Medical Sciences Library
A book review is an in-depth analysis of a scholarly or academic book (University of Jamestown). Book reviews will focus on the main argument and the effectiveness of the author to support their argument.
When writing a book review, it is best practice to touch on the following:
Author: Discuss the credibility of the book author, including credentials and previous publishing experience on this topic.
Bias: Address any bias present in the work, or discuss how the author went about reducing bias.
Topic/Argument: Identify the main argument of the book. Determine how effective the author was in establishing this argument, including the sources and materials the author used.
For examples of scholarly book reviews, visit H-Net and explore their collection.
Literature reviews and book reviews are very similar, but differ in scope. While both analyze the scholarly sources, book reviews focus on a single book while literature reviews will look at several different sources. In literature reviews, an author may look at several scholarly articles or other type of materials, including books. A book review will not look at other sources and will remain focused on a single book for the entirety of the paper.