how to read a book reviews

LESSWRONG LW

Review: how to read a book (mortimer adler, charles van doren).

As part of my research on how to bootstrap understanding in a field , I’m reading books that attempt to answer that question. You might think I should have started with that, but it was useful to get a sense of what problems I needed to solve before I looked for the solution.  How to Read a Book ( affiliate link ) is generally very well regarded in this area and came with a strong recommendation from the CEO of Roam , who I would expect to have pretty good thoughts on learning structure. Nonetheless, I was quite disappointed. It took me a long time to put my disappointment into words, but with the help of someone on Facebook I finally figured it out: How to Read a Book is aimed at a narrower subset of books than it acknowledges. What subset, you might ask? I don’t have a great answer, because the authors clearly consider the subset to be the only books, or the only books worth reading, so they didn’t leave a lot of clues. 

What I can say is that it expects books to follow a rigid structure, and to have a single unifying point (what they call “the unity”). This seems to me to be setting up both the author and the reader to throw out a lot of information because they weren’t expecting to see it or couldn’t fit it into their existing frameworks- reading like a state , in essence. This is not the only thing that makes me think HtRaB is more about being able to understand  a book than understand  the world , although it’s the only one I can articulate.

How to Read a Book didn’t even attempt to answer my current most important question in reading: How do I know what to save or pay attention to? More attentive reading (including but not limited to note-taking) takes more time and more mental effort. Even if it was free, every additional memory or note eats up space in my brain or exobrain and makes it harder to find other thoughts when I look for them. But I don’t necessarily know how important a piece of information is when I read it. Good pre-reading might help me know how important it is to that particular work, but never to my life as a whole.

HtRaB acknowledges that different works have vastly different returns to attention and you should allocate your reading effort accordingly, but I don’t feel like it gave me guidance for choosing what to pay attention to, and I have a suspicion that if I pressed the point the authors’ answer would be extremely in line with the literary and scientific canon of the 1940s-1970s.

My favorite section of How to Read a Book is also the most mechanically detailed: the algorithm for pre-processing a book (explained in detail here ). I don’t know if this was the most useful to me because it was the most detailed or because a teacher once told me skimming was immoral and I needed that to be challenged.

For the meat of reading,  How to Read a Book suggests questions to ask but not how to determine the answer. To be fair, this is hard. As I work on my own guide to reading I’m intensely aware of how difficult it is to translate the intentions and external appearance of what I’m doing to inner workings comprehensible to many, or even to other people very similar to myself.  I suspect there are people for whom reading these questions causes something to click in their brain and they suddenly start reading better, and that’s great, but it makes the book lucky, not good. Which is nothing to be ashamed of: sometimes a stab at a hard problem is worth more than a perfect solution to an easy one.  But HtRaB’s stab did not happen to hit my particular problem, nor contain enough deep models to let me make the stab myself.

My overall impression is that this is one of those books that is helpful if you read it at the right time and pretty meh otherwise, and it was the wrong time for me. I also predicted it would be one of those books that’s notable for founding a genre but goes on to be surpassed by later books that learned from it, but when I looked at Amazon I found very little. There’s lots on speedreading, confusing memorization with learning, and  “how to study to pass a test designed by someone else”, and I may end up reading some of those because the field is that sparse, but they’re not what I actually want. So if there’s a work you or someone you trust likes that attempts to answer any of the following questions, please share it:

• How do you find the most likely sources of relevant or useful information?
• How do you get the most (useful) information out of a sources?
• How do you decide what information to save?
• How do you save it in a maximally useful way?

I’m also interested if you have opinions on any of the following:

• Kindle Unlimited
• The Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning
• Extend Your Mind: Praxis Volume 2
• How to Take Smart Notes
• Accelerated Learning for Expertise: Rapid Knowledge Acquisition Skills to Learn Faster, Comprehend Deeper, and Reach a World-Class Level (Learning how to Learn Book 6) Kindle Edition
• The Self-Learning Blueprint: A Strategic Plan to Break Down Complex Topics, Comprehend Deeply, and Teach Yourself Anything (Learning how to Learn Book 3)
• Writing to Learn
• Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive
• The Art of Reading

So many thanks to my Patreon supporters and the Long Term Future Fund for their support of this research.

I agree that How to Read a Book is quite underwhelming.

To me, How to Read a Book epitomizes the Modernist take on knowledge , implicitly assuming that the goal is to assemble all the facts together, discard the ones that aren't true, and then figure out how they fit together so you can achieve your goals.

Of course, finding facts and figuring out if they're true is important, but there are lots of other important things you might want from learning like understanding thinking styles and frames, generating frameworks, understanding how the knowledge fits into other frameworks, inferring intent, getting context, creating useful actions, etc. All of the things that Postmodernism and Metamodernism where trying to critique about the Modernist framework.

I haven't found a great resource that does what How to Read a Book does for learning in a Meta-modern context, but I did make a video a while ago with all of the mental models, tools, and processes I've collected in this vein. I don't normally recommend it to people because it's almost 20 minutes, but you specifically might get a lot more than 20 minutes worth of value by watching it.

Video is here if you're interested.

I have/had all the problems that are mentioned in the post, but as of late I am observing that as I read more books on a single topic, it allows me to maintain my natural rythm without having to strain myself to be hyper-attentive. And the added benefit I see is even if I miss some quirky details in the first book due to lack of attention, it somehow starts to come together on its own by the nth book(for me it has been 2nd or 3rd). On the other hand, I don't think my attention span has improved drastically, but I would say that it has definitely improved by some margin due to meditation and reading more, at least to a point of being able to realize that it has.

As for note-taking, I would also love to know how do people take notes, to me it feels like a flow-breaking activity to a point that I've come to detest doing it. Also as you say, sometimes the divided attention b/w I have to mark/note important things vs I have to maintain my focus makes it a tiresome activity to read, and sometimes it just feels like almost everything is equally important. So if someone could answer that I'll be grateful. To be precise my interest is in converting offline margin notes to online notes, and knowing how people decide what is important in the first read.

And among the books you've listed, I have read the "The Art of Reading", but I felt it was rather underwhelming, meaning, it never says anything about how to read, in fact, the entire book is weaved around the idea of kindling your interest in reading by explaining snippets of various prose written by various accomplished authors on how good reading requires good writing. Not good if you are already interested and don't want to blame the author for not writing well or making it too dense; and are only looking to up the attention/retention game, note-taking etc.

My approach to the margin note/marking conundrum:

• I primarily use digital sources. Most e-book software has an option to just look up your mark ups, and to extract them. This makes things easier. What I'm describing here works with physical books as well, so I will describe different processes for physical and e-books as necessary.
• I use mark-ups as a 'look at this passage a second time' marker. I use two markers (Marker colors or marks like a cross and circle on margin). One is for 'moderately interesting', another is for 'resonated strongly. For the first category, use a marker color that can be overwritten by the second (like yellow, and dark red for interesting stuff).
• Reading happens in two passes for me:
• First pass, I read the chapter, book part or whole book from front to back, marking anything of note. If I have something to say, it goes into the marginalia (or as a comment for e-books). This is typically just things like '?' or 'contradiction > p. 53' ; so short it takes under a second and keeps you in the book.
• Second pass, I read only the marked passages and marginalia/comments. In the second pass I work straight into my preferred note taking method (in my case, I use the Zettelkasten method with Evernote as the software).
• On the second pass, I copy interesting pictures etc. out of the book either by photographing them with a smartphone for the physical books, or using Windows Clipper to crop them out in case of e-books (WIN+SHift+S) - there's a similar tool for every OS and device under the sun.
• I often use the red passages as direct quotes (with proper sources and page in the external notes!). The yellow passages are getting summarized in the notes. I also try to answer/solve the marginalia in my head and to add them to the notes, as they're often very insightful.

This way, initial reading is a lot faster and pain-free. On the second pass, you also know the gist of the book and are more easily able to compress the marked information and to sort nice-to-know, have-to-know and irrelevant (that's why I use two colors; anything unmarked -> probably irrelevant). Remember: marking is just for finding things, it's not note taking on its own. So re-read as quickly as possible. The intervals for re-reading (if after each chapter or after finishing the book) depends on how dense the book is.

This technique can of course be combined with other techniques like pre-reading and skimming Adler talks about in his book. For skimming, I mark interesting passages to re-read vertically down the margin, usually whole paragraphs. For e-books, I mark the first few works of a paragraph. Then I proceed as usual, or do not read non-premarked passages at all.

Assuming you have not found the answer to this question.....

For each question.

Depends on your definition of useful or relevant. In most cases, knowledge that is generated is contextual to what it's been interpreted and used for, so you generally ask questions, like, for example, in terms of relevance: Which source is likely the most credible and less fallacious towards acquiring information. If you need useful sources on that, search The Hierarchy of Practical Evidence by Cedric Chin. For more scientific sources, there probably exists a much better method that I'm not aware of.

And. 3. Three heuristcs helped me ranked information:

• The Barbell Method of Reading on zettelkasten.de https://zettelkasten.de/posts/barbell-method-reading/
• The Time and Detail Heuristic by Fsblog on determining which books to read and put in your mental linrary(on medium) https://medium.com/personal-growth/what-you-spend-time-reading-changes-your-brain-ee2ab4f2aa17
• (less used) Informania Shield by Nat Eliason on https://www.nateliason.com/blog/infomania
• Depends on your preference for processing information, but for efficiency, someone mentioned this earlier; using a Zettelkasten for note taking and knowledge management. A Digital markdown note taking app is often more manageable than a physical one in terms of transportation and searchability.

