Judging a book against what it set out to do
A book review judges how a book treats its subject, and it judges by the audience and purpose the book states for itself, wherever it states them. The kind of book decides what the reviewer checks, and the specific strengths and shortcomings those checks find substantiate the verdict.
What a review weighs and how it runs
An excellent book review offers a personal judgement of the book's merits and addresses how the book treats its topic, without rehashing the topic itself. Good book reviews often add a little extra, such as new information: a review of Dorland's Medical Dictionary begins by observing that physicians are probably not the principal users of a medical dictionary, but rather medical students, other health care professionals, medical transcriptionists and perhaps even lawyers and journalists.
Book reviews follow a pattern: they begin by identifying the topic of the book, often with a verbal image that draws the reader in, then analyse the work, including its good points and any deficiencies, and end with a summary that includes who might want to read the book. One author on medical writing found himself compelled to read a review that begins, "Have you ever wondered, after a hard week at work, why you decided to become a doctor? If so, you might want to read this book." There is no set formula, but one online tutorial's rule of thumb is that the first one-half to two-thirds of the review should summarise the author's main ideas and at least one-third should evaluate the book.
Strictly, there are not different types of book review but various approaches to the task, and they are not mutually exclusive, so a single review can use more than one. In broad terms, the approach varies with the type of book reviewed. Whatever the approach, a book review should be written with the same care and economy of words as a review paper or research report.
The book's stated purpose as the standard
One book author and editor holds that every review should judge the book against its author's stated intent, at least at the outset, and not against the book the reviewer wishes the author had written. He begins every preface with a statement of the book's intent, such as "This book is intended to make you a better medical writer", for the reviewer as well as the reader. A review of the Atlas of Clinical Sleep Medicine critiques the book in the context of its editor's stated intent: the preface states the aim of a resource that transmits state-of-the-art knowledge about sleep medicine through images and sound as well as words, and the reviewer finds a lavishly illustrated and well-written textbook that does exactly what it set out to do.
A review of a guide to writing clear medical messages holds the book to a standard it sets for itself: it takes the five planning questions the book opens with (why you want to communicate the message, what you want to communicate, what you want to show, what the purpose of the text is, and to whom you are communicating) and shows that the book does not adequately answer them about itself. The review asks whom the book is for, among health professionals, professional medical and scientific writers, other professional writers, researchers and non-native English speakers, and notes that the book mentions medical writers at one point although some of its topics would already be known to a professional medical writer. Its what and why are not fully clear either, and its purpose is lost between the covers. Its long lists of information usually come without examples or exercises, so it never really accomplishes its goal of teaching the reader how to write clearly. The review also finds glaring errors in the book that a proofread should have caught. The review closes with remedies, to develop the book further, clarify the target audience, move long lists to an appendix and take more care over quality control, and encourages a second edition that truly meets its objective and answers the author's five questions.
A self-described sceptic reviewing Anne Greene's Writing Science in Plain English questioned the publisher's bold claims, that the book can help writers at all levels of their careers and is an essential resource, found them not unwarranted, and called the book's own promise to focus entirely on how to write clearly and to improve everything you write another bold claim, and a justifiable one.
A review of Arnold Melnick's Medical Writing 101: A Primer for Health Professionals quotes the opening he uses when he lectures, an instruction to beware of platitudinous ponderosities and eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulities, beside his own translation of it: do not use big words, talk plainly. The review finds that the book does exactly that, in eleven brief, readable chapters divided into scientific medical articles and other medical articles, and its first part takes up such questions as what to write about, how to write it and where to submit it.
A book's purpose can be stated by its author, by the series it belongs to or in its editors' introduction, and a review can judge it against each. One review of a book about cancer states its aim, to fill the gap its author names when he writes that many people feel overwhelmed when trying to make sense of cancer because few know what the disease is or how to think about it, and finds that the book adheres closely to its publisher's series goal of providing an authoritative, accessible source of information on a health-related topic. Another judges a 2,935-page paediatric textbook against the promise its editors make in the introduction, to provide the foundation for best clinical practice, and reports that they fulfil it. A third holds a book on psychiatry to its authors' mission of explaining to the lay reader how psychiatry evolved into a biologically oriented specialty that, while firmly within the medical model, has increasingly integrated social and psychological treatments, and finds that its 15 short chapters, with take-home messages and illustrative case studies, support that mission.
