WRITING YOUR BOOK REVIEWS Book: how to start a business & ignite your life: a simple guide to combining business wisdom with passion Author: ernesto sirolli A book review tells not only what a book is about, but also how successfully the book explains itself. Professors often assign book reviews as practice in careful, analytical reading. We want you to practice those skills as well as share your insights with class members who that they can get the benefit of having read the book with the key takeaways highlighted and to assess whether they should read it for themselves. As a reviewer, you bring together the two strands of accurate, analytical reading and strong, personal response when you indicate what the book is about and what it might mean to a reader (by explaining what it meant to you or what impact it had on you). In other words, reviewers answer not only the “what” but the “so what” question about a book. Thus, in writing a review, you combine the skills of describing what is on the page, analyzing how the book tried to achieve its purpose, and expressing your own reactions. Reading the Book As you are reading or preparing to write the review, ask yourself these questions: What is the author’s viewpoint and purpose? Are they appropriate? The viewpoint or purpose may be implied rather than stated, but often a good place to look for what the author says about his or her purpose and viewpoint is the introduction or preface. What are the author’s main points? Again, these will often be stated in the introduction. What kind of evidence does the author use to prove his or her points? Is the evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does the author support his or her points adequately? How does this book relate to other books on the same topic that you know about or have read? Is the book unique? Does it add new information? What group of readers, if any, would find this book most useful? Does the author have the necessary expertise to write the book? What credentials or background does the author have that qualify him or her to write the book? Has the author written other books or papers on this topic? Do others in this field consider this author to be an expert? What are the most appropriate criteria by which to judge the book? How successful do you think the author was in carrying out the overall purposes of the book? Depending on your book’s purpose, you should select appropriate criteria by which to judge its success. For example, if an author says his or her purpose is to argue for a particular solution to a public problem, then the review should judge whether the author has defined the problem, identified causes, planned points of attack, provided necessary background information, and offered specific solutions. A review should also indicate the author’s professional expertise. In other books, however, the authors may argue for their theory about a particular phenomenon. Reviews of these books should evaluate what kind of theory the book is arguing for, how much and what kind of evidence the author uses to support his or her scholarly claims, how valid the evidence seems, how expert the author is, and how much the book contributes to the knowledge of the field. [SUGGESTED FORMAT] Title, Author, Date (book originally published). Your Name. About the Author: [Background about the author which is important and what you found interesting—not a wholesale recitation about his/her resume. Tell us about the author’s backgournd as to why you were drawn to the book.] Main Thesis (may be more than one) or Themes [that the book explores]: Summary: [keep your summary to high points and use examples from the text to explain as necessary] Recommend (or not) and Why: Tell us a bit about your business desires and what you learned from this book that made sense and how it will apply. *****Your book review should be no longer than 2 pages. Please make it personal to let us know how you were impacted by reading the book and relate it to what you learned that will apply in your activities after the class. You will also be required to do an oral presentation about your book to the class that should last no longer than 5 minutes. Again, make it personal. You should not read from your book review but you can use notes if you need to.