I can confidently say that I use the Barbell Method and The Time and Detail Heuristic intuitively when evaluating information.

I have read How to take smart notes by Söhnke Ahrens, in its German original language. A few observations I've made:

• The book, despite its English title, isn't really about note taking in general. It describes how to implement one specific note-taking technique, the Zettelkasten (ZK), or slip box, method. The premise is that you need to do knowledge work in order to write something like a master thesis or scientific paper.
• The strength of this method is to avoid putting knowledge you extracted from books into information silos. Instead, extracted notes are free-flowing and interconnected.
• This doesn't really solve the problems you mentioned on their own, especially the one about not knowing what to read more carefully and what to gloss over. However, in the ZK technique, you can really easily combine notes of multible sources. I usually just extract notes from a summary about the book somewhere. After that I read the book and I fill in the gaps around the summary notes and append interesting things to already existing information. Depending on the information richness of the book source, that's either almost nothing new compared to the summary extraction (and quick work) or a lot of new details & information (and takes longer).
• The weakness of the ZK method is that it can be very time consuming (moreso than other note taking methods), depending on how much you want to extract from the source. There's also time on administrative things like connecting and organizing notes. You will also need a computer for the note-taking work; you can read/listen to/watch the source as usual. The technique is applicable to all kinds of sources, I also extract from lectures, audio books and YouTube video.
• There's a lot of 'why' and argumentation for the Zettelkasten technique. The argumentation however is really shallow and mainstream, and glosses over a lot of ground in passing.
• This would be awesome for someone who needs directions on where to look next, and would be a good beginning for source-hopping. However, if you've read books that go into more detail or even the sources themselves, it feels like name dropping.
• An example would be the short sub-chapter on habit formation ("Make it a habit" ), which feels like a introductory chapter of a graduate thesis rather than a book that is supposed to be riveting.
• Also, I'm personally not a fan of the distinction between long-term, project and short-term notes in context of the ZK.
• The writing style is very structured and feels German to it's core. You instantly feel that a scholar is writing, instead of a science educator.
• This is a welcome change to most popular science or self-help books, who are way too long and anecdote-ridden.
• When you follow the book from front to back, it feels like a step-to-step introduction on how to work on books with the ZK method.
• The structure follows a three part approach:
• The introduction, which includes general things like the goal and approach of this book, and also preliminary steps to set up. It gives very practical tips on setup.
• The second part talks about principles and theory. This is the part I'm not too happy with, as it's too shallow and short.
• The last third, "The six steps to successful writing" is about the implimentation of the technique and how this approach is different from more traditional reading and knowledge work. The goal isn't the extracted knowledge per se, but to use that in other writing projects - the book assumes academic writing.

I'm personally an avid fan of the Zettelkasten and use it extensively, together with Progressive Summarization (Tiago Forte) for the preliminary work on short-form written sources (and Cornell method for lectures/video sources). This book serves as a neat primer for getting started, or to think about your second brain from another perspective. However, it's not word class literature and the English version reads a little awkward in my opinion.

I have personally used this book to build a skeleton of information, before filling it in with blog posts from https://zettelkasten.de/ . However, reading https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/ is a good alternative for that.

I started How to Take Smart Notes (before writing this post) and have read/watched several supporting texts. I don't get it. It's an addressing system. It doesn't say anything about what to write down or what things to link. Does this change further in the book? Is it one of those things where knowing a mechanical step opens new doors for certain people?

The book as well as the Zettelkasten method in itself doesn't directly solve the problems you stated in your article. It isn't a system that tells you what to extract out of the books you read. There's a lot of discussion of what to extract and how deep to extract in forums, and the tequnique itself doesn't prescribe anything.

The main problem the ZK tries to solve isn't curation of what to extract from your sources. Instead, it tries to solve the problem of information siloing that happens when you take classic notes about books that are separate from each other. Later, the ZK becomes an Ideation tool - with enough notes in the system, you can work out new knowledge and ideas just be connecting things that weren't connected before.

It's not about mechanical steps, either. It's a change in how to record and organize notes. Instead of one book > one long note about the book, you 'atomize' knowledge into many smaller notes. Each of these notes are like mini-Wikipedia articles about a specific thing. Than you re-connect the notes, like in the world wide web. One book leads to many notes, and one note can have references to many books.

Examples of note titles, just to give you an idea: 'Reading as forgetting'; 'the brain isn't for retention'; 'information bottleneck of the brain is an advantage'; 'GTD: Getting it out of the head as central paradigm'; 'deep learning in AI'. Those are all closely interconnected but have totally different sources. Each of those notes is between 100-300 words long.

A few observations of mine on what to take notes on:

• The overarching structure of the book, as well as central ideas. I often extract that via reading techniques (reading TOC and end/summary chapters), skimming) or by reading a summery of the book.
• Everything that solves a current problem I have (especially when I read a book for a specific reason, like learning)
• Everything that connects to already existing notes (often, this is just a new reference to an old note).
• Everything that resonates with me or makes me excited.

Sometimes, I have 4-5 new ZK notes for a 300 page book. Sometimes I make 5 new ZK notes for one page alone. The more valuable the source, the more time I will spend with it.

One interesting thing about the ZK principle is that it's additive. If I read a few books about a subject, I don't need to note down the basics that I read again and again. Instead, I can focus on adding the nuances and Individualities that each book adds on top of the basics. This way, there are note trails that are almost like discussions: 'Author A says this is so-and-so', 'Author B says this is this-and-that', 'comparison Author A, Author B', and so on. Very satisfying, and a huge boon of the technique.

I've read this book and tried to read it again as I thought I was missing something, but my impression of the book is that it's somewhat sloppy, a bit preachy of ZK being a cure-all, makes much more complicated a very simple system to the point of obfuscating the main point.

To my understanding, all the Zettlekasten is is having notes with: 1. individual names (if you look for one name, one note comes up),  2. creating links between associated ideas (if you think, "wow, this reminds me of..." you may forget that connection later, so you link them), and  3. having indexes to point you to good starting points when you develop strings of thoughts / notes.

The indexes are the most complicated part. It's just that you don't file notes under a single folder (as it separates from the ideas that aren't related, but also the ones that are) so instead you semantically connect ideas on an object level basis. In order to get a general sense of the full thought you developed ("when I was researching about x, what were the main conclusions I came to?") you can look at these indexes for a nice directory of your past thoughts.

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HOW TO READ A BOOK

by Monica Wood ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2024

A finely wrought story, beautifully told, with deeply memorable characters.

After accidentally causing the death of a fellow driver, a Maine woman does time in prison and then reestablishes her life on the outside.

Violet Powell was just 19, drunk and high, when she caused the death of Lorraine Daigle, a beloved mother and kindergarten teacher. She is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 28 months in prison. Though she thinks she won’t be able to survive, she does. Prison turns out to be excruciating and monotonous, and while she’s serving time, Troy, her “boyfriend-slash-fiancé-slash-future-slash-everything,” never writes or visits. Even worse, her mother dies and her family blames her. The book club that meets every Friday is her solace, along with Kitten, Jennie Big, Aimee, Dawna-Lynne, and the seven other members of the group. The discussions, in which Violet and her fellow inmates get to exert some control over their lives by complaining about books, are a brief respite. Harriet, the former teacher who leads the group, and the other women are willing to see Violet’s humanity. Violet, who will never forgive herself for her bad choices, is both the best of herself and the worst of herself at every moment. When she’s released, her sister drops her in Portland with a prepaid one-year lease on a furnished apartment, money, clothes, and the information that no one in her town or family can forgive her or wants to see her again. She must find her own way. A chance meeting with Harriet in a bookstore turns into an unexpected meeting with Frank Daigle, husband of the woman whose death she caused. This gorgeously told story follows the first few months after Violet’s release, what she calls the shimmering time, as she tries to define herself on the outside. And at first, only Harriet and Frank are willing to see her for who she is.

Pub Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9780063243675

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Mariner Books

Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring  passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the  Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading Audio CD – Unabridged, October 12, 2021

• Print length 1 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing
• Publication date October 12, 2021
• Dimensions 5.8 x 1.1 x 5.6 inches
• ISBN-10 1797139851
• ISBN-13 978-1797139852
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing; Unabridged edition (October 12, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 1 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1797139851
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1797139852
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 1.1 x 5.6 inches
• #516 in Study & Teaching Reference (Books)
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Mortimer jerome adler.

Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 - June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo. He worked for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and Adler's own Institute for Philosophical Research. Adler was married twice and had four children.

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Customers find the writing and content in-depth and straightforward. They also say the book is systematically presented and easy to understand. However, some find the length too long and wordy. Opinions are mixed on the reading pace, with some finding it fast and easy, while others say it's very slow.

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Customers find the writing and content of the book in-depth, providing guidance for reading practical, literary, historical, scientific, philosophical, and peripheral topics. They also say the book is well organized and easy to read, with great thoughts on peripheral topics like speed-reading. Readers also mention that the book guides incorporation of techniques to cut down on reading time. They say the appendix contains a list of quality authors and texts.

