The Sticky Review

[sartorias]

Here's a question I've been asking in person, where I can see the answerer and where I tend to get a blunter answer. Only the answers I keep getting have so many other hands on it, it's pretty much got universal tentacles

Comments

[therck]

I tend to look for reviews that tell me something about the plot and characters. I generally can't guess how much my tastes match with a reviewer's, so I have to look for other indications as to whether or not the book will be interesting to me.

[sartorias]

Can you articulate what other kinds of indications spark for you?

[whswhs]

The biggest example I can think of was a review of Tracey Rihll's The Catapult: A History, by Ken MacLeod, on his blog. He talked about Rihll's discussion of ancient Roman catapult technology, about recent evidence that it was more diverse and more widely used than we realized, and about the technical detail in Rihll's account. And he was just totally technophilic about the subject and how it fascinated him personally. And, well, I was doing early work on the new GURPS Low-Tech, in which I was going to be writing the part on catapults, and I'd read Marsden several times, but this was new and he made it sound well researched. . . .

[sartorias]

Yeah--I think of those as data alignment. Similar sorts reviews will get me to buy a history book in my period.

[shewhomust]

Well, I've been reading papersky's LJ posts on this one, and can't wait for it to be available.

Generally, reviews don't seem to dwell on the things that interest me: I'm irritated by their reliance on plot summary, for example. Whereas if you tell me, almost in passing 'I'm reading a great book about [this idea] or [this place and time] or [this situation]' that'd hook me.

Trouble is that mostly I don't rely on reviews for ideas about what to buy: I have such a backlog of authors I know I like, classics I've never read, things I've picked up secondhand because of their intriguing titles (and because I've skimmed a few pages and wanted more). So my answer to this question isn't all that valuable!

[sartorias]

So not really formal reviews, but a discussion that reflects the poster's thoughts about, or interactions with, the book?

Hmmm...maybe it would be fun to reread it and liveblog the experience.

[shewhomust]

No objection in principle to formal reviews, but they very rarely give me what I am looking for. rushthatspeaks's current book-a-day reviews are exemplary, if you are following them.

But yes, liveblogging would certainly appeal to me (though once I know that I want to read a book, I try to avoid knowing any more about it than I have to, so for this particular book I'd probably avert my eyes...)

[sartorias]

I am really enjoying them, also the 365booksbywomen or however it's called; our tastes don't always overlap, but the reviews are so clear that where we diverge is immediately evident.

[sartorias]

Yes, that occurred to me about what won't work.

The "everybody is talking" thing is problematical. If they all sound the same, or like they're making a demagogue out of the author rather than discussing the book, I'm outa there. (Neil Gaiman discussions were this way two, three years back--nothing against the gent himself, but wow, the squee made his work sound dull.)

OTOH three times in my life I was actually engaging with something when "everybody" began talking and it was tremendously exciting--to actually be part of the zeitgeist. LOTR in the mid sixties, Dorothy Dunnett in the mid seventies, and Patrick O'Brian in the mid-nineties.

[makoiyi]

I'm with papersky though, when I pick up a novel in a book store, I really am one of those folk who will put it down after a paragraph if I don't connect with the 'voice'. If I like that then I'll read what the story is about. I ignore any of the exclamation-mark reviews, those just annoy me. I don't care if so and so liked it *I* have to like it. Enthusiasm, yes, from others of the "Have you read...?" variety are good because individuals pick out different things, and as you say further down, the 'buts' often make it interesting. SpoileryÉ i think you have to sometimes, forex with J S Fancher`s novel - if you open a novel with someone slaughtering their family... you aren`t exactly spoiling the plot you are making me ask `whyÉ`foo, silly text thing keeps changing on me - sorry.

[sartorias]

Oh yes, the page 97 test, definitely.

But I'm trying to narrow things here to "what will get you to go out and try the book in the first place?"

I'm getting all kinds of useful ideas here.

[sartorias]

Oh, that's an interesting point, about the authentic connection. Thank you. Something to think about.