Community Discussion: On Reviews

[musesong]

Here is another of the occasional community discussion posts. We were wondering how community members felt about print and on-line book reviews? These could be the professional ones generated by writers who are paid to review books or those reviews and ratings put up by readers on book selling sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, on review blogs

Comments

[johnsnotes]

I have RSS feeds to various review pages of UK and US national papers and magazines( The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle,The Daily Telegraph, Washington Post, London Review of Books, New York Review of books,) I also belong to various bookswap sites such as Bookmooch, and ReaditSwapit that have book reviews in their Forums and RSS feed them. Finally I also have RSS feeds to 50 book challenge and email alerts from Goodreads

[amanda_1951]

I read reviews on occasion, but I'm more likely to read a book if someone who knows my reading style recommends one to me. Otherwise, I usually read the book jacket if something about the book catches my eye. I do most of my trolling for books in stores rather than online, so I'm usually reading what the publisher says about the book, rather than the sales department.

[vimsig]

Do you read reviews before choosing to read a book?

Never.

I enjoy reading the opinions of others on books that I have already read and baulk at having to give a review on books that I have read. All things are subjective and I might unwittingly give a book a tilt that could put someone off the experience/steer someone to read something that is unwarranted.

Altogether, there is far too much written surrounding that which is written.

[nannabelle]

There are just SO many authors/books/genres that I do NOT rely on anonymous reviews (eg professional reviewers). For the most part I pick books based on the cover synopsis on the actual book. I browse a bookstore and find what looks good. Since joining this community, I've also picked up a few from people who have favorably reviewed books I've liked. I usually find that if someone likes the same types of books as I do, that I'll like what they like as well.

I think an author "fixing" reviews on amazon or wherever is immoral, but doesn't impact me personally, since I don't use those.

Another place that I somewhat trust is AUTHOR reviews. If, say Dean Koontz says a certain author is good, I'm likely to try it out because I trust HIS writing and hope that his taste in books will follow.

[fmh]

I've always been leery of professional reviews. a review motivated by money may be a little skewed. That said I tend to pool reviews from different sources on a single book before I read it, and I give more stock to reviews by the members here then professionals.
I've had some great reads from the recommendations here.

[lecari]

Wow, that looks very fishy. I'd not heard of that happening before, although I did sometimes consider that Amazon might remove bad reviews, just because lots of bad reviews doesn't sell books - but I had hoped that authors would be a little more realisic. Not everyone will enjoy a book, as has been said. I will definitely be a bit more careful from now on