A book review is a critical and evaluative description of a newly published work written for a particular magazine, journal or newspaper. The review can be "popular," giving the general public an idea of the book's contents, or it can be "scholarly," subjecting the book being reviewed to close scrutiny in its particular field. The feature that distinguishes reviews from other critical writings is its immediacy to the time of publication of the book. Reviews appear shortly after publication, and may be located in indexes using the book's copyright date.

This guide is designed to help you use the Book Review Index ( Ref Z1035.B61 ). This useful source lists reviews of books (which have appeared in over 500 periodicals) on all subjects including works of literature.