable study of Victorian fiction written by women, including the Brontës and George Eliot. The book’s title, of course, is taken from Bertha Mason/Rochester, Mr Rochester’s first wife whom he locks away in his house (technically, in the room below the attic) in Jane Eyre . Gilbert and Gubar’s enjoyable and perceptive analysis of the various tropes, symbols, and images nineteenth-century female novelists employed in their work makes for a provocative and persuasive account of the ways in which women negotiated the patriarchal society about which, and in which, they wrote.

10. Christopher Ricks, The Force of Poetry .

This 1984 volume is a collection of essays written during the 1960s-1980s, by one of the greatest living critics of poetry. Upon reading Ricks’s biography of Tennyson, W. H. Auden called Ricks ‘exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding’. But Ricks is also a brilliant writer too, with a fondness (some would say weakness) for puns and wordplay of all kinds. He clearly has great fun pondering the significance of a semi-colon or set of parentheses, or the meaning of a particular image or word. This volume includes essays on, among others, medieval poet John Gower, John Milton, Samuel Johnson, Geoffrey Hill, and Stevie Smith.

11. Nicholas Royle, Telepathy and Literature: Essays on the Reading Mind .

Ranging from Shakespeare to Raymond Chandler, Royle reads canonical and non-canonical works of fiction, poetry, and drama through the lens of telepathy, exploring new ways of thinking about literary texts and the relationship between reader and author. Influenced by Derrida but far more accessible, Royle’s readings are perhaps the best way to begin learning how to write ‘creative criticism’: criticism that reimagines what the literary-critical essay might look like, while still offering some wonderfully nuanced and sensitive close readings of the texts under discussion.

12. Eleanor Cook, Against Coercion: Games Poets Play .

Cook, who taught at the University of Toronto, collected some of her most important essays on a range of poets – including T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens – in this book in 1998. From the opening essay, in which Cook convincingly argues that Eliot’s The Waste Land was partly a response to Eliot’s reading of John Maynard Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of the Peace , it’s clear that Cook is a superlative critic who marries close reading of classic works of poetry to their various literary, social, and economic contexts. Cook has written other fine books, including a study of riddles and enigmas throughout literature, but this is the place to begin.

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4 thoughts on “12 of the Best Books of Literary Criticism Everyone Should Read”

John Updike Hugging the Shore is an excellent read ..prompted me to reread and appreciate Melville.

Thanks for the reading list there

I like the numerous works of the eminent US critic Harold Bloom – incl his books Genius and The Western Canon

Well worth obtaining

Thanks for this – I’m a big fan of literary criticism, and have for a long time been trying to get more people to see its beauty and value. Regarding Leavisite criticism, I’d recommend to all Matthew Arnold’s ‘Culture and Anarchy’ (or his essay ‘Preface to Poetry’), too; I think there’s a strong association between the types of criticism they wrote. Some of T. S. Eliot’s critical essays are also filled with intellectual verve. I’ll certainly look into Royle’s ‘Telepathy’, sounds like it’d be a good read!

“Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature” by Erich Auerbach, 1946.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160221/mimesis

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Literary Criticism: How to Find It: Book Reviews

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Book Reviews vs. Literary Criticism

Book reviews are generally evaluative whereas criticism is an exploration of the ideas in a work. In other words, a book review is meant to tell you if a book is good or bad, and whether you should read it (or buy it) or not. Criticism is more of a serious analysis of some aspect of a work, whether the work be good or bad. Reviews of literary works are usually not written by scholars, while criticism is almost always written by scholars.

One of the simplest ways of distinguishing book reviews from literary criticism is the time of publication of the review/critical article compared to the original publication date of the book . Book reviews tend to be written around the time the book was published, while literary criticism will be published in later years.

Online Sources for Reviews of Newer Books

• Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Offers full text for more than 2,000 serials, including more than 1,500 peer-reviewed titles. This multi-disciplinary database covers virtually every area of academic study. More than 100 journals have PDF images back to 1985.
• ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window ProQuest Central is the largest single periodical resource available, bringing together complete databases across all major subject areas, including thousands of full-text newspapers from around the world.

For reviews of newer (or older) books in a particular discipline, also try searching the most comprehensive journal database(s) for that discipline.

Click this link to learn which are the most comprehensive databases for many disciplines .

Newspapers can be great sources of book reviews from the present time and from the past.

Click this link to see a research guide connecting you to newspaper collections.

Sources for Reviews of Older Books

• New York Times,1851 - 2007 -- (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window The New York Times (1851-2007) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
• Nineteenth-Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window Provides an as-it-happened window on events, culture, and daily life in 19th-century America that is of interest to both professional and general researchers. With 1.8 million pages available, the collection features publications of all kinds, from the political party newspapers at the beginning of the 19th century to the mammoth dailies that shaped the nation at the century's end. Major newspapers stand alongside those published by African Americans, Native Americans, women’s rights groups, labor groups, and the Confederacy. Titles selected by leading scholars of the 19th-century American press, and headnotes have been included for the individual titles.
• Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window An archive with backfiles of scholarly periodicals in the arts, humanities and social sciences that provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of titles. The database spans more than two centuries of content, 37 key subject areas, and multiple languages.
• Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature Retrospective: 1890-1982 This link opens in a new window Provides indexing of over 3 million articles from more than 550 leading magazines, including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. This important resource offers a wide range of researchers access to information about history, culture and seminal developments across nearly a century.
• Poole's Index to Periodical Literature This is a print multi-volume set. It is the premiere index to nineteenth century periodicals.

