A colleague of mine made this comment to me recently.  The comment was partly joking and mostly appreciative. He was saying that my reviews of books were helpful to him in becoming aware of books that are relevant to our work but that he did not have time to read.  Part of me was glad to hear this while part of me felt a bit sheepish about being “out there” as a bookworm.  Alas, it is true!

It is also true that I’ve always had a passion for learning things so I can share them with others to their benefit.  It seems that books, like all good gifts, are meant to be shared.  When books were hand printed and primarily the property of the monasteries, reading was a social activity, done aloud for the benefit of the whole community.  With the Gutenberg revolution and the rise of literacy, books became available to the masses, and reading became a more solitary activity.

Reviews are one of the ways the riches (or lack thereof) of the books we read can be shared with others and serve as one way of maintaining a communal practice of reading and talking about books.  Blogs and social media like GoodReads and Amazon reviews make this possible for more of us on a wider scale than we may have imagined.

Truth is that others read so that I don’t have to.  The reviews others post or write for various reviews help me to be conversant with books I’ll never get around to reading. Indeed, one of the most sobering thoughts is even with good health, I probably won’t read more than a couple thousand books in the remainder of my life.  One post I came across estimated there were 129,864,880 books in the world as of 2010. Obviously, there are a few I’ll never get to reading!  Reviews are one tool that helps me identify what is worth reading, become aware of other worthwhile books I am not able to get to, as well as some of the books that it is just not worth my time to read.

So I guess I should be glad when someone finds a review helpful–even if they don’t want to read the book.  And if you also review books, thank you for reading for me and sharing that experience!

So what reviews do you follow and what do you find most helpful in a review?