Most journals print a list, sometimes annotated, of the books received, and after the book has been included in the list it will be considered for review by the editor responsible for book reviews, who may consult with the other editors of the journal and the members of the editorial advisory board when making a decision about a particular book. The book review editor customarily takes the task of choosing books for review upon himself or herself, and the criteria for these decisions are numerous, subjective, and subject to change. All editors prefer to think that their choices rest upon the scholarly merit of the work in question, the potential significance of the research, and the likely interest of the book for the journal's readership. In my experience book review editors prefer books written by one or two authors that present the results of original research. Revised editions, reissue in paperback, reprints, popular books, technical manuals, issues of other journals, and collections of previously published papers are reviewed less frequently.
Editors have their own preferences.
The editors of this journal, for example, rarely ask for reviews for the types of books just mentioned, and they are also not inclined to review volumes of conference papers or other invited papers when there is no explicit evidence that the papers were evaluated by external readers or, perhaps, even subjected to critical editorial scrutiny by the editors of the volume. The selection process is, in a word, idiosyncratic. The editor must also consider the limitations of space, which will allow only a very few books to be reviewed. This journal currently carries fewer than 30 book reviews in a typical year, and the titles to be reviewed are selected from among hundreds of books that are received each year. Once a book has been selected for review the editor will write to a potential reviewer asking him or her to review the book.