REVIEWS - how book reviews affect reader's behavior?
Book Review Overview
Reviews for movies, products and books, are often found in newspapers, magazines and Internet. It helps readers to see the product from different angles. Reading a review gives an idea about the product from the reviewer’s point.
Book review is a critique in which a book is critically analyzed based on its content and style. The reviewer should first summarize the content of the book and later discuss and analyze its contents. In case of reviewing a novel, the reviewer should describe the plot of the story, its main characters, adventures and problems faced by the characters. Lastly, his opinion or recommendation is stated. The goal of the reviewer is to communicate to the reader his own findings from the research and analysis of the book. A professional reviewer does not just summarize the book after reading it, but brings out the concealed meaning in the content. Special skill is required to present authentic reviews. If the Book review is for the front cover, then it has to be written in a way that would get ones attention.
Who will benefit?
Books are of value to everyone. More information on various things in life can be achieved by reading books, thus making an individual more educated. Book reviews are used by book lovers. It helps ardent readers in deciding which book is favorable to read.
Primarily, book reviews benefit the reviewers themselves. It helps them improve their writing skills in terms of presentation, dialogue, flow and structure of the content. One gets a better understanding of the content and gains information on various aspects.
Book reviews help the general reader to be well informed about the context of the book and gain essential learning that they may apply to their real life. When a person starts to read a book based on its review, the expectation of the reader is mostly based on what is stated in the book review. It does not just give the content but give an analysis of the same. This makes reading to be a lot enjoyable. However, the reviewer should be careful not to mention the end of the story as it might lose the interest of the readers. A book review encourages one to think from different angles and learn from the various aspects involved in a single story.
Students are assigned book reviews in order to help them develop their analytical skills. Thus, by completing a review, a student gains information and is also able to improve on his language and writing skills.
Benefits of Book review
A book review is an excellent source to evaluate a book. The advantage of book reviews is that most reviewers are authors, and they come up with some excellent reviews. The tips are welcomed by most authors as it helps them make the book a better one. Some readers cannot take their eyes off the book till they complete reading it from cover to cover. It is very natural that they expect all the books to keep them interested in such a way. For such people, book review comes in handy as it helps them find out which books might hook the interest of many or create an intriguing buzz.
A few review sites also provide ratings for the reviews which can be used by the authors as a promotional tool. One excellent example is eBay, where various books are sold, and book reviews are provided to provide a hint to the readers on whether to read or not the book being promoted. Some books seem to have many reviews and some seem to have less. Different reviewers tend to bring out different qualities of the book, thus providing relevant information to the reader. A reader does not get to read all the reviews of a book, and reading a positive review about the book is beneficial. Then might as well, allow more reviewers to analyze the book. However, too many reviews sometimes are considered problematic as the saying goes “Overcooking spoils the broth”.
Benefits of a Bad Book review
In today’s world, the spread of bad news has caught the attention of vast viewers or readers. A bad book review is considered as unfavorable news for the author, especially if it is from a professional writer who has read and analyzed the book. However, in most cases the author has the right to hold back the poor reviews from being published on various sites.
Bad book reviews written by professional writers bring out the true shortcoming of the book, and it benefits the serious author in the true sense. After all the efforts put into the book, it is frustrating to know the downside and unconstructiveness as reviewed by another professional author. However, the good side of this is that criticism opens an opportunity to the author to improve the book and eventually attracts the interest of most book enthusiast or even the general public. Nonetheless, one should be careful about the subjective comments based on personal opinions. A book cannot be satisfying to all, and trying to incorporate everyone’s suggestions would not serve the purpose.
One of the benefits of a bad book review is the objective review, which points out the grammatical errors. Correcting these errors would make the book more readable and would go a long way in communicating the author’s thoughts to the reader.
A high-quality book should be readable and context wise. Correct grammar and uniqueness must be taken into account so as not to make the readers switch interest. The main objective, aside from getting high sales from the copies sold, is to distinguish your book from vast book offers available in the market, grasp the interest of readers and influence them with the learning inclined with your content.
Latest reviwes on art, movies, books, theatre, exibitions, music and other interesting events from us and our contributors.
The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, Cremorne Theatre at QPAC, Brisbane 28 July 2010
The Clean House is at once a hilarious and tragic peek into the lives of four women brought together by life, circumstance and choices made. Set in America, the story follows Matilde, a young Brazilian woman who is hired to clean Lane’s house. Unbeknownst to Lane, Matilde despises cleaning and wants nothing more than to think up the perfect joke, whilst Lane’s neurotic sister Virginia scrubs away her obsessive thoughts by taking over Matilde’s housekeeping duties. Enter Ana – the woman Lane’s husband is leaving her for – and suddenly, keeping a clean house is the last thing on anybody’s mind.
