Writing reviews of scientific books is, in this sense, just another form of peer review, yet it is often more than that. A critique of a project proposal or a paper is usually technical and schematic; it never goes outside a small audience of grant officers or colleagues; its function is administrative. A book review, on the other hand, is a literary effort in its own right, and its readership extends beyond a small circle of specialists; its function is to inform a larger public.
Reviewing another's textbook or monograph in a professional journal offers the opportunity to give a personal overview of one's own ideas on the subject. Writing in a popular magazine gives one a forum to educate, provoke, even amuse. In addition, writing reviews is a painless and relatively direct way to break into print.
Yet how does one go about becoming a book reviewer? In a ...