"...discovery: keenness of observation, readily available memory, range of imagination , and, of course, an intellect trained in analysis and reflection...." Read more

"...These note-taking techniques are indispensable to read well and the reader is advised to experiment with them and adapt them to his own style of..." Read more

"...This is a highly-advanced level of reading that one would embark on to do true work in a field, with the hope of providing an unheard analysis of a..." Read more

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Customers find the book straightforward, enlightening, and easy to grasp. They also say it's short and simple.

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“How to Read a Book” Is Heartfelt Novel of Forgiveness, Compassion and the Power of Stories

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

Award-winning author of several works of fiction, memoirist and playwright Monica Wood has written an impactful and deeply touching novel celebrating the transformational power of reading as well as the empowerment that comes with acceptance, true forgiveness and heartfelt compassion for others. How to Read a Book is a rare gem to savor, share and gift to book-loving friends.

Life is full of enriching opportunities; if presented with second chances, seize the moment to make new friends, explore alternate pathways and embrace life. Readers may alternately laugh and cry as they observe the lives of three characters intersect in unexpected ways. It succeeds in being sweetly moving without becoming saccharine.

The location is coastal Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state with a central urban population of less than 68,000 and a far greater metropolitan area. It is dauntingly large for a frightened young woman from a tiny, rural community who’s suddenly independent and alone for the first time in her life.

The primary settings for How to Read a Book are in a women’s prison, a downtown bookstore and a benign university animal research laboratory. The action spans several months and concludes with a brief, satisfying epilogue.

Strong Cast, Including an Ex-Con and a Talking Parrot

The plot is alternately narrated by three primary characters: Violet Powell, Harriet Larson and Frank Daigle. They are accompanied by a strong secondary cast that not insignificantly includes a Russian-born behavioral scientist and Ollie, a 54-year-old African grey parrot that resides in the university campus’ laboratory.

Ollie was retained by Dr. Mikhail Petrov from his previous research position but is not deemed clever enough to be an official part of the scientist’s important controlled behavioral experiments designed to demonstrate the higher-order cognition of these parrots. The birds are demonstrably highly intelligent and possess the ability to communicate with other parrots and humans. They can think, count, distinguish colors and shapes, play, make decisions and are steadfast. Some of them can even sing. They are well tended to around the clock by student assistants and are better adjusted and happier than most of the adults.

Violet is a 22-year-old ex-con recently released from prison six months early for good behavior. She has spent 668 nights incarcerated after being convicted of manslaughter of a woman who was a wife, beloved mother and popular kindergarten teacher.

Violet was smart, loved reading and consistently received excellent marks throughout school but fell for the proverbial good-looking wastrel who was several years her senior. Shortly after high school graduation, desperate not to lose him, at his urging, she got behind the wheel of his car while high on alcohol and a pill he had popped into her mouth which started the chain of events related in How to Read a Book . Pressured by the wealthier boy’s attorney while in the throes of grief and remorse, Violet accepted full responsibility for her actions and good old Todd was barely questioned and never charged.

She was a model prisoner — albeit one without visitors as the so-called boyfriend vanished, her mother died and her older sister remained ashamed and unforgiving. The bright spot in every week was Book Club, a two-hour session led by Harriet Larson, a 64-year-old volunteer retired English teacher for a select group of twelve incarcerated women. They may not have always enjoyed the book selections but it was a safe, peaceful space and provided a break in their mind-numbing routine.

Reading Books and Making Friends in Unlikely Places

Harriet became a widow when her attorney husband Lou suddenly died after many years of a compatible marriage. Both of their adult daughters were married to Englishmen and lived across the pond. Zoom calls, texts and emails are frequent but she will soon be alone as her niece Sophie, whom she raised from childhood since her sister died, is about to leave for graduate school in California. Prison Book Club and the preparation it requires keep her from becoming a lonely cat lady residing in her beautiful but empty Craftsman home.

She is specifically instructed not to get involved with the sometimes trash-talking twelve women dressed in drab blue prison garb. Additionally, there are many rules to follow: first names only, no personal information, no gifts given or accepted, bag searches entering and exiting the prison, no physical contact and a correctional officer must be continually present.

The inmates are pleased to keep the books they read for the club meetings. In eighteen months, respectful and friendly group leader Harriet has learned much about each woman in addition to the real and alleged crimes they have been convicted of and they in turn have wheedled and surmised much about her life. A gradual respect and mutual friendship has evolved over time.

The most popular book read and discussed so far has been Edgar Lee Master’s classic Spoon River Anthology , consisting of free verse poems written as epitaphs for residents of a fictional town. The selection was made almost by accident after a conversation with retired master machinist and part-time handyman Frank Daigle in Wadsworth Books.

Bookstores, Cats and An Unexpected Connection

Frank Daigle was at loose ends after a lifelong career of crafting tools and machine parts. He, too, was an avid reader who found a refuge in the warm, inviting downtown bookshop which usually displayed a cat napping in the window. The store partnered with the local animal shelter to promote adoptions. Customers coming to browse could leave not only with their purchased books, but also, after a screening process, with a new feline friend.

Like the stray cats, Frank wandered in one day and made himself immediately useful fixing wonky casters on carts, oiling squeaky doors and such until the manager offered him a part-time handyman job. It occupied his time while providing a haven after his wife Lorraine was killed in the car crash Violet caused. His daughter Kristy was convinced he was crushed by grief but in truth, his emotions were tempered by the fact that his marriage had been complicated.

Warm, Charming, Witty and Hopeful Story

All three of these fine people who are attempting to come to terms with their losses, depression, disappointments, grief, remorse and familial opinions encounter each other one afternoon in Wadsworth Books. The reality of their lives is not quite what family and friends imagine and what ultimately results is the beginning of what makes How to Read a Book unforgettable.

Put this novel at or near the top of your reading list! It has warmth, charm, wit, hope and understanding. Monica Wood demonstrates a deep understanding of the ripple effect of kindness, compassion and forgiveness in soothing troubled hearts. This reviewer wishes to have sufficient time to read it again.

Monica Wood is a novelist, memoirist, and playwright; a recipient of the Maine Humanities Council Carlson Prize for contributions to the public humanities; and a recipient of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Distinguished Achievement Award for contributions to the literary arts. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, Dan Abbott, and their cat, Susie.

Buy this Book!

Linda Hitchcock

Linda Hitchcock is a native Virginian who relocated to a small farm in rural Kentucky with her beloved husband, John, 14 years ago. She’s a lifelong, voracious reader and a library advocate who volunteers with her local Friends of the Library organization as well as the Friends of Kentucky Library board. She’s a member of the National Book Critic’s Circle, Glasgow Musicale and DAR. Linda began her writing career as a technical and business writer for a major West Coast-based bank and later worked in the real estate marketing and advertising sphere. She writes weekly book reviews for her local county library and Glasgow Daily Times and has contributed to Bowling Green Living Magazine, BookBrowse.com, BookTrib.com, the Barren County Progress newspaper and SOKY Happenings among other publications. She also serves as a volunteer publicist for several community organizations. In addition to reading and writing, Linda enjoys cooking, baking, flower and vegetable gardening, and in non-pandemic times, attending as many cultural events and author talks as time permits.

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Book summary and reviews of How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

Summary | Reviews | More Information | More Books

How to Read a Book

by Monica Wood

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• Genre: Literary Fiction
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About this book

Book summary.

From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle… Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed. When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways. How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.

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Media Reviews

Reader reviews.

"Gorgeously told...A finely wrought story, with deeply memorable characters." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "[H]eartwarming if simplistic...The novel improves in the second half with an immersive section on Violet's job assisting a scientist on researching cognition in parrots, and there are some poignant revelations about how she came to drive drunk that night and about the Daigles' marriage." — Publishers Weekly "Told with compassion and empathy, Wood's tender novel explores the ways people can surprise themselves and others. A deeply humane and touching novel; highly recommended for book clubs and fans of Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures ." — Booklist "I laughed and wept my way straight through How to Read a Book . What a beautiful, big-hearted treasure of a novel!" —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Euphoria and Writers "What a master of plot and character Monica Wood is. I love the various worlds How to Read a Book took me to: a prison, a bookshop, and a laboratory, all in Portland, Maine. And I love how hopefully Wood writes about grief and second chances on behalf of her three protagonists. Surely everyone who reads this novel will want to offer Ollie, a voluble African grey parrot, a home." — Margot Livesey, New York Times bestselling author of The Boy in the Field and The Flight of Gemma Hardy "A young female ex-con, a widower who was collateral damage, and a woman who runs the prison bookclub—three indelible voices (and let's not forget one extraordinary parrot's), remind us that life is full of mysteries, and sometimes the ones we believe are unsolvable as the ones that might save us. About second chances (our lives need not be apologies), the weight of forgiveness, our bond with our books, and the stubborn way love can make us see a world shining with mercy, Wood's new novel is both incandescent and unforgettable." —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of With or Without You and Pictures of You

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Author Information

• Books by this Author

Monica Wood Author Biography

Photo: Dan Abbott

Monica Wood is a novelist, memoirist, and playwright; a recipient of the Maine Humanities Council Carlson Prize for contributions to the public humanities; and a recipient of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Distinguished Achievement Award for contributions to the literary arts. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, Dan Abbott, and their cat, Susie.

Link to Monica Wood's Website

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How to read a book.

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Common Sense Media Review

Dazzling look at the joy and discovery of reading.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that How to Read a Book , by Newbery-winning author and poet Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet, is a dazzling, poetic take on what it's like to read a book and discover all the words and the unfolding story inside. Sweet's vibrant, sometimes neon collage…

Why Age 4+?