The straight-forward metaphor for life – a clean house – is surprisingly explored with wit and raucous humour. Not only does this play avoid the seemingly inevitable cliché which may be expected from such an overused premise, the comedic style in which the truly beautiful and tragic events of life are examined, leaves one at times laughing from purest joy to feeling immense grief; magically – at times a little of both. Considering the manic-depressive experiences life dishes out to us, the use of genuine humour in this play is not only welcome, but a necessity to keep the tears (somewhat) at bay.
This play captures the ecstasy and cruelty in life, to be both enjoyed and tolerated, respectively. If the adage is true – you’ve got to take the highs with the lows – then this play encapsulates the meaning of those words. At times cathartic and amusing, saddening and inspiring, this piece replays real life, and just as in real life, the more control the characters attempt to exude over their lives, the more they inevitably lose grip. At the close, one cannot help but feel exhausted and energised, looking forward to the future and at the same time, bracing oneself for impact.
By Anna Tretyakova
30 Seconds to Mars, Hordern Pavilion, Sydney 30 July 2010
Almost five years following the release of their second album A Beautiful Lie, 30 Seconds to Mars delivered their third, highly anticipated album This Is War at the end of 2009. Promoting this ground-breaking musical transformation, the group delivers a concert which can only be described as a religious experience for the die-hard fan, and nothing short of an impressive show for the newly initiated. The awesome combination of rock, interwoven with progressive, symphonic composition made this album and this show – the last on the Australian leg of their worldwide tour – truly unforgettable.
It is apparent that the group adopted a more spiritual approach to their latest album and tour. Gone are the charmingly self-pitying lyrics and deliciously melodramatic guitar riffs, replaced with a sound that can only be described as a hybrid between a thousand voice protest rally, singing and screaming their demands in unison, whilst supported by an electric symphony of guitars and tribal drumming echoing sacrifices of old. With the fervour of a general preparing his soldiers for war, frontman Jared Leto effortlessly moves the crowd through an expanse of emotions, plucking each soul like the strings on his guitar.
If there is one thing the group succeeds in, it is inspiring and touching a crowd of thousands, not just at this venue, but at countless others around the world. From every walk of life, the music energises and arouses the senses, ignites the fire within us all. Whether we wish to be led on a journey, or to distinguish ourselves from the masses, every note Leto sings stirs something in the murky depths, something both monstrous and glorious – just waiting to be released – this concert succeeds in violently exposing the desperate desires and dreams we all sometimes forget.
By Anna Tretyakova
Inception Entrenches Itself in the Imagination
That wonderfully groggy feeling when you awake from a vivid dream and reluctantly reacquaint yourself with reality is beautifully evoked in Christopher Nolan’s latest work.
Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) leads a team of specialist “extractors” with a difference – their target – the secrets hidden within the very depths of the subconscious. Cobb, who is for all intents and purposes a fugitive, takes on a special job in exchange for the right to return home to see his beloved children. Rather than extracting important information as per usual, the team is required to plant a seed, an idea, into the mind of Richard Fischer (Cillian Murphy) – young heir to a business empire – and make him believe he thought of it himself. Joined by right-hand man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), recent recruit and architect of dreams Ariadne (Ellen Page), along with shapeshifting Eames (Tom Hardy) and modern-day apothecary Yusuf (Dileep Rao), the team grabs us by the hand as they plunge into the chasm of Fischer’s mind. Unbeknownst to the rest of the team, Cobb’s own demons await in the abyss, echoing the loss of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who poses a threat to more than the success of the mission.
A beautifully interwoven story, supported, rather than eclipsed by special effects awaits viewers from all walks of life. Surpassing similar cinematic attempts to explore the nature of reality such as Vanilla Sky and The Matrix; Inception feeds on the idea gnawing at the back of our minds that the ‘real’ world is often not as fixed as we think. We all dream and we all wake up, Inception manages to blur the lines enough to have you pinching yourself on the way out of the theatre.
Anya Tretyakova
Art Review
Olga Lutsenko is benevolent in her life and her art.
You can feel both the vibrant energy and emotional appeal in her works. You can see her intensity and richness of colour. You can follow with your eyes forever, the intricate and diverse incorporation of ornaments in many of Olga Lutsenko’s paintings. You can perceive the messages of love, hope, faith and virtuousness, loud and clear in her works.
