Book Reviews
Book reviews are in both authors’ and book readers’ interest. A good sounding title may attract attention but if potential buyers are not sure what the book is all about or/and never heard of its author before, they are unlikely to buy it. First of all, books are not that inexpensive to be bought simply out of curiosity and secondly, no one wants an uninteresting book on their shelves or home library. Both the authors and the public are therefore relying heavily on book reviews which can be written either by professional critics or people who have read the book and share their opinion about it with other book readers.
In the old times, book authors and book lovers relied almost exclusively on book reviews that were published in the newspapers and magazines. They enabled an unknown author to present his or her work to the public and the readers to determine which book is worth buying and which one does not live up to the expectations. Although every book review is highly subjective and although it is not impossible to be completely disappointed over a book which has excellent reviews, these generally provide enough information to be able to determine whether a particular book is worth reading or if it is a waste of time and money. However, the things have changed and book reviews are no longer what they used to be due to the Internet as well as a dramatic change in the book reviewing itself.
The Internet has been taken advantage by both book authors and book readers. It enables book authors to reach a wider public other than only readers of a particular magazine, while the book lovers have the opportunity to quickly check reviews of a particular book by the reviewer they trust the most or read multiple reviews in order get a better picture about a particular book. The thing is that it is often very difficult to evaluate whether a particular book is worth the time and money on the basis of a single reviewer unless you absolutely trust his or her expertise and professionalism because it is not impossible for a single book to receive a very different response among the book reviewers. It is highly unlikely for a book to receive both excellent and awful reviews but it had happened which is why most book lovers usually do not buy a book on the basis of a single review, especially nowadays when many reviewers write for large publishers which means that they write reviews that sell rather than provide a critical opinion of the book.
Many online reviewers are no different, however, many online bookstores and sellers feature customer reviews which often reveal more about the books than professional reviews. Furthermore, people who bought and read a particular book honestly say their opinion about it, what they liked about it or why they do not recommend it to other readers. Book reviews by the readers are more diverse than those written by the professional reviewers, however, they are usually quite accurate.