Reviews will appear at least once a month and be no more than a thousand words each. Ideally, they will be much closer to five hundred words but books vary in breadth and scope and reviews should, too.

Most of what I read revolves around current research projects, but I tend to wander beyond my areas of interest into more general history and current events while also keeping up with recently released fact and fiction.

Some reviews will be more academic than others (as the subject demands), but my point of departure (or basis for title selection) will not be any form of expertise — well, other than as an avid book reader with a moderate attention span and an affection for declarative sentences.

And since I have been teaching for a few years now and tutor individual students, I thought I would share the template for the series while breaking down the core elements of a review at the same time.

CORE ELEMENTS OF A REVIEW

Books reviews are supposed to be challenging.

Reviewers must often relate highly specialized research or work in a broad way while making a direct effort to avoid alienating both experts and the general public.

They have to be critical without engaging in personal attacks or trespassing over the author’s credentials, experience, and intent.

And they also have to avoid retelling or replicating the contents of the book in question — after all, why should I read it if you’re going to do that for me?

Below are the five inescapable, core elements of a review. I have arranged them in a complimentary order that makes the most sense to me but you could rearrange the middle three to reflect your own approach.

+ What is it about and what does it argue?

+ What content or evidence does it offer and is it effective?

+ What are its strengths and weaknesses?

+ Where does it fit into the existing literature?

+ Why read it?

OTHER THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

Less is more — Answering any of these questions can take as little as a single declarative sentence without any punctuation apart from a single period. But that’s a bit brief, so feel free to help yourself to a whole paragraph. Still, be sure to keep your answers as concise and direct as possible.

It’s not about you — There’s a lot of pressure to make reviews about you: perhaps by including some story of how you came to read the book in question, your expertise on the subject, or some personal anecdote about the author. However, it isn’t your book and you should hold out on writing yourself into the review. And even if the book in question does relate to your expertise, keep in mind that the book isn’t about your expertise.

Analysis over description — of course, spoiling the plot doesn’t apply to fact like it does fiction, but you should still avoid describing things at all cost. Analysis is much more effective. And feel free to allude to things — either the reader will find out later when they read the book, or they won’t and it doesn’t matter.

SAMPLE REVIEWS

A Comicbook Orange (ACO) — happens to be a video podcast about comic books but it’s still the best short review available in any medium! It is concise, engaging, and superbly written. And what I like most is how it slays the perception that comic appreciation (read: any appreciation) is all fanfare by leveling relevant, well-founded criticism on their weekly selection of titles.

It’s probably one of the best examples for students learning how to be critical of art and literature and likely one of the most under-appreciated reviews out there.

Literary Review of Canada (LRC) — is a print magazine in Canada with a keen eye for typography (read: it’s pretty and uncluttered) that offers a monthly series of reviews from various authors, intellectuals, and public officials on a wide variety of fact and fiction.

Their reviews tend to more lengthy than what you’ll find in other magazines and newspapers but offer less gimmicky — please, please, please read our review section — filler by including more contextual or historical information. In other words, their approach is less should you read this book? and more how does this book change our perspective about? …well, whatever it’s about.

Canadian Historical Review (CHR) — specializes in short reviews by members of a select community (in this case, the Canadian historical community) much like other academic journals. Their approach has a near-perfect balance between general and specialized information — meaning, in other words, that readers from different fields, students, and the public could find them, if not equally useful, then certainly equally accessible.

They also help demonstrate a type of peer review that illustrates less of a personal assessment of the reviewer’s expertise and more an example of different ways of exploring topics, discussing themes, and solving problems.

NOTE

(1) I will be updating this regularly based on feedback from students.

(2) Titles selected for review in this series are not paid endorsements.

Last updated: Saturday 8 May 2010.

I know that hardly sounds unusual in 2010, where the latest web and tech trends conspire to make all of us information-news junkies of one variety or another, but in 2003 it meant going a little out of your way to keep up with things.

It was just before the “blogosphere” was invited to join cable news and before the aggregators compiled every little development, from all corners of the media machine, into a single space.

It was back before newspapers disappeared and journalism was still a stable career choice.

A time when columnists could take a leave of absence that they affectionately referred to as book leave.

Why anyone would need to take a specifically sanctioned absence from writing less than 800 words, twice weekly is beyond me — and probably most mere mortals as well.

Still, back then the only thing I wanted more than my own column was to go on book leave.

As of this month, I am on a leave of absence from my graduate program until the new year. There area a number of reasons involved and most of them beyond my influence, but I am going to refer to the whole ordeal as being on book leave.

Disclaimer (1): there will be no bonus, of any sort, should you, by some strange twist of plot, already possess one or more of the titles mentioned here.

Disclaimer (2): these are not formal reviews or paid endorsements (although, who am I to decline free copies?) and am open to suggestions, should certain readers become so obsessed with this occasional series as to somehow confuse their self-worth with validation here.

Disclaimer (3): “Books You Don’t Own But Should” is not to be confused with “Books You Do Own But Shouldn’t,” another occasional series on this site wherein I simply laugh at your poor taste for the bemusement of others.


One of the most useful books I own is Marc McCutcheon’s Descriptionary (1992).

What is a descriptionary, you ask?

It is a “thematic” or reverse dictionary that describes itself as, the book for when you know what it is, but not what it’s called.

