# Book Reviews/Writing a review/questions to answer

* ←Writing a review                                         DO NOTE DELETE: THIS IS NOT A DRAFT - See Draft talk:Book Reviews/Writing a review
==Questions to answer==
* What is the: title, author, publisher, date, length, and ISBN?
* What is the genre? Fiction, non-fiction?
* Who is the audience? (i.e. age, reading level, interests, specialties…)
* Highlight any notable aspects, good or bad, of the book’s design and production. Consider aesthetics, typography, cover, design, images, table of contents, notes, references, index, . . .
* What is the Style (casual, formal, light, humors, serious, scholarly . . .), point of view,
* Was it easy or difficult to read? Fun and rewarding to read?
* What qualifies the author to write this book?
* Does the book deliver on its promise? (What does it promise? What does it deliver? Cite evidence.)
* For nonfiction books what is your assessment of the quality of the argument, evidence, and exposition?
** Is the book intellectually honest?
* What, if anything, is the original contribution this book makes?
* What did you learn? What insights did you gain? Does the book make a unique contribution to knowledge or wisdom? Does it provide a new and better way to present difficult material?
* What surprised you? Did you ever have an ah-ha moment while reading the book?
* For a fiction book, consider: Did you get lost in the book? What are the salient plot points? Did the book achieve emotional entrainment? Was the character development intriguing? Did you care about the characters?
* Which part attracts you most? Which ones were boring? Which chapter is the key-point of the story? Which portions did you like most? Why?
* What is your favorite quote from the book? Why?
* What creative value does this book contribute?
* How does this book affect you on the whole? How does the author achieve this?, How does each role affect the story?
* What is missing?
* Does the book sparkle? A book that sparkles is fun to read, breaks new ground, communicates in memorable ways, uses images effectively, is accessible to a broad audience, and influences a significant readership to change their assumptions, beliefs, or ways of thinking.
* Judge the book. Is it good or bad? Why?
* Who are your target readers for your review? Are you writing this review to serve someone? Is your review outstanding among all the reviews of this book?
* What, if anything, makes this an important work? What does the reader stand to gain by reading this book?
* Identify the design decisions were made in creating this book. Consider these areas, then comment on the most distinctive design choices:
   * Book aesthetics, format, and production:
   ** Cover style and art.
   ** Paper choice, size, trim
   ** Typeface, font size, leading, margins, and other page layout choices.
   ** Table of contents, notes, references, index, additional materials
   ** Use of figures, photographs, graphics, graphic novel, . . .
   * Book Style
   ** Reading level, vocabulary, sentence length.
   ** Point of view (omniscient narrator, first person, . . .)
   ** Serious, satire, humorous, academic, pedantic, frivolous
   ** Comforting, call to action, alarming, disturbing,
   * Tone is the feeling that a book evokes in the reader. In many cases, this category best answers the question, “What are you in the mood for?” A more extensive list of tone descriptors and a brief definition of each is avaliable in the above reference.
   ** Humorous, solemn, distant, intimate, ironic, arrogant, condescending, authoritative, scholarly, sentimental, angry, melancholy, anguished, youthful, optimistic, deadpan, satirical, maudlin, self-righteous, and so on.
   * Book Semantics
   ** Credible, speculative, innovative, drivel, …
   ** Informative, argumentative, entertaining, …
   ** Well organized, well argued, excellent supporting evidence,
   ** Muddled logic, rambling
   ** Coherence, consistency,flow