Short book reviews

[bobquasit]

I've been thinking about book reviews. I have thousands of books - many thousands - and I'd like to review more of them. So I'm going to try to work out a short format for reviews. For rare books and ones that I really care about I'll write at length, but I think most books could be covered relatively briefly.

But what would be a good limitation? A set number of words? How many? Or maybe a limited number of characters, as in Twitter? I want it to be short enough to be quick, easy, and readable, while still allowing me to convey something of value about the book.

Comments

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Ehh, not sure. The reviews in the SF mags I read I think tend to be like two or three paragraphs, although if the reviewer is going with a theme for the month's column to put forth some manner of idea (the way Norman Spinrad does in Asimov's) it can be longer. I would suppose it would depend on what you're trying to do. The minimal review would be "This book sucks; don't buy it" while a medium would be a relatively short overview of the basic plot and what works about it. A longer review would put the book in a broader context of its place in the overall canon of its type of writing, with as much on the niche the book falls into as what the book is actually about.

Something like that.