Finding Book Reviews & Literary Criticism
Book Reviews and Literary Criticism
1. Finding Book Reviews
Amazon.com is well-known site to find various types of reviews, including those from periodicals such as The New York Times Book Review, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews. But Amazon is a book seller, so be aware that the site also provides promotions from the publishers as well as reader reviews by amateurs.
Be sure you know which type of review you are using for your academic assignments. Some of the reviews from the periodicals linked via Amazon can be appropriate, especially lengthier ones from a source like the New York Times. But even some of the brief periodical reviews there are only meant to help people make purchase choices, and the publisher’s ads and amateur reviews are not appropriate when you are asked to find a book review as part of your academic work.
Frequently your professors want you to find in depth, analytical reviews written by scholars in the same discipline as the author of the book. For novels, scholarly reviews often are written as literary criticism (see below). In order to find reviews from academically appropriate sources without advertisements and amateur reviews mixed in, we recommend using the resources below.
TIP: Know the date the book was originally published. Reviews typically appear in the scholarly press (in periodicals, i.e., journals) within one or two years following the publication of the book.
Search in these indexes:
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Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost) Online from (roughly) 1985 to present. Full text or citations to reviews in periodicals. This is a multidisciplinary source. Academic OneFile (Gale). Very similar to Academic Search Premier, but each of these two sources covers some unique periodical titles, so it is useful to search both. Also multidisciplinary JSTOR Online. Late 19th and Early 20th Century to within 3 –5 years of the present. Full text reviews from periodicals. Multidisciplinary, but you can limit to particular disciplines using the advanced search feature. |
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Book Review Digest (In Print near the Reference Desk) 1906- Sept. 1996 Excerpts and citations to reviews in periodicals. |
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Book Review Index 1965- current (In Print near the Reference Desk) . Citations to reviews in periodicals. |
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New York Times Historical. Full page views (scanned images) from 1851 - 2007 |
The Links above are all for resources, electronic or print, to which the Library subscribes. There are also “open Web” resources available. The following describe types of Web review sources you might find:
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H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences (1993 to present) is an online scholarly review journal that publishes not only book reviews but also reviews of film, software, museum exhibits, and World Wide Web sites. |
2. Finding Literary Criticism
Search library catalogs using the author’s name (last name, first name) as a SUBJECT search. Books about the author and his/her works will be found.
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The center search box LINFIELD WORLDCAT on the library home page allows you to search in these three library systems for books and other library materials. Use the drop-down menu to select from the following:
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There is no charge to members of the Linfield community to order items via Summit or Libraries Worldwide. |
Some of the same resources useful to find book reviews also lead to literary criticism as published in periodicals. Use these indexes:
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Academic OneFile Full text or citations to periodical articles. Academic Search Premier Full text or citations to periodical articles. Humanities International Complete Full text or citations to periodical articles. |
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JSTOR Late 19th and Early 20th Century to within 3 –5 years of the present. |
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MLA Bibliography 1963 to present. Citations to reviews and criticism in periodicals and books. |
Literary Criticism is also available through specialized Reference resources, both electronic and in print.
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Literature Resource Center (online) The long-standing classic resources Contemporary Literature Criticism, Contemporary Authors, and the Dictionary of Literary Biography, have been adapted to electronic format. In addition, the Literature Resouce Center includes sections from these companion resources: Children's Literature Review, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Drama Criticism, Drama for Students, Literature from 1400 to 1800, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Literature and Its Times, Novels for Students, Poetry Criticism, Poetry for Students, Shakespearean Criticism, Shakespeare for Students, Short Story Criticism, Short Stories for Students, and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. |
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Reference Books
Generally, peruse the Reference Room books with call numbers from PN – PT. Online Reference There are many electronic reference sources similar in content to the Reference Books. Go to the library home page and select "Quick Facts - Online Reference". Select by discipline. For a sampling of reference sources relevant for Language and Literature, try these from the Credo Reference Suite. jsc 11/2010 |
jsc 11/2010