On Writing About Books

SO YOU want to write book criticism. Me too. Ever since college, when I realized that writing English papers was the best way to take ownership of a text, to imbibe the words of authors I admire and hold them living inside my imagination, I’ve written about books so that I might read them better. For the past two decades I’ve written dozens of reviews for newspapers, literary journals, magazines, and websites. Reviewing may be a poor source of income, but it is an enormously rewarding way to interact with books.

Let’s assume, for the purposes of this piece, that you want to become a critic for the intrinsic value of that practice and perhaps to pay the occasional electric bill. Allow me to offer you ten pro tips for writing about books to help you on your way.

1. Trust your impressions.

This is the most important piece of advice I can give. For the purposes of your review, you, the critic, are the only lens through which your readers can view the work under consideration. Your job is to show the reader what the book looks like through your intelligent, authoritative eyes. They will make their decision about whether or not to read it based upon your review, so it is your job to furnish your most insightful and vivid impressions.

The real skill that you are selling