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Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space?

The pandemic wasn’t good for much, but it was good for bookstores. Exactly how good is a little hard to measure. For all sorts of reasons, the data on book sales, bookstores, and most things bookish are notoriously inexact. Not only is there no settled definition of what counts as a bookstore; there is no settled definition of what counts as a book.

If I self-publish a book and sell it on my Web site, is that a real book? And am I a bookstore? If we think that, to be “real,” a book must have an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), we are faced with the fact that the ISBN of a hardcover book is different from the ISBNs of the paperback, audio, and digital editions of the same book. Are these all counted separately? The Bible is a book. So are “Pickleball for Dummies,” “Spanking Zelda,” “Pat the Bunny,” and “The Big Book of Sudoku.” When we ask how many Americans read books, are those the kinds of books we have in mind?

According to Kristen McLean, an industry analyst, two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies, and less than four per cent sell more than twenty thousand. Still, it’s generally agreed that book sales rose after 2019 and that, since the end of the pandemic, there has been a small but significant uptick in the number of independent bookstores. Explaining the first bump seems simple enough. Reading turned out to be a popular way of passing the time in lockdown, more respectable than binge-watching or other diversions one might think of. A slight decline in sales over the past couple of years suggests that people felt freed up to go out and play pickleball instead of staying home and trying to finish “War and Peace.”

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The explanation for the second bump, however, is not so obvious. Before COVID , physical bookstores seemed to be pretty high on the endangered-species list. Between 1998 and 2020, more than half of the independent bookstores in the United States went out of business. Yet, somehow, the bookstore outlived the pandemic. Why? Two new books, Evan Friss’s “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore” (Viking) and “The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading” (Little, Brown), compiled by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann, suggest a few reasons.

Neither book is quite as advertised. “The Bookshop” is not a comprehensive history of bookselling. It’s a series of thirteen mini-profiles of notable bookstores and their owners, from Benjamin Franklin and his printing shop in the early eighteenth century to Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s brick-and-mortar stores today. Friss does not get very deep into the economic nitty-gritty of the business. He is mainly interested in capturing the bookstore vibe.

James Patterson is, yes, James Patterson , one of the best-selling authors ever. (Matt Eversmann, a former Army Ranger, was a central character in Mark Bowden’s “Black Hawk Down” and is a best-selling author himself.) When the pandemic started, Patterson launched a movement, #SaveIndieBookstores, to help such businesses survive. He pledged half a million dollars, and, with the support of the American Booksellers Association and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, the campaign ended up raising $1,239,595 from more than eighteen hundred donors.

Patterson and Eversmann’s “Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians” is being promoted with the line “Their stories are better than the bestsellers.” Better than “Spanking Zelda”? I don’t think so. Readers hoping for scandalous revelations will have to be satisfied with heartfelt testimonials from some sixty or so North American bookstore people and librarians, who talk about how they got their jobs and why they love them. A number of them have nice things to say about James Patterson, as well they should. Still, the situation these books are addressing is a very old one.

The United States has had a bookstore problem since before the nation’s founding. There have never been enough. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, books were sold mostly by printers, like Franklin , whose store was in Philadelphia, or publishers, such as Ticknor & Fields, which operated the Old Corner Bookstore, in Boston. (Ticknor & Fields later became part of Houghton Mifflin.) Because there were few places for customers to get books, some entrepreneurs figured out ways to get books to them. There was a book barge on the Erie Canal in the early nineteenth century, for example, and there were book caravans—vehicles outfitted to display books for sale—until well into the twentieth century.

Even after the distribution of books improved, it was not easy to get your hands on new ones unless you lived in a major city or a college town. In 1939, about a hundred and eighty million books were produced, in one estimate, but only twenty-eight hundred stores sold them. Books were also sold in gift shops that stocked a few titles or department stores that offered discounted books as a loss leader to attract a tonier class of customer.

Americans could buy books by mail directly from publishers, and they could subscribe to book clubs, such as the Book-of-the-Month Club, which was founded in 1926, or its rival, the Literary Guild, founded in 1927 and once owned by Doubleday. (Those clubs still exist. They print their own editions, which they sell for well below the publisher’s retail price.) But most people had no way to browse new books.

One reason for the distribution problem is that each book is a unique good. It is handcrafted by a writer and a postproduction team of editors and designers. Even in 1939, there were too many new titles for a small shop to stock—an estimated 10,640, and that doesn’t include perennial sellers, like Bibles and dictionaries, or classics.

And, unless you are a “just looking for something to read on the beach” kind of customer, there are usually no acceptable substitutes. When you go to a supermarket, the store may carry two brands of milk or ten. It doesn’t matter. You just want milk. But book buying doesn’t work that way. You want the book you want. If the choice was between doing without and mailing a check to a publisher in New York City (publishers, stupidly, did not have warehouses in the middle of the country), many people probably chose to do without. This was not a sensible way to run a business.