Any positive content.

When you read a book, whole worlds unfurl before your eyes "piece by piece part

Shows the exciting experience of reading a book.

Girls and boys, light-skinned and dark, are represented engaging in reading, inc

Positive Messages

When you read a book, whole worlds unfurl before your eyes "piece by piece part by part page by rustling page." Reading is "a book party stacked with your favorite friends: A picnic of words + sounds in leaps + bounds."

Educational Value

Positive role models.

Girls and boys, light-skinned and dark, are represented engaging in reading, including a girl wearing a head scarf.

Parents need to know that How to Read a Book , by Newbery-winning author and poet Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet , is a dazzling, poetic take on what it's like to read a book and discover all the words and the unfolding story inside. Sweet's vibrant, sometimes neon collage art mixes well with Alexander's spare, passionate descriptions and metaphors ("A picnic of words + sounds in leaps and bounds") that capture the pure joy of reading.

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What's the Story?

HOW TO READ A BOOK both suggests a way to approach reading -- like, pick a comfy place to do it -- and describes what it's like once you peek inside a book. "Peel its gentle skin like you would a clementine. ... Watch a novel world unfurl right before your eyes."

Is It Any Good?

This vibrant, dazzlingly illustrated picture book poetically captures the excitement that can come from reading a book. It shows kids digging into reading and discovering imagined worlds that transport them. Type merges onto faces, and books turn into metaphors, like one that looks like a toaster with words (instead of toast) popping out of it.

How to Read a Book is wildly imaginative as it distills the soaring feeling of reading a story and hoping it will never end. It's brilliant, fun, energized, and passionate.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the collages in How to Read a Book . How do you like the mixture of drawings, colorful letters, and text passages? Why do you think the artist put text from a book on the boy's face?

Why do you think the artist chose the story of Bambi to draw text and pictures from?

Try making your own collage. Use a combination of your own drawings and some pictures or text from a magazine or newspaper that you have permission to rip up.

The author writes about hoping you'll never reach the end when you're reading a book. Have you ever felt that way? What book made you feel that way?

Book Details

• Author : Kwame Alexander
• Illustrator : Melissa Sweet
• Genre : Picture Book
• Topics : Great Boy Role Models
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Harper
• Publication date : June 18, 2019
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 4 - 8
• Number of pages : 32
• Available on : Hardback
• Award : ALA Best and Notable Books
• Last updated : February 4, 2020

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What to read next.

How to Read a Story

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Reading a book to review it

Choose your book carefully.

Being interested in a book will help you write a strong review, so take some time to choose a book whose topic and scholarly approach genuinely interest you.

If you’re assigned a book, you’ll need to find a way to become interested in it.

Read actively and critically

Don’t read just to discover the author’s main point or to mine some facts.

Engage with the text, marking important points and underlining passages as you go along (in books you own, of course!).

Focus first on summary and analysis

Before you read

• Write down quickly and informally some of the facts and ideas you already know about the book’s topic
• Survey the book –including the preface and table of contents–and make some predictions
• What does the title promise the book will cover or argue?
• What does the preface promise about the book?
• What does the table of contents tell you about how the book is organized?
• Who’s the audience for this book?

As you read

With individual chapters:

• Think carefully about the chapter’s title and skim paragraphs to get an overall sense of the chapter.
• Then, as you read, test your predictions against the points made in the chapter.
• After you’ve finished a chapter, take brief notes. Start by summarizing , in your own words, the major points of the chapter. Then you might want to take brief notes about particular passages you might discuss in your review.

Begin to evaluate

As you take notes about the book, try dividing your page into two columns. In the left, summarize main points from a chapter. In the right, record your reactions to and your tentative evaluations of that chapter.

Here are several ways you can evaluate a book:

• If you know other books on this same subject, you can compare the arguments and quality of the book you’re reviewing with the others, emphasizing what’s new and what’s especially valuable in the book you’re reviewing.
• How well does the book fulfill the promises the author makes in the preface and introduction?
• How effective is the book’s methodology?
• How effectively does the book make its arguments?
• How persuasive is the evidence?
• For its audience, what are the book’s strengths?
• How clearly is the book written?

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How to Write a Book Review: Introduction

• Introduction

Steps to Write a Book Review

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Writing Book Reviews

Academic book reviews are helpful in enabling people to decide if they want to read a given book. A book review is not a book report, which you may hae done in elementary school. A book report describes the basic contents. Book reviews go far deeper than that. This guide will explain what an academic book review is and how to write one well.

Introduction to Writing Book Reviews

• What is a Book Review?
• Benefits of Writing Book Reviews

 What is a Book Review?

• Describes the purpose of the book
• Describes the contents of the book (subject of each chapter)
• Analyzes the approach/argument(s) of the book: Does it seem accurate? Does it make sense? Is the argument strong or weak?
• Assesses whether the book did what the author said it would do
• Suggests potential audiences for the book (pastors, students, professors, lay people) and potential uses, such as a textbook
• Based upon a careful reading of the entire book
• Uses a structured, formal, academic tone
• Most often appears in academic journals, though more informal versions may appear in magazines and blogs
• May include comparisons to other works in the same subject, e.g., if you are reviewing a book on Paul's theology, it would help to compare it briefly to another book on Paul's theology
• In an academic setting, a review assumes an academic audience

A book review requires the reviewer to read the book carefully and reflect on its contents. The review should tell a reader what the book seeks to do and offer an appraisal of how well the author(s) accomplished this goal. That is why this is a "critical" book review. You are analyzing the book, not simply describing it. A review assumes that the readers know the vocabulary of the discipline. For example, a reviewer of a book on the Gospel of Matthew could use "Q" and not need to explain it because it is assumed that the audience knows what Q is in the context of talking about the canonical gospels.

A book review does not

• Seek to be entertaining and/or engaging
• Describe your feelings regarding the book, e.g., “I loved it,” “it was terrible,” or “I disagree completely.”
• Superficial treatment similar to the blurb on the back of the book
• Offers an ad hominem (against the person) attack on the author

Here are two examples of typical academic book reviews:

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAiFZU171223002713&site=eds-live&authtype=ip,sso&custid=s8984749

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAi9KZ180630003303&site=eds-live&authtype=ip,sso&custid=s8984749

You may see non-academic book reviews that are more inform al or use humor but that is not appropriate for an academic book review.

Why would you write a book review? There are a few reasons.

• Meet a course requirement
• Understand a book better and grow as a scholar
• Write reviews for publications in the future, such as magazines

1. Your professor assigned it. You are probably reading this page because a professor gave you an assignment to write a review. This is straightforward. Your professor may have a specific set of requirements or directions and you need to follow those, even if they differ from what you read here. In either case, assume that your review is for a large audience. 

2. Writing a review will help you understand a book better. When you are going to write a good book review, you need to read the entire book carefully. By assigning a book review, the professor is seeking to help you understand the book better. A book review is a critical assessment of a book. “Critical” here means analytical. What did the author seek to do and how convincing was it? Your professor wants you to read the book carefully enough to explain both. A critical assessment recognizes that the status of an author/scholar is no guarantee that the book accomplishes its goal. The skill of critical assessment is valuable in all your research work, both now and after graduation.

3. You may have an opportunity in the future to write a book review for a denominational publication, a magazine like Christianity Today , a church newsletter, or in a blog post, which is very common.

So, a book review can fulfill a course requirement, make you better at critical assessment of the views of others, and create opportunities to use that skill for various publications.

Step 1: Read the book carefully.

Step 2: Write the basics.

Step 3: Fill in the details.

These steps are explained in the next tab of this research guide.

This is not for Book Reflections

If you have a (personal) reflection on a book assigned, what this guide says, besides step #1, likely does not apply to your assignment. You need to ask your professor for guidance on writing a reflection. There are two reasons.

1. A book reflection is not a standard, academic type of document. Therefore, general help based upon reading book reviews is not relevant.

2. Book reflections are heavily dependent upon exactly what a professor asks for. These frequently require comparing good and bad points of the book. That is not a feature of book reviews as such and reviews do not include your personal reflections.

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How Should One Read a Book?

Read as if one were writing it.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Young Girl Reading , c. 1868. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

At this late hour of the world’s history, books are to be found in almost every room of the house—in the nursery, in the drawing room, in the dining room, in the kitchen. But in some houses they have become such a company that they have to be accommodated with a room of their own—a reading room, a library, a study. Let us imagine that we are now in such a room; that it is a sunny room, with windows opening on a garden, so that we can hear the trees rustling, the gardener talking, the donkey braying, the old women gossiping at the pump—and all the ordinary processes of life pursuing the casual irregular way which they have pursued these many hundreds of years. As casually, as persistently, books have been coming together on the shelves. Novels, poems, histories, memoirs, dictionaries, maps, directories; black letter books and brand new books; books in French and Greek and Latin; of all shapes and sizes and values, bought for purposes of research, bought to amuse a railway journey, bought by miscellaneous beings, of one temperament and another, serious and frivolous, men of action and men of letters.