A review of an anthology of poetry and prose about Alzheimer's disease opens by stating that it is not a science book, then says why it merits an honourable mention in a category of books for public health consumers: it illuminates the personal impact of the disease on caregivers and on the family members affected by it.
A book whose purpose changed while it was being written can be judged against each purpose. Stafford I. Cohen set out to write an academic work on Paul Zoll, whose closed-chest pacemakers and defibrillators and implantable pacemakers and heart monitors were epoch-making breakthroughs in cardiac care, as an addition to medical history, and later reworked it to try to make it engaging for "curious and involved laypersons". A review of the book treats as the author's qualification that he knew Zoll for more than four decades, from 1957 until Zoll's death in 1999, first as a colleague, then as an office mate at Beth Israel Hospital and finally as a friend. The review gives special praise to the glossary and the endnotes, whose exhaustive attention to Zoll's predecessors and contemporaries shows the effort behind the book and justifies its primary objective as a medical history. For its lay readers the narrative could have been better crafted: it is clunky in places, so they may have some difficulty staying engaged. For readers in professional communication, the easily avoidable gaffes that abound in the book, such as "Forward" for "Foreword" and differing font types and sizes, may prove distracting. The reviewer judges the book's evaluation of Zoll himself, though sometimes effusive, as objective as can be.
What the reviewer checks
The body of a review should answer many of the following questions:
- Is the book's topic important?
- Is the information timely?
- Is the content appropriate for the intended audience?
- Is the book appropriately organised?
- Is the writing clear?
- Is the style consistent throughout the book?
- Is the reviewer's favourite topic covered appropriately?
- Has the author included appropriate tables and figures?
- Are there misspellings and minor errors?
- Are there significant errors of fact?
- What has been left out?
- Is the index adequate for finding what the reviewer wants to find?
- Is the book worth the cost?
- Does the book fulfil its stated purpose?
- How does this book compare to other similar books?
- Does the reviewer recommend the book and, if so, for which readers?
One way to assess the value of a book is to look up a favourite topic, such as myocarditis, breast cancer or myositis ossificans, in the index, check whether the book covers it and, if so, whether the information is complete and timely, and tell the review's reader what the check found. A reviewer of a comprehensive reference on obstetrics might check how it handles placenta previa or antibiotic use during pregnancy, and a reviewer of a paediatrics text the current immunisation recommendations, since they change a little from year to year. A perhaps extreme example of this biopsy approach reviews a glossary of the origins of medical words by saying a little about the book and then discussing one word for each letter of the alphabet, from artery to zygomatic.
The verdict and what substantiates it
Because book reviews should not be too long, it is a good idea for the first paragraph to give a strong hint of the overall assessment. A review of Steve Silberman's NeuroTribes opens by calling it a remarkable book by a journalist who has done rigorous research and writes with consummate skill; a review of Black Lung opens, with a little more flair, "a scholarly work, a grim story, grimly told"; and one enthusiastic reviewer begins, "I really liked this book".
One approach balances the book's good features against its problems. A review of a compact reference on prognostic and predictive factors in breast cancer calls it well written, then observes that the biggest problem with a book reviewing a fast-moving field is that it is partly obsolete by the time it is published and misses the newest areas, as this one has no discussion of sentinel-node analysis or of the clinical trials of trastuzumab still in progress when it was written. A review of a book on giving news in everyday talk and clinical settings praises how readers will come to understand the sequential steps of giving news, then warns that a reader not already familiar with linguistic terms may find its terminology a bit over-technical; a review of a book on colonial American medicine praises its clear, detailed writing as a good introduction for the novice, then reports a few errors, such as Samuel Johnson misidentified as Ben Johnson. The review of Writing Science in Plain English, having highlighted the book's flaws in the interests of balance, judges them massively outweighed by its strengths.
A book review always has more credibility when the reviewer offers some suggestion for improvement. A uniformly laudatory review of the fifth edition of a book on therapeutic talk in primary care, in which one author on medical writing could not find a hint of criticism, surely warmed the hearts of the authors and publisher but offered no hint of how the sixth edition could be even better. Criticisms intended to balance praise can shape a book's later editions: those in the reviews of one guide to medical writing were instrumental in the decision to prepare its second and third editions, with errors, oversights and anachronisms corrected.