Scholarly book reviews should be enjoyable鈥攂oth to write and to read. All too often, though, they offer little more than chapter-by-chapter summaries. In this comprehensive handbook, Steven Gump offers an encouraging guide to crafting valuable reviews of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences. Readers learn how to write engaging, respectful reviews that make intellectual contributions of their own. With extensive experience in both writing and editing scholarly book reviews, Gump walks prospective reviewers through the process of selecting a book to review, identifying a venue to publish the review, reading and annotating the book, and writing a review that is tailored to the audience of the target venue, with the possibility of dissemination to popular outlets beyond the core field.
Alongside this practical advice, Gump offers a generous philosophy of scholarly book reviewing that considers the roles of book reviews and the responsibilities of book reviewers within the broader scholarly ecosystem. Readers learn how to uplift the voices and contributions of authors, how to prepare the next generation of reviewers (including undergraduates or graduate students), and how to elevate an unjustly underestimated genre. Ultimately, this essential guide brings into renewed focus the joys of reading scholarly works, engaging with intellectual ideas, and writing incisively.
Steven E. Gump is associate director of the Office of Citizen Scholar Development at the University of Virginia. As book review editor for the Journal of Scholarly Publishing since 2024, he solicits, develops, and publishes engaging reviews.
“This book is terrific: astute, lively, and insightful. It’s also so much more than a book about how to write good book reviews. By telling us what to note about a book’s weaknesses and strengths, Gump teaches us how to write an excellent book, as well. But most remarkably, he shows us how to read books with joy.”—Wendy Laura Belcher, author of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success
“If it is possible to be a preeminent figure in the genre of scholarly book reviewing, then Gump is it. This book is both a passionate defense of the genre and a tremendously useful how-to guide: a field manual for intellectual work. Friendly and engaging, the advice here will help anyone who’s ever tried to work their way into another person’s thought, and wants to tell the tale of that adventure.”—Eric Hayot, author of The Elements of Academic Style
“Who could be better qualified to write a book about writing scholarly book reviews than a seasoned reviewer of books about scholarly writing? In this warm, witty, and eminently useful book, Steven Gump reveals the magic behind the mirror: the principles of curiosity, generosity, and pleasure in wordcraft that underpin the reviewer's art.”—Helen Sword, author of Writing with Pleasure
“How to Review Scholarly Books takes the reader through a judicious and useful discussion of the scholarly book review process: how to think about book reviews, how to put oneself into the position to be invited to write a book review, and how to write a useful one. Steven Gump’s little book is written with care and confidence; you finish it encouraged, as well as reminded more precisely of the labor that writing a scholarly book review involves. More than a book about reviewing, it’s a book about writing full stop.”—William Germano, author of On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts
“I hadn’t imagined that it would be possible to write an entire book about book reviews. But indeed, it is. How to Review Scholarly Books shows that reviewing is a significant but overlooked scholarly practice. Written with the emerging scholar in mind and with summaries that could be used in workshops and classrooms, the book provides guidance and evidence that it is possible to learn how to review appreciatively and critically.”—Patricia Thomson, University of Nottingham, and series editor of Insider Guides to Success in Academia
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