Which, in other words, means that it’s a book that helps you sort through sentences like this: you know that stuff, from the thing, that we got from that place?

In short: the Descriptionary makes pronouns feel bad about themselves. It’s the legitimate offspring of the dictionary and thesaurus and heir to their rightful place on your bookshelf.

Which is not to suggest that you should throw out your dictionary and thesaurus — but if you do, please keep in mind that the odds of bounce are directly proportional to height thrown — rather, that the Descriptionary is useful because it draws on a type of learning and thinking that its more antiquated antecedents do not.

We no longer pretend there is a single way or means of learning anything and your relationship with words should be no different.

The Descriptionary is organized by theme, starting with broad categories like animals and insects, architecture, art, clothing, electronics, etc. Each of these has its own list of categories and a number of relevant sub-categories (as needed) that are each comprised of an alphabetical list of related terms.

Let’s look at an example: If I turn, at random, to the category Occupations, then Politics, and then International Relations, I find a number of terms and definitions, including “plenipotentiary” which apparently refers to “any diplomat who may rank below ambassador but may be, nevertheless, vested with complete authority”.

I am not a member of the civil service but that’s still a useful piece of information.

Perhaps another way of explaining how the Descriptionary works is that it provides context before definition, whereas the dictionary provides definition before context — assuming, of course, that you know what the hell you’re looking for in the first place.

I happened to notice recently that the fourth edition of McCutcheon’s Descriptionary will be released in June 2010. It includes just over 700 pages (100 more than the second edition from 2000 that I have) and is priced at a modest twenty dollars, depending on your retailer of choice.

After you pick one up, you can join me in wondering why they haven’t lined grade school classrooms with them.

+ Andrew Potter, The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves

One of the most loaded words you can drop in seminar is authenticity. Everyone nods reflexively whenever it’s used but no one can agree on precisely what it means, how to measure it, and why it’s so bloody important.

I’ve had the benefit of listening (read: nod reflexively) to Potter discuss the underlying argument behind his latest book and I know he’s close to providing a working vocabulary for navigating authenticity in and out of the classroom. Hopefully, he also provides a persuasive reason for dispensing with the obsession entirely.

+ Laura Penny, More Money Than Brains: Why Schools Suck, College is Crap, and Idiots Think They’re Right

I really enjoyed Penny’s first book, Your Call is Important to Us (2005) and I’m looking forward to the unofficial follow-up — particularly its premise, as a recent graduate turned grad student. It sure would be cathartic to read a non-academic (read: readable) assessment of the failings of our troubled education system. Plus, Penny is quite hilarious.

MAY

+ Cory Doctorow, For The Win

I just finished reading Little Brother (2008) and Makers (2009) and I want more. Yes; For The Win it is technically classified as teen fiction, but so is Little Brother and all that really meant was that it was about kids. Maybe that’s the criteria for so-called teen fiction these days.

Still, there’s something about Doctorow’s writing that’s infectious regardless of classification. The answer is probably humanism: he generally shuns both the hopeful and hopeless traditions in science fiction literature in favour of a more parable-like balance. Since the telecom-powers-that-be seem bent on limiting our access to the internet more and more, it’s only a matter of time until the kids kick and scream. For The Win seems like a prophetic glimpse into that looming battle.

+ Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One

The Obama book industry is in high gear and no longer dominated by the man himself, with Dreams from My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006).

Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser’s How Barack Obama Won (2009) and Evan Thomas’ A Long Time Coming (2009) arrived almost immediately after the election and right before the 44th president’s inauguration. Richard Wolffe’s Renegade (2009) and David Plouffe’s The Audancity to Win (2009) followed shortly thereafter, weighing different insider perspectives of the campaign trail (as journalist and campaign-manager, respectively), while John Heilemann’s well-recieved Game Change (2010) opened the year by offering a broader assessment of the whole 2008 campaign. And last week saw the arrival of New Yorker editor David Remnick’s biography, The Bridge (2010).

While I’m sure I will get to a few of those in time, the book I’m really looking forward to reading is Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter’s The Promise (2010). Apart from the big decisions and blunders, the media’s short attention span left the finer points of Obama’s first few days in office largely unexplored. I suspect Alter’s book will fill that niche and describe the atmosphere of the Obama White House — something that will interest anyone still reeling from eight years of Bush II.

JUNE

+ Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

Lots of people don’t like Hitchens and that’s more or less the reason why I’m anxious to read his memoir: he’s more than likely to renew a feud or start a new one. Plus, he’s one of the most interesting public intellectuals around — to say nothing of his writing.

He also has a habit of hijacking discussions in order to make his point (see any of his news or talk show appearances) and since his subject isn’t exactly scholarly, I have a hunch that he may, in fact, hijack his own memoir for some other purpose. That and there’s sure to be some discussion of hate-mail inspired by god Is Not Great (2007).

+ Amber MacArthur, Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business

I’m bored with books that try to persuade me how socially corrosive web and new media are, and I’m not interested in reading anything from the legion of self-proclaimed new media experts on how to get rich. I’ve come to appreciate Amber’s user perspective through Net@Night and CommandN (among her other vehicles), and her first book looks like it might be the goldilocks fix — or, in other words, something akin to Mark Frauenfelder’s Rule the Web (2007).

So, that’s my spring new reads list. What’s yours?

Feel free to share your own list in the comment section below.