"When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes."
--Erasmus

How I Review Books

An explanation of how I plan to structure book reviews, as much for my own accountability as for anyone's curiosity. 


Book: [Title, including subtitles]

Author: [Name (possibly editor/translator, depending on the book)] 

Quick Take:
            Stars: [only the overall rating, out of 10] 
            Summary: [brief, one-sentence overview] 
            Review: [brief, one-sentence overview] 

Dates Read: [from date started to date finished]

Reason for Reading: [any backstory on how I came upon the book or why I chose to read it] 

Quote: [a quote from the book, either that made me laugh or that I loved or that exemplifies the book or what I think about it. More than one only if I have and provide a good reason.] 

Copyright date: [for the first edition...should be fairly straightforward] 

Length: [if paper, the length of the edition I'm reading; if ebook, the length of the easiest accessible print edition on Amazon] 

Genre: [I'm bad at genres, but I'll do my best and learn as I go] 

Rating (out of 10 stars): [note that I will use half-stars. I also give 5's very sparingly (like those teachers who insist an "A" is for excellence only; it would appear that much as I hate the philosophy, I have learned from it), so anything above a 3 means a pretty good book. Lastly, I expect there may be the possibility that the two subsections don't add up to the overall rating if there's something I feel is not adequately expressed in one section or another; I will explain this if it occurs.] 
            Writing (out of 5 stars): [the quality of the writing, the way the author tells the story or point] 
            Content (out of 5 stars): [the story itself, how compelling it is, whether there were plotholes] 

Summary: [my summary of the book, with no spoilers] 

Review: [I'll try to roughly base this on my structure for the stars, writing and content, so that it serves as a justification for my rating, but that may not always be possible]

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