Book reviews are important resources for your research because they
help you to:
- Evaluate a book for purchase or reading.
- Survey the reactions to a book at the time of publication.
- Provide summaries of a book's contents.
Book reviews found in popular publications (daily newspapers, or magazines
like The New Yorker or The Atlantic Monthly) usually are written with
the expectation that readers are looking chiefly for a recommendation
about whether the book is worth reading or not. These reviews usually
appear soon after the book has been published. On the other hand, book
reviews in academic publications are written with the expectation that
many readers will have already read the book, and are looking for a
detailed evaluation of its merits and flaws. These reviews
can appear several years after the book's publication.