The problem got bigger after the Second World War, when, thanks in part to a huge increase in the number of college students, who had to buy books for their courses, and the relaxation of obscenity laws, which made books more attractive to grownups, the publishing industry boomed. In 1950, eleven thousand new titles appeared, according to Publishers Weekly ; in 1970, the number was thirty-six thousand, a threefold increase. Local bookshops tended to be low-margin affairs. They couldn’t afford the rent for large retail spaces, and the load of new books was too heavy for them to carry. Publishers needed more places where people could shop for their product. The market responded with the chain store.

The first major bookstore chains were B. Dalton, which opened a store in 1966 and by 1978 had outlets in forty-three states, and Waldenbooks, which began in the nineteen-thirties as a book-rental company, opened its first retail store in 1962, and by 1981 had seven hundred and thirty-five outlets. Chain stores were big spaces. They could carry many titles, and they were usually embedded in department stores and malls. Like supermarkets, they were basically self-service. Their staff were generally not trained to make reading recommendations. But the chains offered two things the independent-bookstore ecosystem lacked: convenience and inventory. By 1982, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton made about twenty-four per cent of all book sales in the United States.

It was still not enough. The industry kept growing, and the chain stores gave way to the superstores. These were enormous freestanding retail spaces, averaging almost thirty-six thousand square feet and carrying a hundred and twenty-five thousand titles, plus other leisure goods, such as CDs and DVDs. The big players were Borders, which opened in 1971 and began to expand in the nineteen-eighties, and Barnes & Noble, an old New York store, situated on lower Fifth Avenue, which Leonard Riggio bought in 1971.

Riggio adopted the strategy of selling New York Times best-sellers at a forty-per-cent discount. He made the brand famous for these discounts, and people would travel out of their way to a Barnes & Noble store just for the savings. It was an aggressive move when best-sellers were what kept many small bookstores above water.

In 1987, Riggio bought B. Dalton, and by 1997 Barnes & Noble and Borders were selling forty-three per cent of all books in the United States. By then, more than sixty thousand titles were coming out every year. The largest Barnes & Noble store carried upward of two hundred thousand, many of them marked twenty or thirty per cent off the list price. It was not a business model that small independent bookshops could adopt. They had to make a decent margin on every sale.

This was around when the term “independent bookstore” gained force. It was plainly deployed as a rallying cry. It couldn’t have been that the owners of the local store didn’t care about their bottom lines. But the term signals an old-fashioned virtue, and the independents versus the superstores got cast as a David-and-Goliath struggle, a version of the family-farm-versus-agribusiness rivalry that had got a lot of attention in the nineteen-eighties.

The big-little bookstore battle was covered so extensively by the media, in fact, that a film about it, “You’ve Got Mail,” directed by Nora Ephron , was one of the biggest hits of 1998. (Amusingly, the movie, ostensibly a criticism of corporate overreach, made Rolling Stone’s list of “ Most Egregious Product Placements in Movie & TV History .” It is practically an advertisement for AOL, which would soon merge with Warner Bros., the film’s distributor.)

Meg Ryan’s character made out all right in “You’ve Got Mail,” but her store still closed. Nationally, the Davids were losing. After 1998, the mortality rate among independents shot up. By 2021, only about two thousand were still in business. The Goliaths were left to slug it out. In 2011, Riggio bought what was left of Borders, which had declared bankruptcy, and Barnes & Noble is now the only nationwide bookstore chain in the United States, with six hundred stores. (The original flagship store, on lower Fifth, which had become mainly a place for students to buy textbooks, closed in 2014.)

Still, the distribution problem was far from solved, because two hundred thousand books is nothing. Today, something like three million books are published every year, including self-published e-books that are available only on digital platforms. And the greater the number of books that come out and remain in print, the longer the publisher’s backlist. Developing a backlist is one of the ways publishers can afford to take gambles on big advances. No retail space can accommodate all that inventory.

This whole history explains why Amazon began, in 1995, as an online bookstore. Books were the only products it sold. Jeff Bezos must have looked at the publishing industry and judged it ripe for disruption—the classic tech move. Publishers had had two hundred years to figure out an efficient way of getting their products to consumers, and they were haggling over shelf placement (face out or spine?) and table space (front of the store or back?) in enormous stores where each book was competing for visibility with a hundred thousand other titles.

Amazon discounted books deeply from the start. It was happy to lose money, and its venture-capitalist backers didn’t mind, because they saw that what Bezos was investing in was a future in which people’s first instinct when they needed to buy something would be to go online. That future has arrived, and today Amazon is worth $1.8 trillion.

The company still discounts many titles, and you don’t have to go out of your way to take advantage of the savings. My office is across the street from Harvard Book Store, one of the best independent bookstores in the country for people like me. Even so, if I go there for a copy of “Middlemarch,” I’ll have to elbow my way through a gaggle of tourists to get to the literature section in the back, and there’s a chance that “Middlemarch” will be out of stock.