Whilst she is arguably new to Australia, Olga is an established artist through life. As I write about her art I cannot avoid picturing a little girl, less than two years old, who is hardly able to walk but who spends hours and hours drawing little houses on the hill, surrounded by simple fences and flocks of birds in the sky. Such romantic idealism of love for nature, peace and the tranquility of life shows through every painting that I saw at her last exhibition in Brisbane. That is where I met Olga, and where she shared her childhood love for art with me.
Very feminine and petite but full of overwhelming energy, Olga lived through her role as hostess of her exhibition at Graydon Gallery, easily and naturally and I felt I was a special guest visiting her house. Smiling kindly with a soft magnetism, she made my experiencing of her art so very personal and wonderfully memorable. Behind each of her painting are real life stories or unknown mythological characters that she knows so well, and of which she can talk about without seemingly taking a breath. No other confirmation is needed to see just how much she loves to express her feeling and beliefs with strokes of her brush. No further affirmation is required of how much she cares to evoke love, hope and faith in others.
“Bereginya”, the so called “Slavic goddess”, takes a clearly bigger role, becoming a symbol of a multicultural mother savior of nature.
“Singing tree” unites earth and prosperity of real life, and grows beyond the sky that you might not know how to comprehend but can feel with your soul.
The whole series of “naïve paintings”, as Olga called them, but which I personally prefer to name, “the way of life”, is not naïve to me. It is romantically idealistic in simplicity and its interconnection with nature, but yet so realistic and desirable because it is full of the happiness and energy of the everyday life of her ancestors. It appears that with what they embraced and enjoyed in life they got it so right when compared to us; and we are simply losing it through our misunderstanding of life’s values.
Olga stimulated my curiosity to see more of her art and to learn more about her. The very next day I spent considerable time browsing her website www.olgalutsenko.com that resulted in quite intriguing discoveries of her background and her art.
Elena Ornig
Art Review
SWELL Sculpture Festival at Currumbin Beach celebrated the unity of nature and art under a shining Sun.
September 18th 2010.
Spread wisely along the Currumbin Beach, the contemporary visual arts exhibition of sculptures, by artist from around Australia, is rapidly gaining huge popularity among Gold Coasters and tourists from all over the world.
This was my first visit and I can only thank my friend Olga for inviting me there. The frustration of being unable to find a parking place was a clear sign of the growing popularity of the SWELL Sculpture Festival that started seven years ago.
The impact of each unique sculpture integrated into the natural landscape is a quite powerful experience. Nature seemed to like it too, with the Sun shining down and a friendly breeze from the blue Pacific Ocean seemingly inviting viewers to stroll along the beach from one sculpture to the next.
My favorite was #02 by John Dahlsen from NSW. The name ‘Monumental Environmental Artwork’ is exactly what you would imagine of his successful saving of a huge stump of a camphor laurel tree that would otherwise have found its end in a bonfire. Hearts go out to John Dahlsen for preserving the inherent beauty of real nature, and for spending two years bringing out the best artistic appeal. The saved stump of a so-called ever green camphor tree brings into consideration the one very powerful thought of saving not just a stump, but one existing healthy tree per man. With the earth’s population fast heading towards seven billion, it means we can save around seven billion trees if we just make that decision, voluntarily.
‘Swoop’, # 47 by Daniel Gill from Queensland, a sculpture of a mantra ray from my knowledge, has unmistaken warmth from the chosen sandstone material whilst the graceful spread of its big wings are so inviting to touch and hug. By all means it should stay right there, forever, in order that we may continue to appreciate the gracefulness and beauty of the magnificent sea creatures.
‘Very delicate School’ by Richard Howie from Queensland was # 53 sculpture and kids just loved it. It was very funny and touching to look at them going in and out and around it, in total amusement, trying to be careful and gentle with the little shiny school of fish. It was also quite symbolic, as the children were unintentionally showing us how careful and gentle we can all be in order to preserve the delicate nature of the sea. This is another sculpture that definitely shouldn’t be removed from the Currumbin Beach.
All 56 sculptures were unique and interesting. The whole experience of social display that brought many viewers into that place of natural beauty, Currumbin Beach, is a great joint achievement by the organizers and artists. The feeling of joy united everyone into one big and friendly multicultural crowd displaying countless smiles and respectful politeness. They all celebrated the unity of nature and art under a shining Sun, and so did I and my friend Olga. Life is so beautiful!
Elena Ornig
