reviews

Kingrat's most read review: "Last year I took a microeconomics class and signed up for a macroeconomics class. After purchasing the textbook, Seattle Central cancelled the class. Still, I needed to learn more about macroeconomics as what I know is kind of random and lacks building blocks that would help that knowledge make more sense."

Figured I would pimp the Stranger's new books page. They hired a books editor a few months ago and now collect all their book reviews, blog postings, as well as recommended book readings in one place. Awesome resource for the reader in America's #1 most literate city (we want a recount, Minneapolis).

In a 2007 op-ed for In These Times, media critic Susan J. Douglas noted that there’s “a robust tradition in the Times Book Review to stereotype feminists as single-minded, humorless ideologues who march daily to some shrine where we all genuflect before images of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.”

Could it be that there is altogether too much writing going on about books? Too much reading being done about reading? Is it possible that our enjoyment of books and reading is undermined by the multitude of reviews available to us?

There are some words that have just been beaten right to death by book reviewers. Here are Bob Harris’ top seven. What do you think; are these the worst offenders? Which overused descriptors most get on your nerves?

This site has thousands of book reviews with detailed classifications of each book, helping you find books that have similar themes, setting, characters or plot structure as the one you're viewing. The site is ugly as sin but they say true beauty lies within, while I'd normally challenge such shallow claims, in this case my objections cave in...

Now here’s a concept; children reviewing books for children. CNN, going with the idea that kids know what kids like, have chosen three of them to review eleven books. The audio slide shows let kids listen to the reviews.

Pulitzer Prize winning critic, Michael Dirda, makes a good argument for reading the classics, including the lesser known ones. While he’s at it, he makes an argument for taking bloggers who dabble in his trade with a grain of salt.

A local community radio station in Norwich, England runs a programme with a book review that is also available as a podcast.

If you're like me, you would like to read more than you have time to read. Here's a list of six excellent podcast links that focus on books and the publishing world. Includes: The New Yorker: Fiction, BBC World Book Club, Harvard Univeristy Press, Princeton University Press, NPR: Book Tour, and Washington Post Book World.