Now, one may well ask oneself, strolling into such a room as this, how am I to read these books? What is the right way to set about it? They are so many and so various. My appetite is so fitful and so capricious. What am I to do to get the utmost possible pleasure out of them? And is it pleasure, or profit, or what is it that I should seek? I will lay before you some of the thoughts that have come to me on such an occasion as this. But you will notice the note of interrogation at the end of my title. One may think about reading as much as one chooses, but no one is going to lay down laws about it. Here in this room, if nowhere else, we breathe the air of freedom. Here simple and learned, man and woman are alike. For though reading seems so simple—a mere matter of knowing the alphabet—it is indeed so difficult that it is doubtful whether anybody knows anything about it. Paris is the capital of France; King John signed the Magna Charta; those are facts; those can be taught; but how are we to teach people so to read “Paradise Lost” as to see that it is a great poem, or “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” so as to see that it is a good novel? How are we to learn the art of reading for ourselves? Without attempting to lay down laws upon a subject that has not been legalized, I will make a few suggestions, which may serve to show you how not to read, or to stimulate you to think out better methods of your own.

And directly we begin to ask how should one read a book we are faced by the fact that books differ; there are poems, novels, biographies on the book shelf there; each differs from the other as a tiger differs from a tortoise, a tortoise from an elephant. Our attitude must always be changing, it is clear. From different books we must ask different qualities. Simple as this sounds, people are always behaving as if all books were of the same species—as if there were only tortoises or nothing but tigers. It makes them furious to find a novelist bringing Queen Victoria to the throne six months before her time; they will praise a poet enthusiastically for teaching them that a violet has four petals and a daisy almost invariably ten. You will save a great deal of time and temper better kept for worthier objects if you will try to make out before you begin to read what qualities you expect of a novelist, what of a poet, what of a biographer. The tortoise is bald and shiny; the tiger has a thick coat of yellow fur. So books too differ: one has its fur, the other has its baldness.

To be able to read books without reading them, to skip and saunter, to suspend judgment, to lounge and loaf down the alleys and bye-streets of letters is the best way of rejuvenating one’s own creative power.

Yes; but for all that the problem is not so simple in a library as at the Zoölogical Gardens. Books have a great deal in common; they are always overflowing their boundaries; they are always breeding new species from unexpected matches among themselves. It is difficult to know how to approach them, to which species each belongs. But if we remember, as we turn to the bookcase, that each of these books was written by a pen which, consciously or unconsciously, tried to trace out a design, avoiding this, accepting that, adventuring the other; if we try to follow the writer in his experiment from the first word to the last, without imposing our design upon him, then we shall have a good chance of getting hold of the right end of the string.

To read a book well, one should read it as if one were writing it. Begin not by sitting on the bench among the judges but by standing in the dock with the criminal. Be his fellow worker, become his accomplice. Even, if you wish merely to read books, begin by writing them. For this certainly is true—one cannot write the most ordinary little story, attempt to describe the simplest event—meeting a beggar, shall we say, in the street, without coming up against difficulties that the greatest of novelists have had to face. In order that we may realize, however briefly and crudely, the main divisions into which novelists group themselves, let us imagine how differently Defoe, Jane Austen, and Thomas Hardy would describe the same incident—this meeting a beggar in the street. Defoe is a master of narrative. His prime effort will be to reduce the beggar’s story to perfect order and simplicity. This happened first, that next, the other thing third. He will put in nothing, however attractive, that will tire the reader unnecessarily, or divert his attention from what he wishes him to know. He will also make us believe, since he is a master, not of romance or of comedy, but of narrative, that everything that happened is true. He will be extremely precise therefore. This happened, as he tells us on the first pages of” Robinson Crusoe,” on the first of September. More subtly and artfully, he will hypnotize us into a state of belief by dropping out casually some little unnecessary fact—for instance, “my father called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout.” His father’s gout is not necessary to the story, but it is necessary to the truth of the story, for it is thus that anybody who is speaking the truth adds some small irrelevant detail without thinking. Further, he will choose a type of sentence which is flowing but not too full, exact but not epigrammatic. His aim will be to present the thing itself without distortion from his own angle of vision. He will meet the subject face to face, four-square, without turning aside for a moment to point out that this was tragic, or that beautiful; and his aim is perfectly achieved.

But let us not for a moment confuse it with Jane Austen’s aim. Had she met a beggar woman, no doubt she would have been interested in the beggar’s story. But she would have seen at once that for her purposes the whole incident must be transformed. Streets and the open air and adventures mean nothing to her, artistically. It is character that interests her. She would at once make the beggar into a comfortable elderly man of the upper middle classes, seated by his fireside at his ease. Then, instead of plunging into the story vigorously and veraciously, she will write a few paragraphs of accurate and artfully seasoned introduction, summing up the circumstances and sketching the character of the gentleman she wishes us to know. “Matrimony as the origin of change was always disagreeable” to Mr. Woodhouse, she says. Almost immediately, she thinks it well to let us see that her words are corroborated by Mr. Woodhouse himself. We hear him talking. “Poor Miss Taylor!—I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her.” And when Mr. Woodhouse has talked enough to reveal himself from the inside, she then thinks it time to let us see him through his daughter’s eyes. “You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you mentioned her.” Thus she shows us Emma flattering him and humoring him. Finally then, we have Mr. Woodhouse’s character seen from three different points of view at once; as he sees himself; as his daughter sees him; and as he is seen by the marvellous eye of that invisible lady Jane Austen herself. All three meet in one, and thus we can pass round her characters free, apparently, from any guidance but our own.

Now let Thomas Hardy choose the same theme—a beggar met in the street—and at once two great changes will be visible. The street will be transformed into a vast and sombre heath; the man or woman will take on some of the size and indistinctness of a statue. Further, the relations of this human being will not be towards other people, but towards the heath, towards man as law-giver, towards those powers which are in control of man’s destiny. Once more our perspective will be completely changed. All the qualities which were admirable in “Robinson Crusoe,” admirable in “Emma,” will be neglected or absent. The direct literal statement of Defoe is gone. There is none of the clear, exact brilliance of Jane Austen. Indeed, if we come to Hardy from one of these great writers we shall exclaim at first that he is “melodramatic” or “unreal” compared with them. But we should bethink us that there are at least two sides to the human soul; the light side and the dark side. In company, the light side of the mind is exposed; in solitude, the dark. Both are equally real, equally important. But a novelist will always tend to expose one rather than the other; and Hardy, who is a novelist of the dark side, will contrive that no clear, steady light falls upon his people’s faces, that they are not closely observed in drawing rooms, that they come in contact with moors, sheep, the sky and the stars, and in their solitude are directly at the mercy of the gods. If Jane Austen’s characters are real in the drawing room, they would not exist at all upon the top of Stonehenge. Feeble and clumsy in drawing rooms, Hardy’s people are large-limbed and vigorous out of doors. To achieve his purpose Hardy is neither literal and four-square like Defoe, nor deft and pointed like Jane Austen. He is cumbrous, involved, metaphorical. Where Jane Austen describes manners, he describes nature. Where she is matter of fact, he is romantic and poetical. As both are great artists, each is careful to observe the laws of his own perspective, and will not be found confusing us (as so many lesser writers do) by introducing two different kinds of reality into the same book.

Yet it is very difficult not to wish them less scrupulous. Frequent are the complaints that Jane Austen is too prosaic, Thomas Hardy too melodramatic. And we have to remind ourselves that it is necessary to approach every writer differently in order to get from him all he can give us. We have to remember that it is one of the qualities of greatness that it brings heaven and earth and human nature into conformity with its own vision. It is by reason of this masterliness of theirs, this uncompromising idiosyncrasy, that great writers often require us to make heroic efforts in order to read them rightly. They bend us and break us. To go from Jane Austen to Hardy, from Peacock to Trollope, from Scott to Meredith, from Richardson to Kipling, is to be wrenched and distorted, thrown this way and then that. Besides, everyone is born with a natural bias of his own in one direction rather than in another. He instinctively accepts Hardy’s vision rather than Jane Austen’s, and, reading with the current and not against it, is carried on easily and swiftly by the impetus of his own bent to the heart of his author’s genius. But then Jane Austen is repulsive to him. He can scarcely stagger through the desert of her novels.

Sometimes this natural antagonism is too great to be overcome, but trial is always worth making. For these difficult and inaccessible books, with all their preliminary harshness, often yield the richest fruits in the end, and so curiously is the brain compounded that while tracts of literature repel at one season, they are appetizing and essential at another.

If, then, this is true—that books are of very different types, and that to read them rightly we have to bend our imaginations powerfully, first one way, then another—it is clear that reading is one of the most arduous and exhausting of occupations. Often the pages fly before us and we seem, so keen is our interest, to be living and not even holding the volume in our hands. But the more exciting the book, the more danger we run of over-reading. The symptoms are familiar. Suddenly the book becomes dull as ditchwater and heavy as lead. We yawn and stretch and cannot attend. The highest flights of Shakespeare and Milton become intolerable. And we say to ourselves—is Keats a fool or am I?—a painful question, a question, moreover, that need not be asked if we realized how great a part the art of not reading plays in the art of reading. To be able to read books without reading them, to skip and saunter, to suspend judgment, to lounge and loaf down the alleys and bye-streets of letters is the best way of rejuvenating one’s own creative power. All biographies and memoirs, all the hybrid books which are largely made up of facts, serve to restore to us the power of reading real books—that is to say, works of pure imagination. That they serve also to impart knowledge and to improve the mind is true and important, but if we are considering how to read books for pleasure, not how to provide an adequate pension for one’s widow, this other property of theirs is even more valuable and important. But here again one should know what one is after. One is after rest, and fun, and oddity, and some stimulus to one’s own jaded creative power. One has left one’s bare and angular tower and is strolling along the street looking in at the open windows. After solitude and concentration, the open air, the sight of other people absorbed in innumerable activities, comes upon us with an indescribable fascination.

