The Book Reviewer

           

               Let's take a breather from all those books reviewed and let me place here in this posting a little article I wrote about my thoughts on book reviewing.

                Just what does it take to be a book reviewer? Have you ever asked yourself that question? It looks like a fine thing to do. Read a book, review it, get the review published.

                A love for books is a big requirement. If you don’t like books and you don’t enjoy reading, than putting yourself forward as a book reviewer is not for you.  So I would say that the primary requirement is that you like books.

                Once you find a book you feel needs to be reviewed you should carefully read it. Notice the genre. Is it fiction or non-fiction? If fiction, notice what type of story it is telling. Is it Mystery, adventure, drama, romance or humor.. all surface genre types.

 What viewpoint is being used? First, second, third. 

                Is the story plot driven or character driven?  By this is meant does the character drive the story or does the plot?

                There are certain genre that always lean itself to one of the other. For example, the mystery genre always has the formula of mystery, sleuth, victim. That would mean it would be driven by the events in the story and not the character.

                Some stories are character driven, but I won’t dwell on them.

                Then there are non-fiction books that you can review. Non-fiction covers biographies, history, religious, how-to-do books, as an example.

                 I was the book reviewer for a paper here in Santa Monica, Ca back in 2007. They would give me the books and I would review therm. I also got hold of the Bethany Book publishers on their website and for a while was doing reviews of their romance books. All these were published weekly in the Santa Monica Press.

                Then there was the blog I started for my book reviews. I started a book blog on blogger. I found I could request books from blogging for books, now Book Lovers, and Multnomah press.

 The requirements for them was I read the book I requested and post the review on my book blog. Also I had to post to a retail site as well before I could request another book to be sent.

                In reviewing a book you should look for the genre.

·         Fiction

·         Nonfiction

·         Historical

·         Mystery

·         Adventure

Then the layout of the book:

1.        How many pages

2.        How many chapters.

3.       How many characters

Ask did they prove their point? Is it something you would recommend to someone else?

                When  you are doing nonfiction you need to say whether it was instructive. Did you learn something new or something that reinforced your opinion? Is it an important addition to a person’s library?

                You, by reviewing the book, are doing a great service. It has been said that of the writing of books there is no end. You, as the reviewer, help people decide where to spend their money.