But I can order “Middlemarch” from Amazon in less than the two minutes it would take me to walk to the store. I will get a discount (currently thirteen per cent on a Penguin edition), and, if I have Amazon Prime (a sunk cost), the book will ship for free and appear in my mailbox tomorrow. Oh, and as long as I’m online, I’ll get a new grill brush, too. Harvard Book Store does not carry grill brushes.

Even though books make up a relatively small fraction of Amazon’s sales, they constitute more than half of all book purchases in the United States. Amazon is responsible for more than half of all e-book sales, and it dominates self-publishing with its Kindle Direct platform. (E-books are also a threat to the brick-and-mortar store, of course, though their sales peaked in 2013.) Most significant, Amazon offers something like thirty million different print titles. The company has deals with purveyors of used and remaindered books, who are linked to on the site. It owns AbeBooks, the leading site for rare and out-of-print books. And there are many other places online where you can buy books, including barnesandnoble.com. So why does the world need bookstores?

Both Friss’s book and Patterson and Eversmann’s book suggest some answers. One is the obvious benefit of being able to fondle the product. Printed books have, inescapably, a tactile dimension. They want to be held. “Browsing” online is just not the same experience. For that, you need non-virtual books in a non-virtual space.

The level of customer service is another benefit. Amazon’s “Frequently bought together” and “Products related to this item” can be useful, but these groupings work better for grill brushes than for books. Books are not just all cheaper or more expensive versions of the same thing.

You will probably soon be able to chat online about your book interests with a bot, but a bot is not a person with green hair, a tattoo, and a sense of humor who might have some offbeat suggestions for you. Salespeople today tend to be book lovers themselves (historically not always the case), and they can recommend a new book or help you find a book whose title you have forgotten. Amazon’s wisdom-of-crowds rating system and customer reviews aren’t quite substitutes for this individualized treatment. There is usually a reviewer who gives a book one star because of a delivery problem.

Then there is what the scholar Janice Radway, adapting Walter Benjamin, calls the “auratic” quality of physical books. People don’t regard books as ordinary commodities. Friss and the retailers in “The Secret Lives” see the small bookstore as a haven from commercialism, a place where books are not treated as mere merchandise.

Of course, selling books is as much a business as selling grill brushes. But the gross margins are small, and bookstore owners tend to be what the sociologist Laura Miller calls “reluctant capitalists.” The owners of Three Lives, in the West Village, which is Friss’s ideal bookstore, don’t like their business being referred to as a “store.” “Shop” is the preferred designation. In the West Village, that’s probably smart marketing.

This aura of anti-commercialism has a history. It dates from the mid-twentieth century, when publishers saw themselves in competition with Hollywood and television for Americans’ leisure time and dollars. They promoted their product as superior to mass entertainment—more refined, more edifying. They rethought the strategy when it became clear that readers like mass entertainment and dislike being taken for snobs. The industry also saw a gold mine in movie tie-ins. Still, the general sentiment that reading is somehow superior to viewing persists.

But using the number of books that the average American reads a year as a barometer of our civilization’s moral health, which people love to do, is kind of pointless. Many books are used, not read. You don’t “read” a cookbook or “Pickleball for Dummies.” And many books are bought to register the buyer’s approval of the message or the messenger. Current Times best-sellers include Kamala Harris ’s “The Truths We Hold” and J. D. Vance ’s “Hillbilly Elegy.” How many of the people who bought those books (and I wonder how much overlap there is) will actually read them? They won’t feel they need to. They have cast their ballots.

The chief rationale offered for brick-and-mortar bookstores today is that they are community-building spaces. That is how Friss describes the Three Lives bookstore—forgive me, shop —and it’s how almost all the store owners in “The Secret Lives” (and many of the librarians) explain what they do and why it gives them satisfaction. They are practitioners of bibliotherapy. They introduce people to books that will help them overcome grief or minister to confusions about life choices or personal identity.

And the stores are fashioned to be neighborhood gathering places, like park playgrounds. They welcome everyone—toddlers, oddballs, and professors. They schedule author appearances and other events, often hundreds of them a year. Regulars drop in to chat about books. With any luck, there is a café. Nowadays, this is as true of Barnes & Noble chain stores as it is of Three Lives. That is what it means to run a bookstore. The rewards are not just material. The bookstore survives by redefining itself.

This constitutes a major shift in the ethos of bookselling. Traditionally, owners of bookstores, and of used bookstores in particular, had a reputation for being surly (unlike librarians, who are trained to be helpful). That was certainly my experience when I began to frequent New York bookstores in the nineteen-seventies and eighties. It was true of the Shakespeare & Co. on lower Broadway and of the National Book Store, on Astor Place, both now long gone; it was even true of the Strand, near Union Square. One good thing about online stores is that they can’t see that you’re a penniless graduate student.

Still, for much of my life, I’ve been a haunter of bookstores. I have no interest in spending a lot of money on a book. I don’t collect books, and I can’t understand why anyone would pay extra for a first edition. I buy books I want to read. I like older and out-of-print books, as long as they’re readable and “like new.” So the key to a good bookstore, for me, is the curation. In this area of life, anyway, size doesn’t matter. I don’t want two hundred thousand titles to choose from. I want the staff to have selected, from the zillions that are out there, the kinds of books that interest me. Ideally, the store will stock a mix of new and used.