The windows of the houses are open; the blinds are drawn up. One can see the whole household without their knowing that they are being seen. One can see them sitting round the dinner table, talking, reading, playing games. Sometimes they seem to be quarrelling—but what about? Or they are laughing—but what is the joke? Down in the basement the cook is reading a newspaper aloud, while the housemaid is making a piece of toast; in comes the kitchen maid and they all start talking at the same moment—but what are they saying? Upstairs a girl is dressing to go to a party. But where is she going? There is an old lady sitting at her bedroom window with some kind of wool work in her hand and a fine green parrot in a cage beside her. And what is she thinking? All this life has somehow come together; there is a reason for it; a coherency in it, could one but seize it. The biographer answers the innumerable questions which we ask as we stand outside on the pavement looking in at the open window. Indeed there is nothing more interesting than to pick one’s way about among these vast depositories of facts, to make up the lives of men and women, to create their complex minds and households from the extraordinary abundance and litter and confusion of matter which lies strewn about. A thimble, a skull, a pair of scissors, a sheaf of sonnets, are given us, and we have to create, to combine, to put these incongruous things together. There is, too, a quality in facts, an emotion which comes from knowing that men and women actually did and suffered these things, which only the greatest novelists can surpass. Captain Scott, starving and freezing to death in the snow, affects us as deeply as any made-up story of adventure by Conrad or Defoe; but it affects us differently. The biography differs from the novel. To ask a biographer to give us the same kind of pleasure that we get from a novelist is to misuse and misread him. Directly he says “John Jones was born at five-thirty in the morning of August 13, I 862,” he has committed himself, focussed his lens upon fact, and if he then begins to romance, the perspective becomes blurred, we grow suspicious, and our faith in his integrity as a writer is destroyed. In the same way fact destroys fiction. If Thackeray, for example, had quoted an actual newspaper account of the Battle of Waterloo in “Vanity Fair,” the whole fabric of his story would have been destroyed, as a stone destroys a bubble.

But it is undoubted that these hybrid books, these warehouses and depositories of facts, play a great part in resting the brain and restoring its zest of imagination. The work of building up a life for oneself from skulls, thimbles, scissors, and sonnets stimulates our interest in creation and rouses our wish to see the work beautifully and powerfully done by a Flaubert or a Tolstoi. Moreover, however interesting facts may be, they are an inferior form of fiction, and gradually we become impatient of their weakness and diffuseness, of their compromises and evasions, of the slovenly sentences which they make for themselves, and are eager to revive ourselves with the greater intensity and truth of fiction.

It is necessary to have in hand an immense reserve of imaginative energy in order to attack the steeps of poetry. Here are none of those gradual introductions, those resemblances to the familiar world of daily life with which the novelist entices us into his world of imagination. All is violent, opposite, unrelated. But various causes, such as bad books, the worry of carrying on life efficiently, the intermittent but powerful shocks dealt us by beauty, and the incalculable impulses of our own minds and bodies frequently put us into that state of mind in which poetry is a necessity. The sight of a crocus in a garden will suddenly bring to mind all the spring days that have ever been. One then desires the general, not the particular; the whole, not the detail; to turn uppermost the dark side of the mind; to be in contact with silence, solitude, and all men and women and not this particular Richard, or that particular Anne. Metaphors are then more expressive than plain statements.

Thus in order to read poetry rightly, one must be in a rash, an extreme, a generous state of mind in which many of the supports and comforts of literature are done without. Its power of make-believe, its representative power, is dispensed with in favor of its extremities and extravagances. The representation is often at a very far remove from the thing represented, so that we have to use all our energies of mind to grasp the relation between, for example, the song of a nightingale and the image and ideas which that song stirs in the mind. Thus reading poetry often seems a state of rhapsody in which rhyme and metre and sound stir the mind as wine and dance stir the body, and we read on, understanding with the senses, not with the intellect, in a state of intoxication. Yet all this intoxication and intensity of delight depend upon the exactitude and truth of the image, on its being the counterpart of the reality within. Remote and extravagant as some of Shakespeare’s images seem, far-fetched and ethereal as some of Keats’s, at the moment of reading they seem the cap and culmination of the thought; its final expression. But it is useless to labor the matter in cold blood. Anyone who has read a poem with pleasure will remember the sudden conviction, the sudden recollection (for it seems sometimes as if we were about to say, or had in some previous existence already said, what Shakespeare is actually now saying), which accompany the reading of poetry, and give it its exaltation and intensity. But such reading is attended, whether consciously or unconsciously, with the utmost stretch and vigilance of the faculties, of the reason no less than of the imagination. We are always verifying the poet’s statements, making a flying comparison, to the best of our powers, between the beauty he makes outside and the beauty we are aware of within. For the humblest among us is endowed with the power of comparison. The simplest (provided he loves reading) has that already within him to which he makes what is given him—by poet or novelist—correspond.

With that saying, of course, the cat is out of the bag. For this admission that we can compare, discriminate, brings us to this further point. Reading is not merely sympathizing and understanding; it is also criticizing and judging. Hitherto our endeavor has been to read books as a writer writes them. We have been trying to understand, to appreciate, to interpret, to sympathize. But now, when the book is finished, the reader must leave the dock and mount the bench. He must cease to be the friend; he must become the judge. And this is no mere figure of speech. The mind seems (“seems,” for all is obscure that takes place in the mind) to go through two processes in reading. One might be called the actual reading; the other the after reading. During the actual reading, when we hold the book in our hands, there are incessant distractions and interruptions. New impressions are always completing or cancelling the old. One’s judgment is suspended, for one does not know what is coming next. Surprise, admiration, boredom, interest, succeed each other in such quick succession that when, at last, the end is reached, one is for the most part in a state of complete bewilderment. Is it good? or bad? What kind of book is it? How good a book is it? The friction of reading and the emotion of reading beat up too much dust to let us find clear answers to these questions. If we are asked our opinion, we cannot give it. Parts of the book seem to have sunk away, others to be starting out in undue prominence. Then perhaps it is better to take up some different pursuit—to walk, to talk, to dig, to listen to music. The book upon which we have spent so much time and thought fades entirely out of sight. But suddenly, as one is picking a snail from a rose, tying a shoe, perhaps, doing something distant and different, the whole book floats to the top of the mind complete. Some process seems to have been finished without one’s being aware of it. The different details which have accumulated in reading assemble themselves in their proper places. The book takes on a definite shape; it becomes a castle, a cowshed, a gothic ruin, as the case may be. Now one can think of the book as a whole, and the book as a whole is different, and gives one a different emotion, from the book received currently in several different parts. Its symmetry and proportion, its confusion and distortion can cause great delight or great disgust apart from the pleasure given by each detail as it is separately realized. Holding this complete shape in mind it now becomes necessary to arrive at some opinion of the book’s merits, for though it is possible to receive the greatest pleasure and excitement from the first process, the actual reading, though this is of the utmost importance, it is not so profound or so lasting as the pleasure we get when the second process—the after reading—is finished, and we hold the book clear, secure, and (to the best of our powers) complete in our minds.

But how, we may ask, are we to decide any of these questions—is it good, or is it bad?—how good is it, how bad is it? Not much help can be looked for from outside. Critics abound; criticisms pullulate; but minds differ too much to admit of close correspondence in matters of detail, and nothing is more disastrous than to crush one’s own foot into another person’s shoe. When we want to decide a particular case, we can best help ourselves, not by reading criticism, but by realizing our own impression as acutely as possible and referring this to the judgments which we have gradually formulated in the past. There they hang in the wardrobe of our mind—the shapes of the books we have read, as we hung them up and put them away when we had done with them. If we have just read “Clarissa Harlowe,” for example, let us see how it shows up against the shape of “Anna Karenina.” At once the outlines of the two books are cut out against each other as a house with its chimneys bristling and its gables sloping is cut out against a harvest moon. At once Richardson’s qualities—his verbosity, his obliqueness—are contrasted with Tolstoi’s brevity and directness. And what is the reason of this difference in their approach? And how does our emotion at different crises of the two books compare? And what must we attribute to the eighteenth century, and what to Russia and the translator? But the questions which suggest themselves are innumerable. They ramify infinitely, and many of them are apparently irrelevant. Yet it is by asking them and pursuing the answers as far as we can go that we arrive at our standard of values, and decide in the end that the book we have just read is of this kind or of that, has merit in that degree or in this. And it is now, when we have kept closely to our own impression, formulated independently our own judgment, that we can most profitably help ourselves to the judgments of the great critics—Dryden, Johnson, and the rest. It is when we can best defend our own opinions that we get most from theirs.

So, then—to sum up the different points we have reached in this essay—have we found any answer to our question, how should we read a book? Clearly, no answer that will do for everyone; but perhaps a few suggestions. In the first place, a good reader will give the writer the benefit of every doubt; the help of all his imagination; will follow as closely, interpret as intelligently as he can. In the next place, he will judge with the utmost severity. Every book, he will remember, has the right to be judged by the best of its kind. He will be adventurous, broad in his choice, true to his own instincts, yet ready to consider those of other people. This is an outline which can be filled, in at taste and at leisure, but to read something after this fashion is to be a reader whom writers respect. It is by the means of such readers that masterpieces are helped into the world.

