Reviews are a great resource. I post all of mine here on the blog. You can access them with the What I'm Reading tab.
A few weeks ago, the podcast team at Unprintable over at LitReactor asked me and my Horror review colleague, Sadie Hartmann to talk about how we came to professional reviewing, what are philosophies are, and how to we approach our reviews for different venues.
We had a very nuanced conversation, but it is long-- 90 mins. I think a listen is worthwhile for all library workers though because it will help you to understand the reviews you are reading, and allow you to use them better as a resource to help patrons and add to your collections.
We also went into a deep dive into my 21 year career of writing reviews in which I talked about things I haven't thought about in years.
And tomorrow you can see some tangible examples here on the blog as I have 3 reviews in the December 1 issue of Booklist.
I have posted Unprintable's page for our episode below, but you can just click here to go right to it.
However, before we get to that, one site I talked about that isn't in the show notes is Bookmarks. Here is a link to their Horror reviews which include mine in Booklist and LibraryJournal. I've also written here on the blog about Bookmarks as an awesome resource.
And if you liked this conversation, Sadie and I did a version of it with Danielle Trussoni, author and the NYT Book Review's Horror columnist, for Virtual StokerCon 2020. That video is available on the HWA's YouTube page here.
If you read reviews for any reason-- personal or work related-- or you are interested in writing reviews, this is a must listen.
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Every episode, Unprintable will take a thoughtful look at books, the publishing industry, reading, writing, and more; featuring your host Robb Olson, as well as the periodic know-it-all geekery of LitReactor Class Director Rob Hart and Managing Editor Joshua Chaplinsky.
For most people, reviewing a book doesn’t go much further than clicking a star rating on Amazon, and maybe writing a few words of encouragement, or dunking on a book they didn’t like. It’s not an activity that inspires much of a thoughtful approach.
But his decade as a book reviewer inspired all kinds of thoughts about the process of reviews for Robb Olson, and he became passionate about the relationship that is established when a person sets out to read and evaluate something.
With that in mind, we got a couple of the great reviewers of our time together to see how they felt about reviewing, talk about the philosophy of reviews, and how important they really are. Sadie Hartmann is a regular reviewer for Scream Magazine, Cemetery Dance, and other publications, and is known online as Mother Horror. Becky Spratford reviews for Library Journal and Booklist, and is the Horror Maven of the library world.
Join us for a discussion about passion for books, and how reviewers work hard to get the right books to the right people.
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Robb Olson was one of the creators and hosts of the podcast Booked., a literary podcast of book reviews and author interviews. He was an editor and publisher of The Booked Anthology. He briefly wrote a horror TV column for This Is Horror, and guested on the This is Horror podcast several times, as well as one time on Unprintable - the LitReactor podcast, for which he is now the permanent host.
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