Friss doesn’t mention the famous “secret bookstore” Brazenhead Books , which was run out of a rent-controlled apartment on East Eighty-fourth Street by a character named Michael Seidenberg, who died in 2019. It was said to be like a night club. Cocktails were served, and people could hang out at all hours. There was no sign outside, since the store seems to have been legally unsanctioned. You had to know someone to know where it was.

I was never cool enough to be invited to a secret bookstore, but there were stores “just for me” in New York. One of them, which Friss mentions briefly, was Books & Co., which was founded in 1977. Its collection, all new books, seemed to be expressly curated for grad students in literature. Friss says that the store had an advisory board chaired by Susan Sontag , and few people have had their hand closer to the intellectual pulse than Susan Sontag. The founder and owner was Jeannette Watson, a granddaughter of the founder of I.B.M.

One unusual thing about Books & Co. was its location, 939 Madison Avenue, between Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth Streets, next to the old Whitney Museum. The Upper East Side isn’t where you would expect to sell a lot of Baudrillard, or all four volumes of Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche. But you could. I passed on the Heidegger; I did buy Robert Hughes ’s “Shock of the New” there, an inspirational book for me. Books & Co. was, surprisingly, not an unfriendly place. Or maybe I fit in better with the clientele there than elsewhere. St. Mark’s Bookshop, which opened in the East Village the same year, was the bomb thrower’s alternative.

Books & Co. had money problems almost from the start. Watson lost an opportunity to buy the building, which was purchased instead by the Whitney. When the lease expired, the museum doubled the rent. Watson tried to find ways to keep the store alive, but it closed in 1997. St. Mark’s hung in there until 2016. Today, 939 Madison is an Aquazzura, a luxury boutique chain with stores in Saint-Tropez, Paris, Milan, and Dubai. I think the best store in Manhattan currently for new books curated for artistic and literary tastes is 192 Books, in West Chelsea. In five years, it will probably be a Jimmy Choo.

Because bookstores don’t last. When I came to New York, the stretch of Fourth Avenue between Eighth and Fourteenth Streets was known as Book Row. In 1969, it had more than twenty bookstores and, according to the Times , more than three-quarters of a million volumes. The Strand began on Book Row and operates in its spirit, advertising a huge inventory. It claims to have eighteen miles of shelves. The store moved from Fourth Avenue to its present location, on Broadway and Twelfth Street, in 1956. In time, the owner, Fred Bass, wisely bought the building. The store is now a tourist attraction and gets a significant portion of its income from the sale of tote bags and T-shirts. It does make money. Bass used to live in Trump Tower.

I cruised Book Row when it, and the New York it belonged to, was on its last legs. A lot of those millions of books were worthless. When books are damaged, they should be thrown out. The Book Row stores were barns. They attracted buyers who enjoyed hunting for a needle in a haystack. The Strand does not carry damaged books, and there are always some needles in there. But it also has a ton of hay.

Art galleries played a big role in the development of modern art; bookshops played a lesser role in the history of modern literature. But there were some that mattered. Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company, in Paris, is the best known. Beach published James Joyce ’s “Ulysses” in 1922—the only edition you could buy until 1934, after a judge ruled that the book was not obscene. (The store was shut down in 1941, when the Germans were in charge. The Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank today is no relation.) The closest American counterparts are City Lights, in San Francisco, founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953, which published (and still publishes) Allen Ginsberg ’s “Howl and Other Poems,” and the Gotham Book Mart.

The Gotham Book Mart was founded in 1920, by Frances Steloff. It moved around a bit but ended up at 41 West Forty-seventh. The location, even more incongruous than that of Books & Co., was in the diamond district. The Gotham’s clientele included Broadway theatre people. It was also popular with celebrated writers, housed a James Joyce Society, and was known, back in the day, as a place where you could buy banned books.

I was interested in modern poetry and eager to shop there, but by the time I showed up Steloff had sold the store (she was in her eighties and remained present; you could see her at a desk in the back), and it had lost its modernist glamour. The offerings were haphazardly chosen and indifferently displayed, and the vibe was hostile. I’m sure they had dealt with a lot of shoplifting. The store moved again, in 2004, and closed three years later.

I preferred to hang out in the Pomander, on West Ninety-fifth Street. The bookstore was founded in 1975 by a Colombian émigré, Carlos Goez, and it featured British and American literature and philosophy—my kind of collection. Goez sold the Pomander in 1986 (he died soon after), and the store briefly relocated to 107th Street and West End Avenue, two blocks from my apartment. Although the inventory was still attractive, there was less turnover, and the store eventually closed.

But curation is probably still the way for bookstores to go. It no longer makes business sense for a small shop to stock a bit of everything. Learn from Aquazzura and Jimmy Choo: go boutique. The big winner in the pandemic was the romance novel. Eighteen million print copies were sold in 2020; in 2023, more than thirty-nine million copies were sold. Romance is among Amazon’s most popular genres, and, according to the Times , the number of bookstores dedicated to it recently rose from two to more than twenty. The stores’ names are not coy: the Ripped Bodice, in Brooklyn and Culver City; Steamy Lit, in Deerfield Beach, Florida; Blush Bookstore, in Wichita. You can fondle the product all you want, and the staff will be eager to assist you. ♦

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The Muslim tamale king of the Old West .

