Good Sources of Book Reviews?
Submitted by buber on Fri, 04/06/2001 - 06:15
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Hi All,
I'm wondering what sources people use for book reviews. I am currently only using the New York Times as a place to find out about new releases and their merits. Does anyone else have any good review sources, preferably online? I'm mostly interested in new releases of non-fiction, but general fiction would be nice too.
Thanks!
www.powells.com frequently has good ones.
Amazon has started an online book review of books. The way it is set up is that people read the books, and other people grade them on how helpful their reviews were so it cuts out a lot of unhelpful book reviews. There are several thousand book reviewers and some of the are actually "professional" book reviewers. Personally, I like hearing reviews from normal, educated people - they seem to really tell you what the book is like. There are a lot of other features that are extremely helpful in finding new books to read.
I do like Amazon's system. It gives me an overview of whether people enjoy the book. But, when it comes to history or other non-fiction, I'd prefer to hear something by an expert in the field to give me an idea of whether the author knew the subject well enough to write an accurate book.
I think it is best to read several books on a subject, but there isn't often time enough for me to do so, so I would like to find the "best" book on a given subject.
one more: http://www.theatlantic.com/books/
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll look at both of these as well.
http://www.bookslut.com
(with possibly NSFW graphic at the top of the page)
http://www.mobylives.com
has some interesting news on the book industry in general, and links to interesting reads
http://www.jessamyn.info/booklist
Always interesting perspectives from an honest-to-goodness librarian.