writing|escritura|idaztea

A MINI ODE TO THE BOOK REVIEW

A Gift to Writers and Readers Alike 

Writing a book review is one of the best ways to engage closely with another’s writing. In turn, there are few things in a writer’s life more satisfying than to get a good review. By “good” I don’t mean a review that reads like a series of generic one-liners of the kind publishers plaster onto book covers (endorsements which, if not actually written by AI, certainly read like they could be. Just how many “best writers of their generation” can we have among a given cohort? How many decades can an individual writer be “at the height of their powers”? How many empty superlatives can a single publication generate?).

No, I mean the review written by someone who has taken the time to read the book carefully and is prepared to be honest about it, flaws and all. Reading for a book review – like reading for research and reading intensively for pleasure – requires what scientists call “deep reading”, a skill that is largely lost in the practices of skimming or scrolling. It requires not only intention and attention but memory. Taking notes, without which it would be impossible to review a book, helps the process because notes act as aides-mémoires.

Writing a good book review also enhances our editing skills because reviews are typically quite short (say 500 to 800 words, significantly shorter than this post, for example). That means lots of cutting and refining before submission or posting. Good writing may be a pleasure, but it’s one that requires some discipline – and readers as well as writers benefit from that discipline.

Finally, rook reviews are reminders that writing and reading are communal activities, conversations across pages. A good reviewer is the ideal reader – the kind of reader every writer should aspire to be.

Read the full text here: https://peninfist.substack.com/p/do-we-write-too-much