Fiction by Jamaica Kincaid: “ Girl .”

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The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2023

Parul sehgal on james ellroy, merve emre on italo calvino, namwali serpell on "hit me" novels, and more.

Good book criticism is booming right now. I have at least some degree of confidence in saying this because for the past six years, I’ve been keeping track of my favorite reviews to prepare for these annual roundups, and my 2023 longlist was by far the biggest and most difficult to narrow down.

We’ve lost venues for writing about books (RIP Astra ), but we’ve gained some as well, including a few we feared were dead (welcome back, Bookforum ). But publications aside, the sheer number of critics who take reviews seriously as a genre of creative nonfiction—with attention to style, momentum, humor, and surprise—feels to me like it’s only getting bigger.

Here are my 10 favorite book reviews of 2023, though it easily could have been 100.

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

Parul Sehgal on James Ellroy’s The Enchanters ( The New Yorker )

Sehgal is still the GOAT when it comes to writing ledes. This one might be my all-time favorite of hers.

“In the spring of 1995, dozens of snakes appeared on the beaches of Southern California. Panic. A Biblical curse, some held, to punish the wicked. ‘California has been given so many signs: floods, drought, fires, earthquakes lifting mountains two feet high in Northridge,’ the California congresswoman Andrea Seastrand declared. ‘Yet people turn from His ways.’ The Los Angeles Times made soothing noises, counselling against the curse theory. But the obvious person to consult would have been a native son of Los Angeles who saw geography as destiny, who specialized in snakes of all stripes, and whose characters find, in natural disasters, their only competitors in the making of mayhem.”

Merve Emre on Italo Calvino’s The Written World and the Unwritten World , translated by Ann Goldstein ( The New Yorker )

Emre and Calvino are a dream pairing on the level of Scorsese and DiCaprio. I also love her use of second person, which can be as difficult as a broadsword to wield well.

“The bookstore in your neighborhood sits on a busy corner. You pass it on your walk to work in the mornings, and on your walk home in the evenings, and although you sometimes admire the clever geometries of its window display, rarely do you take a closer look. But, not long ago, the sight of a particular book made you pause. Your eye lingered on its pure-white cover and on a curious shape cut into it. Without thinking, you walked into the store. The clerk was working at her computer. The other customers were leafing through books lifted from the great pyramids of new releases on the front table. No one paid any attention to you.”

Phillip Maciak on Jaime Green’s The Possibility of Life ( The New Republic )

I rarely laugh out loud when reading criticism, but Maciak made it happen in this take on one of my favorite books of the year.

“I remember being considerably less excited about seeing Ellie’s dad than Ellie was when I saw Contact in high school… Likewise, I recall being similarly disappointed when Jessica Chastain unravels the mysteries of the universe in Christopher Nolan’s own visually arresting wormhole epic Interstellar, only to realize that the unseen intelligence transmitting messages to her was also, if you can believe it, her long lost father Matthew McConaughey. Are there any aliens out there who don’t look like our dads? My kingdom for a xenomorph!”

Ginny Hogan on Josh Hawley’s Manhood ( The Nation )

Hogan is the other critic who made me laugh out loud this year, right from the first paragraph.

“Josh Hawley, best known for fleeing a mob he helped incite, has written a book on manhood. In Hawley’s defense, he began writing the book before everyone found out about the running-away situation. But it was, unfortunately, after he did the running.”

Namwali Serpell on 10 recent novels ( New York Review of Books )

Serpell’s criticism is written with the same striking, fluid precision as her fiction. It’s impossible to stop reading her once you start. She also coins a new phrase here, ambisextrous .

“Lately there’s been a spate of novels written by young women that have a remarkably similar plot. I’ve been calling them the ‘hit me’ books. Let’s be less incendiary: let’s call them the ‘remaster novels.’”

Michelle Hart on Emma Cline’s The Guest ( Los Angeles Times )

I love it when a critic instills a sense of the author’s style into their own writing, as Hart does here.

“They say not to use high beams in fog. The water vapor refracts the intense glare of headlights back toward the driver in a way that actually decreases visibility. Best, then, to use low light. This is the vibe of a story by Emma Cline, who writes so luminously about the haziness of female desire that even the most revelatory moments unfold in a sort of soft focus.”

Ayesha A. Siddiqi on Zadie Smith’s The Fraud ( Bookforum )

First of all, Bookforum is back! What a treat. Covering a book by a literary powerhouse like Smith is no small task, and Siddiqi adds crucial context on how The Fraud conflicts with Smith’s other writing about art.

“The way Smith treats every detail in her book as equally important forecloses The Fraud ’s potential and exposes how ill served Smith is by her philosophy on fiction. After years of deriding the shallowness of treating art as a site of radical struggle, Smith is left with a book that falters as art because of how shallowly it treats political consciousness.”

J. Howard Rosier on Celes Tisdale’s When the Smoke Cleared ( The Nation )

Rosier is one of our clearest-eyed critics of historical fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and an expert at weaving past narratives together with new insights.

