I’ve just updated – for the first time in a while – the list of books I’ve read, and you can now see the true horror of my backlog of reviews to do. There was a weekly geeks question last week about review formats, and while I didn’t participate, I read the responses with great interest and thought a good deal about the reviews I find most helpful. I came to the conclusion that the reviews I like best:
- Give the genre of the book
- Include a brief synopsis
- If it’s a book I haven’t read, include some good general thoughts that let me know whether or not it’s worth reading
- If it’s a book I have read, includes some more specific thoughts that give me an insight into the reviewer’s opinion
The other thing that’s important to me is the length of the review. I’m really not one for long reivews, but just a couple of words isn’t really good enough for me – I want to know more than that. However, I always feel pressured to write long, detailed reviews – which is probably the reason I don’t write very many of them. So from now on, in an effort to stop the pile mounting up, I will (a) attempt to keep to just the list of things I’ve written above, thereby making sure I’m actually writing reviews I’d want to read and (b) make a renewed effort to actually write some reviews in the first place. We’ll see how it goes, eh?
On another note, I’m also going to signal my temporary absence from the blogosphere. I’m going to be busy this week with a French exchange partner arriving, and directly after she leaves, I’m swanning off to Iceland (lucky me!). It’d all be wonderful if it weren’t for the fact that bloglines is going to be backed up to high heaven when I come back…
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