If the moralists ask us how we can justify our love of reading, we can make use of some such excuse as this. But if we are honest, we know that no such excuse is needed. It is true that we get nothing whatsoever except pleasure from reading; it is true that the wisest of us is unable to say what that pleasure may be. But that pleasure—mysterious, unknown, useless as it is—is enough. That pleasure is so curious, so complex, so immensely fertilizing to the mind of anyone who enjoys it, and so wide in its effects, that it would not be in the least surprising to discover, on the day of judgment when secrets are revealed and the obscure is made plain, that the reason why we have grown from pigs to men and women, and come out from our caves, and dropped our bows and arrows, and sat round the fire and talked and drunk and made merry and given to the poor and helped the sick and made pavements and houses and erected some sort of shelter and society on the waste of the world, is nothing but this: we have loved reading.

Louise Glück’s Late Style

The critic as friend, rachel cusk, you might also like, september twilight, the tolstoyans, thirty clocks strike the hour, new perspectives, enduring writing.

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Blog – Posted on Wednesday, Apr 03

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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For years I found myself visiting a particular author’s website over and over again. 

Why? Because I liked his movie reviews. We had similar tastes in movies, and if he didn’t like a movie, I figured I wouldn’t either. 

Authors often ask me, “What should I talk about in my email newsletter?” or “What should I blog about?” I recommend writing book reviews and movie reviews. Reviews provide helpful information for your readers. As readers agree with your tastes, they’ll feel connected to you, and you’ll build credibility with your target reader.

While reviews make great content for all writers, they are  magic  for unpublished novelists. 

When you write reviews on books and movies in your genre, you develop your taste, voice, and audience. Writing reviews keeps you reading and forces you to read with intent. 

Readers don’t want to read your blog post on how to write romance novels, but they do want to find out what you thought about the popular romance novel everyone is talking about. Your reviews help readers find new books to read. Over time, your readers will view you as a reliable source of book recommendations, which is  really  helpful when it comes time to recommend your own book. 

But there is a catch to writing book reviews, and two Novel Marketing listeners called in wondering about it. 

How do you write a  good, helpful  book review?

Two Kinds of Reviews

Before you write a review, you need to decide what kind of review you want to write.

There are two kinds of reviews.

Standard Reviews (Discovery)

A standard review helps readers answer the question, “Is this the kind of book I would enjoy reading?” Readers typically seek a standard review  before  they read a book they’ve already heard about.

But readers also  discover  new books through standard reviews. They may not have known about the book until they read your review, and after reading and learning about the book, they’ll decide whether to read it.

Spoiler Reviews (Understanding)

I asked listeners on  AuthorMedia.social  whether they read book reviews after they’ve finished the book, and most of them did! Sometimes people read reviews to understand the book better after they’ve completed it. 

Spoiler reviews give readers a sense of community and a place to discuss a book. Readers are curious to see whether anyone else noticed that the author got the horses all wrong. 

Some readers like spoiler reviews because they can read the full review and skip the book altogether. 

For instance, some people say, “I want to be able to talk about  Thinking Fast and Slow  (Affiliate Link) without actually having to finish that book.”

Or, “I don’t want to read  Jordan Peterson’s  12 Rules for Life  (Affiliate Link), but I want to be able to argue with people who like Jordan Peterson. So what do I need to know about it?”

Why Most Reviews are Boring

If the person writing the review is unskilled or doesn’t have a strategy, their book reviews can be painfully dull. 

Reviews are usually boring because the reviewer lacks:

• Passion 

Specificity

Originality .

How do you write interesting reviews? You develop those characteristics. 

Your duty is to your reader, not the author of the book. Don’t water down your opinion just because you are afraid you will hurt the author’s feelings. A courageously negative review may actually sell more copies of a book than a boring milk-toast review. 

Why? Because no one reads boring reviews! And if few people read the review, then fewer people will discover the book. And if readers don’t know about it, they can’t buy it. 

The more you care about the book (or what the book could have been if you didn’t like it), the more your readers will enjoy reading your review. Enthusiasm is infectious. Apathy is noxious. Your enthusiasm for the genre will make your reviews more fun and convincing. 

Good reviews address the specifics of what you liked and didn’t like. You can be specific without spoiling it. 

For instance, I loved the characters of  Avatar the Last Airbender . I loved how each of them changed, and I loved how they interacted with each other. By the third season, each character had undergone a transformation, but you will have to watch the show to find out why. 

Most reviewers begin by reading other reviews about the same book so their thoughts will be similar. Don’t do that. You can read the other reviews, but you must say something new. Tell us what  you  thought, not what you think society wants you to think. There is enormous pressure to conform. The only way to stand out is to resist the pressure.

Pick an Angle

One way to quickly make your reviews more popular is to pick an angle for your reviews. Your angle not only makes the reviews more interesting to readers, but it also makes them easier to write. Instead of reviewing the whole book, review just one aspect of the book.

You can choose any angle, but here are a few to get you thinking.

Persona Review

One common way to review books is through a persona. View the book through the lens of one aspect of your identity. For example, you might title your persona review “A Homeschool Mom’s Review of  The Shack ” or perhaps, “A Texan’s Review of The Dark Tower Series.” 

The popular YouTube Channel called  Girlfriend Reviews  provides an excellent example of how persona reviews work. She talks about video games, but she doesn’t review the game itself. 

She talks about what it’s like to live with someone who  plays  the video game. For instance, she’ll discuss how annoying the game is to listen to from the next room. Persona reviews can be extremely entertaining and useful, as the channel’s 1.26 million subscribers would testify.

Content Review 

Content reviews answer questions about whether a book is rated R rated or PG. The reviewer reveals what types of objectionable content the book includes. 

Different readers find different kinds of content objectionable. Some readers are offended by bad language and sexual content, but they are fine reading graphic violence. Other readers object to violence of any kind but accept the profanity. 

When you write a review, you’re forced to know and address the issues your audience cares about. 

Content reviews are in high demand, but very few reviewers are writing them.

Worldview Review 

Readers want to know whether a book will line up with their worldview. They want to know if a book secretly advocates for communism, feminism, capitalism, environmentalism, conservatism, liberalism, etc. Every  ism  has an audience who wants to know whether the book will match their worldview.   

When you review a book through the lens of a particular worldview, you help readers decide whether the book is one they want to read.

Comedy Review

Some people use book reviews as a chance to crack jokes and make readers laugh. Mathew Pierce writes comedy reviews, and he titled one recent review, “ I Did Not Read Girl, Wash Your Face , but I Am Outraged By It .” While that blog post could technically be considered a review, it’s more of a platform for the author to write social commentary and make jokes. 

Technical Review

If you have an area of technical expertise, you can review the book’s attention to pertinent details. For example, if you know a lot about guns, you can detail how the author got the guns right (or not). If you are a historian or a scientist, you can validate or argue certain aspects of the setting, events, or plausibility of the science used in the story.  

Theology Review

Just because a book is published by a Christian publisher doesn’t mean it has good theology. Additionally, each reader has a different understanding of what constitutes “good theology.” Christian readers often read reviews to determine the theological underpinnings of a book before they read or buy it. 

What to Include in Your Review

Open with a line that sparks curiosity ..

Your reader is asking, “Why should I care about this review?” and you must begin by answering that question.

Mark Twain brilliantly sparks curiosity in his  review of James Fenimore Cooper  by titling his essay “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” Twain opens with quotes from literature professors claiming that “Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction in America. “

Get your popcorn, ladies and gentlemen! We are in for a fight. What will Mark Twain say to these luminaries? 

There are many ways to pique curiosity. You don’t have to be controversial, but you do have to make people curious  somehow . 

If you are writing a comedy review, open with one of your best jokes. 

If you are writing a technical review, make people curious. “Is  The Expanse  really hard science fiction, or is it secretly a space opera? Let’s dig into the science and find out.”    

Answer these Questions:

• What did you love?
• What did you hate?
• Who would like this book?
• Who would hate this book?
• How does this book compare with similar books?

The more specific you can be with your answers, the more helpful your review will be.

Close with a summary .

If you shortened your book review into a Rotten Tomatoes blurb, how would it read? Closing your book review with a summary is an excellent way to practice making punchy and truthful statements with only a few words. And if you can say it in less than 280 characters, it’s also tweetable. 

5 Tips on Writing Better Reviews

Tip #1: pick a goal and an audience..

Who are you writing your review for? The answer to that question will shape your review.

• Is this a spoiler review for readers who have already read the book? 
• Is this a critical review for people who have no intention of reading the book? 
• Is this a review for potential readers who haven’t decided if they will read the book?
• Is this a review for moms wondering whether this would be a good book to buy for their children? 

Having a consistent goal will help you develop your reviewer voice and provide consistency.

Tip # 2: Make an argument, then provide evidence. 

“ Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” by Mark Twain  is a good example of how to argue and prove a point. Fenimore Cooper was the author of  The Last of the Mohicans  and several other popular books during the first half of the 19th century.

In that review, Mark Twain laid out 19 rules for writing romantic fiction, and then he showed how Cooper’s writing in  The Deerslayer  violated 18 of those rules. One of those rules is still commonly quoted today: “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

He concludes with this:

“Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of “Deerslayer” is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.”

Twain got away with that scathing summary because he first gave evidence to back it up. If you write fiction, I encourage you to take a few minutes to read his essay. 