“The smoldering embers of a failed revolution hang over When the Smoke Cleared , a collection of poems by Attica inmates along with Tisdale’s journal entries from the period, as well as a searing introduction by Nowak. Among the many strengths of this anthology is a blunt acknowledgment of the uprising as part of much larger historical mechanisms: namely, the last gasps of the civil rights movement and the nation’s violent reaction to Black liberation.”

Malavika Praseed on Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water ( Chicago Review of Books )

Praseed brings her own experience and historical knowledge to bear in this concise but nuanced look at Verghese’s first novel in 15 years.

“Kerala is a complex region, anchored by its history of multiple religions, competing political ideals, and creative legacy. I have seen these firsthand in myriad visits to my grandmothers’ houses, and heard the stories my mother and father often tell. Verghese brings all these elements to the forefront with numerous plotlines concerning the Saint Thomas Christian faith, the rise of Communism in Kerala, and the inclusion of literary and artistic characters.”

Lauren LeBlanc on Ali Smith’s Companion Piece ( Los Angeles Times )

LeBlanc accomplished the feat of getting me interested in a book I had unfairly dismissed as an optional “spin-off” of Smith’s seasonal quartet.

“It is remarkable to be alive at the same time as Scottish writer Ali Smith. No one else, I would argue, captures our ongoing contemporary nightmare in a manner that is both expansively imaginative and the perfect mirror of its abrupt absurdity.”

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Understanding The Remarkable Role Of A Book Editor

Dive deep into the world of publishing and gain a better understanding of the importance of book editing and the various roles involved in the process.

POV: You’ve just finished writing a manuscript and are keen to get your work published. But before you’re ready for publishing (via either the traditional or self-publishing routes), editing is a necessary next step in the process. Sourcing the help of professional book editors is crucial to reducing mistakes and enhancing a book while maintaining the writer’s unique style and voice.

There are various roles involved in professional book editing. The following is a description of the process, explaining the main types of editors involved at each stage, the overall benefits of employing the help of professional editing services, and some useful resources. What you’ll find in this post:

Differences Between Publishing and Manuscript Editors

• Types of Manuscript Editing Overview

Advantages of Professional Editing

Tips for working with editorial services, useful editing resources, publishing editor.

The name for this role is a slight misnomer, as a publishing “editor” usually doesn’t edit a manuscript directly. Also known as an acquisitions or commissioning editor , a publishing editor is the person who oversees the publication process for a publishing company, literary agency or institutional publishing operations team. They act effectively as project managers for books and focus on the business and financial side of things, from initially selecting a manuscript (the initial acquisition/commission) to selling and marketing the finished product.

Publishing editors assess the commercial potential of manuscripts by analyzing industry trends in the current market of already published works, considering their popularity and target audiences. They then pitch the books to the rest of the publishing team and may have some creative input in suggesting ways to improve the manuscript. Publishing editors manage the book through all phases of development from acquisition to final publication, including handling the project timeline, teams, and finances, negotiating contracts, marketing, and promotional services.

Manuscript Editors

Unlike publishing editors, who manage the whole publishing process, manuscript editors (also known as book editors)  work more closely with writers  to help them develop and refine their manuscripts to the company’s publishing standard .  The  distinct aspects of each role differ depending on the type of editor. Below is a breakdown of the different types of editors and a description of their roles.

Types of Manuscript Editing

Overall, the editing stage can be separated into two main parts: macro and micro editing . Macro editing focuses on the “bigger picture” when viewing a manuscript, e.g., thinking in terms of the general ideas covered in parts and chapters. This is when editorial assessments and developmental editing take place. On the other hand, micro editing is concerned more with intricate details between each line and word of a book and encompasses copyediting, line editing, proofreading, and sometimes fact-checking.

Editorial Assessment

This is an optional step in the professional editing process but can be a good opportunity to receive general feedback and advice on how to improve your manuscript at an early stage. Editorial assessments are also known as manuscript evaluations, manuscript reviews, or editorial critiques. This can be done before the first draft of a manuscript is fully complete to receive tips and pointers at an earlier stage to reduce the work required at later stages, thus making editing easier. Editorial assessments can also indicate if it’s worth going ahead with querying and submitting to literary agents .

Developmental Editing

Developmental editing, also known as  substantive, content, or structural editing,  is where an editor considers the book on a broader scale and how best to organize and structure your written content. They provide feedback to a writer on major “structural” matters in terms of the overall narrative and iron out issues to do with formatting, plot points, settings, timelines, POVs, and characterization to improve the flow of the narrative. For academic or non-fiction work, developmental editors may highlight areas to strengthen the arguments presented in the book or make suggestions of where to include further research to support your claims.

Copyediting

Once developmental editing is complete, the manuscript is handed over to the copyeditor for the next step. The main goal of copyediting is to remove errors and improve the coherency and correctness of a book to make it more understandable for a reader. This usually includes checking spelling, grammar, and syntax, streamlining the usage of tenses, and fixing inconsistencies in descriptions of settings or character details. Copyediting can be especially valuable for non-native English speakers, helping to make your writing more fluent and natural. It can also involve aligning the text with a specific style guide, such as APA.

