You don’t buy clothes for yourself alone. You need to occupy certain spaces in your society, so you buy the clothes you wear … for others.
Books are never read for yourself. They are always read for others. You always wear at least a thread or two of a book. You carry it with you, for better or worse.
For those who write book reviews, it is obvious that you read books for others. This is the first awareness of book reviewing: you are reading for others. The “others” may read the book or may not. Your review is not a substitute for reading a book. Your review is a way of bringing a quality of awareness to a book.
The second awareness of book reviewing is that there are several ways to write a review.
Here are links on how to write a book review:
How To Write a Decent Book Review
How to Write a Book Review (Dalhousie University)
How to Write a Book Review (Los Angeles Valley College)
Be sure to read excellent book reviews, such as those published in the New York Times Books section.
Publish your reviews on Amazon.com and the sites of other online bookstores. Send them to magazines and your local newspaper. Create a blog for your book reviews.
Once you realize that you never read a book for yourself alone, writing a book review may be the most obvious thing to do.