Tip # 3: Write both negative and positive reviews.

Positive reviews build your audience, demonstrate what you like, and develop relationships with other authors. If a positive review is the playground of fun reading, a negative review is the fence around the playground.  

​​Negative reviews build your credibility, demonstrate your reading tastes, and develop your courage. 

Writing both negative and positive makes reviews familiar with your tastes. They’ll be able to predict their own enjoyment of a book based on your negative or positive review.

Tip # 4: Establish a creative scoring system.

If you plan to write a lot of reviews, you might consider establishing your own scoring system. For example, Rotten Tomatoes is the “home of the  Tomatometer , the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV.”

When it’s done well, a scoring system provides context for your reviews and makes them more fun to read. The more creative you are, the better. Avoid a five-star system, especially if you plan to give every book four or five stars. This is not a helpful scoring system. 

Howard Taylor  has three categories in his scoring system:

• Cleared the Threshold of Awesome
• Not Awesome, Not Disappointing
• Fell Below the Threshold of Disappointment

He also ranks each movie against the others. Each year you can see what his fifth favorite film was for that year. This scoring system gives his reviews plenty of context. 

You could also score various elements of the book. For example, “The plot and characters get a thumbs up, but the setting gets a thumbs down.” 

Tip # 5: Study Craft

If you find it difficult to write reviews for the books you are reading, it may indicate you haven’t read enough books on the craft of writing.

Here are some craft books you should consider:

• Plot & Structure , James Scott Bell  (Affiliate Link)
• Getting into Character , by Brandilyn Collins  (Affiliate Link)
• The Story Equation , by Susan May Warren  (Affiliate Link)

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19 New Books Coming in September

New novels by Sally Rooney and Richard Powers, a memoir by the first Black woman on the Supreme Court — and more.

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Creation Lake , by Rachel Kushner

An American agent infiltrates a commune of French environmentalists in Kushner’s philosophical rendition of the spy novel. The anarchists should be no match for the agent’s clever tactics, but her loyalties and opinions prove to be vulnerable after she meets the group’s mysterious leader.

Scribner, Sept. 3

Lovely One , by Ketanji Brown Jackson

“My march to this shining moment has sometimes been a steep and emotionally grueling climb,” writes Jackson, the first Black woman named to the Supreme Court, in a memoir that nevertheless emphasizes the “blessings” that sustained her: dedicated parents, encouraging teachers, cheerleading roommates, loving daughters and her college boyfriend — now husband — whose “partnership, which made this possible, is everything.”

Random House, Sept. 3

Colored Television , by Danzy Senna

The eternal conflict between making art and selling out gets a fresh take in Senna’s new novel, which follows a struggling fiction writer into the thrilling yet treacherous TV industry, where she lands a deal to make a biracial comedy with a hotshot producer.

Riverhead, Sept. 3

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When Is It Okay to Not Finish a Book?

How to decide to put down a book—without all the angst

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Book lovers have all inevitably found themselves slogging through arid prose that stretches on endlessly. Sometimes the culprit is a popular novel whose obnoxious characters you’re desperate to run away from; at other moments, it’s a plot so ludicrous, you can’t suspend disbelief for another page. At some point, even the most dedicated readers may look up and realize that there’s no comprehension quiz holding them hostage and no grade being given for completion. For adults who have finished school, reading is no longer an obligation. But that means the decision of whether to finish a book you’re not enjoying is entirely yours—and, for some people, extremely fraught.

So how does a conscientious person decide when to give up and when to stick it out to the end? The debate is much older than the internet, but in online reading communities such as Goodreads, or on the literary sides of Instagram or TikTok, the acronym “DNF,” for “Did Not Finish,” abounds—as do arguments about when doing so is appropriate. There are those who strongly believe that no matter how badly you want to abandon a book, you should always finish it, and plenty of others adamant that life is too short to ever read something you’re not thoroughly thrilled with.

For those of us who don’t subscribe to a one-size-fits-all approach, articulating a personal, intentional philosophy about when to walk away might be the best we can do. I worked in publishing for a decade and strive to be purposeful in my reading practice while routinely finishing several dozen new books a year and putting down countless others. I spoke with similarly committed writers, teachers, editors, and bookworms about their philosophies in the hopes of creating a guide for others to decide where their limits are—and when they should quit a book.

Tune in to your underlying reaction.

Before dropping a book, you need to figure out what’s motivating you to stop reading it. Is the writing truly bad, or is the author experimenting in a creative way that might push you as a reader?

And if you hate something enough for it to elicit a huge emotional response, it might be worth sticking with it to better understand why. Mariel VanLandingham, a high-school English teacher in New Jersey, told me via email, “I love when a student comes into class railing about an assigned reading they hated: getting them to define why they feel so strongly and getting other students to react to them is a worthwhile experience for everyone. I would rather them power through something they hate and have big feelings about it than not read at all or be apathetic.”

Still, if the prose is lacking, the plot is dragging, and you feel like falling asleep every time you pick it up, it’s probably all right to move along.

Consider stretching yourself.

Reading has been linked to increased empathy and is one of the best opportunities we have to digest experiences and opinions we may not have otherwise considered.

“Perspectives, writing styles, and voices different from our own make our worlds bigger,” Emily Kinard, a reader in Washington, D.C., told me over X. “I’m going to give the very unpopular opinion that you should finish books you don’t enjoy. I can also name books whose entire thesis/point I wholeheartedly disagree with that I have loved.”

Books can bring up challenging feelings, and a thoughtful individual will be alert for when their own biases might stand in the way of engagement with what they’re reading. It’s one thing to put down a breezy rom-com that’s boring you to tears and another to quit Matthew Desmond’s Evicted because you’re “just not that into it.” Some of the most valuable experiences lead to edification, not necessarily enjoyment.

Recognize the limits of time.

For lots of busy people, reading time is a luxury. If you’re only able to scarf down 30 pages on Sunday afternoons or squeeze in one novel on vacation, of course you want to maximally enjoy the experience. There will be moments in life when you’re more mentally equipped to push through a book anticipating that the challenging literary experience will pay off, and others when you should search for something that will really draw you in.

“If—after 50 pages—I’m not enjoying [a] book, I move on,” said the writer and book blogger Lucy Pearson , who told me over email that completing every novel on the Big Read’s top-100 list––compiled from a 2003 BBC national survey to discover Britain’s most loved novel––made her realize that “life is far too short for bad books.”

Read: How to keep your book club from becoming a wine club

Stop gamifying reading.

Bragging is not a 21st-century phenomenon, but social media has made it easier than ever to get attention for reading a lot , incentivizing some people to push through to the last page just for the sake of finishing. Leah Vann, a sports journalist in Texas, told me over email that she used to complete every book she started just for the satisfaction of adding it to her public Goodreads page, but that she has since abandoned the practice. “I realized: reading is not a sport, and there’s nothing to gain from reading a book I don’t enjoy,” she said. “There are too many books on my list to suffer through one!”

Tear through 200 books a year if it brings you joy, but remember that the validation of posting about a title online should not be the driving force behind your time spent reading.

Read: Against counting the books you read

Keep going if you want to be a hater.

I spoke with several people who read to the end specifically so they can critique a work with full authority. “If you want to read regularly, you should quit books you hate right away. Unless it’s massively trendy. Then you should absolutely finish the book for bitching fodder,” Maggie Q. Thompson, the news editor at The Austin Chronicle , told me . “The slump risk is a nonissue here. The hatred will fuel you.”

The fun of panning a trendy book aside, it is true that not finishing a story weakens your ability to properly assess it—especially in public or on social media, where quick takes based on first impressions abound. You may not reach a tepid thriller’s mind-bending last-page twist, for example, or you may end up unfairly dismissing a novel whose characters need 400 pages to be fully realized. It’s fine to abandon a title, but if you do, keep the strong opinions to a minimum.

Don’t let completism stop you from reading.

For a lot of people, the act of spending time with literature is more important than finishing any one book, and not wanting to return to what you’re currently working through is the surest way to guarantee that you’ll instead reach for your phone or the remote when given the choice.

“If I notice I haven’t been reading for a while, it means I’m not reaching for this particular book, and that’s the death knell,” Jay Venables, a writer and an audio producer, told me. “My goal is to keep reading, not read everything . I try my best to see the worth in the books I choose to read, but sometimes they’re not what I’m looking for at the given moment.”

Like others I spoke with, Venables recommends putting those books back into your to-read pile and returning to them later. A story that isn’t resonating with you today might change your life a few years from now.

Lean on the library.

If the prospect of abandoning the hardcover you spent $32 on at your local bookstore is especially torturous, march right over to your local library, where it costs $0 to check out a novel (or three). Five out of five librarians at the Boston Public Library who weighed in on this subject told me they regularly do not finish what they’re reading. “There are too many books on my ever-growing ‘To Read’ list for me to justify finishing one that hasn’t sold me after ~70 pages,” Anna Cappello, a senior library assistant, told me over email.

Using the library can not only make you feel less guilty about quitting a book; it can also help you push yourself to try new genres, authors, or formats. (And don’t worry: The author still gets paid.)

For some of us, abandoning a book will always tug at our conscience, but there’s nothing wrong with walking away. Personal awareness and the ability to keep an open mind in the future go a lot further toward making you a “good reader” than trudging through every book you’ve ever been inclined to cast aside.

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