Line Editing

Line editing can also be referred to as stylistic editing and tends to be confused with copyediting. Where copyeditors focus on fixing writing mechanics (e.g., spelling and grammar), line editing is all about improving the writing style to make it more readable and engaging for a reader. At this stage, a line editor examines elements of writing such as word choice, tone, and sentence structure, offering more detailed feedback on how to improve in these areas.

Fact-checking

This is another optional part of the editing process that depends on the type of manuscript. If a book covers topics requiring a strong research basis, then it can be useful to enlist the help of a fact-checking editor . This is especially crucial for non-fiction, genres such as hard science-fiction or historical fiction, and writers covering topics new and unfamiliar to them to enhance the believability of their story and ensure factual consistency. As part of this stage, a fact-checker will review all of the factual references in the manuscript and consult external sources to confirm the accuracy and correctness of the information and highlight any discrepancies to the writer.

Proofreading

This is the last phase of editing —  a final review (like a quality assurance check) to ensure that no errors slip through the cracks and make their way to publication. Proofreaders don’t contribute to creative decisions, such as suggestions or feedback regarding the story itself, and focus only on fixing mechanical errors in the text. This includes not only scrutinizing issues with spelling or grammar but also formatting errors in the layout and typography. Ideally, a proofreader shouldn’t come across many problems by this point in the process, but it’s still an essential procedure to ensure a manuscript is fully polished and ready to proceed to the next stage of production.

Objectivity and Expert Insights

As a writer, it can be challenging to assess your own work through an objective and impartial lens. This is where professional editors can provide support , identify issues in your book that you may have missed yourself, and really enhance your work to ensure the best reading experience for your audience. Furthermore, book editors who specialize in an area of focus can be particularly beneficial in providing nuanced feedback.

Another advantage to hiring a professional book editor (as opposed to relying on informal help from your social circle) is that often, an editor will have a good insight into the publishing world . This industry knowledge can prove useful when you reach the point of querying potential literary agents and presenting your work to traditional publishers, greatly improving your chances of publication.

Support with Self-Publishing

Additionally, if you do decide to self-publish your book , working with professional editors is even more critical. Self-publishing gives you control of all aspects of publication, whereas, in traditional publishing, there’s oftentimes a team of editors assigned to review your work. Therefore, with self-publishing, you’ll have to be proactive in seeking support.

Focus on Your Editing Needs

There’s a lot of different terminology and jargon thrown about in the industry, which can be difficult to wrap your head around, especially for those new to publishing. It’s important to note that some types of editing are referred to by alternative names or broken down into slightly different stages, as there’s some crossover between the duties of editing roles. This article has outlined one workflow style, but different editing services and publishers may follow slightly different approaches, so watch out for that when reviewing information on their services.

When enlisting support from professional editing services , focus more on what type of editing you feel is appropriate for the stage you’re at with your work, and don’t worry too much about using the correct labels and terms. Also, costs for services do vary , so sending some samples from your manuscript and requesting an initial quote can clarify with editors what assistance you require and confirm if they can help you with that within your budgeting constraints.

Choose the Right Editor for Your Type of Work

Try to choose an editor or editing team that is familiar with the subject area or genre your book falls under, e.g. if you’ve written a sci-fi novel, an editor specializing in speculative fiction would be the most suitable or for a non-fiction memoir, an editing service specializing in narrative non-fiction. Editors’ portfolios can be a good indicator of if they’ll be a right fit for your work.

Building a Good Working Relationship with Your Editor

Communication is key. Developing a strong working relationship with your editor, built on good communication, collaboration, and trust, will really help streamline the entire process. For example, It’s important to debrief editors on information unique to your book, such as stylistic choices you’ve made or words you invented as part of world-building so that they take this into account during the editing process.

Managing Expectations of the Process

Overall, editing is an iterative, often lengthy, process, requiring multiple rounds of editing for months or even years before settling on the finished draft. Therefore, it’s necessary to be patient and manage your expectations regarding the timeline for the whole process. Conducting some self-editing when drafting your initial manuscript can also speed up the process.

The following are some resources to help guide you through the process of hiring a professional editor.

• Grammarly has a list of resources to help you with the initial stage of editing your manuscript yourself.
• Three Quills Editing lists online tools, training, and tips to develop editing skills in self-editing writers and editors alike.
• Editor World details resources for US-based and international writers, professional authors, students, and academic writers.
• The Write Life lists some sites to consult in search of a freelance book editor.
• Writers and artists provide editing services and literary agenting at various price tiers.
• The Top Firms recommends various professional editing services for your book.
• True Editors also has a list of recommended manuscript editors.

Transforming the first draft of a manuscript into a full-fledged book ready for publication is often a long process involving a series of steps from the initial editorial assessment through to development, copy, line editing, fact-checking and final proofreading. Often, a lot of collaboration and communication between the editing team and the writers themselves is needed. Although it can be time-consuming, after a series of comprehensive and thorough edits, a book can be well on its way to getting published. It’s all worth it in the end for the overall polished professional product.

Read this blog to learn about other careers in writing.

Interested in promoting your book? Here’s how Bookstr can help with that!

FEATURED IMAGE VIA BOOKSTR / M.A. KOLE

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