I thought it might be interesting to note down something new I did recently. When it comes to book reviews, my way of reviewing has always been pretty standard: read the book → review the book. Sometimes, it’s read the book while taking notes → review the book while taking notes. Regardless, book reviewing has generally been a two-step process for me.
Until this year.
Freed from the pressures to write enough book reviews to be constantly posting, I found myself unintentionally engaging in what I’m retroactively calling “Slow Reviewing”. This isn’t just “read and then wrote the review weeks later because I forgot” reviewing (which I’ve done because I’m a completionist), this felt like something quite different.
It started with the reading process. My reading speed has always been on the faster side, but because I also have a bad memory (and because I hadn’t decided if I was going to write a mini-review in my book journal or a proper review on a blog), I found myself actually interacting with my notes. I was adding in longer thoughts (easier to do on google docs than on a kobo) and putting in book recommendations. After a while, it felt like I was having a conversation with the book, although sadly the book could not talk back to me.
After I was done, I didn’t start the review process straight away. It’s not because I didn’t have anything to say (as evidenced by all the thoughts that I italicised to prevent mix-up with what the book actually was saying) but because I didn’t know how to collate my thoughts. So I did two things:
- I talked to friends about the book
- I started reading the articles and books mentioned in the book that I thought were useful
The more I read and thought, the more notes I made and the clearer my thoughts were. But even so, it took me two or three tries to get it all down on paper, and even organising it by headline/section made me think that I hadn’t written everything down coherently enough. My reviews are normally written straight after I’ve read the book but in this case, I visited this a few times, adding, editing, and deleting passages.
And then… I started on another book. I originally intended to just read through the book, like I did with other books surrounding this core book, but I found myself taking lots of notes and basically interacting with the book slowly, as with the original book. I guess this is what Roosevelt meant when he talked about books suggesting other books (I heard about the concept while reading Shelf Life) and it is definitely something I can see myself doing… if I wasn’t constantly distracted by all the other books on my TBR.
(That said, I’m now rereading a book from five years ago because I think the writers are similar to one another.)
And that’s how one conversation with a book led to another conversation with a book. The books in question are Filterworld (review here) and Everything And Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon (review here) so you can take a look and let me know if you think the process resulted in richer reviews or not.
P.s. After writing this, I’ve come to the realisation that this may be the normal/traditional way of writing book reviews (how else are the articles in newspapers so long?) but as someone who generally rushes through everything (reading and otherwise), this was an eye-opening process for me.
I’m also a person who reac and write review and move on. Reading your post made me realize I have stopped taking notes and now I want to go back to it as I have less time to read and it takes me longer to finish the book that sometimes makes it difficult to recall everything. I love you new process of processing books and compiling it into review. Amazing post!
Thanks! Yeah, I think I’ve realised I read a lot but also forgot a lot! And sometimes (especially for nonfiction), I would like to remember more!
This is very interesting because I am definitely a “review the book weeks later and hope I remember something to say or have a few notes” person sometimes! I do like the idea of reviewing later intentionally to think about the book more in-depth.
I’ve done that before and I almost always finish writing the review with a sense that I’ve forgotten a lot hahaha. But erm… I do have one book about tea that I’ve been meaning to review and have not so WE WILL SEE hahaha
Content really does cause us to change our relationships with books, I love that you found another way to slow down!
Thank you! I really did enjoy it and I’m actually enjoying rereading a book that I was prompted to read after these two books so I’m loving the process right now!
I think that “slow reviewing” is the way to go about it. It certainly makes for a richer reading experience, and I think it’s what some literary scholars recommended, if I recall correctly of the few books on books I’ve read that are basically a bunch of reviews. The advice I remember is to take your time with the book and interact with it, like what you’ve done. That’s something I’d like to do but doubt I’ll actually be able to. My process these days is to jot down some notes while reading or after and hope I recall enough when I do eventually find time to sit down to draft the review. In the past, when I had more time, I’d take my time and even look up articles on what I read or the author to enhance my understanding of the material.
I do wonder if my usual review speed is influenced by a “need” to keep pushing out “content” and if this exercise was only possible because I took a deliberate break from not only social media but also a scheduled blogging pace!
But I agree about the value of being able to look up articles on the author – I definitely had the experience where how Chayka responded to interviews changed a bit of how I understood his book!
My first thought on seeing the title of this post was definitely, “But if I wait to review, I might forget the book!” But I do like the idea of interacting with the book more and pursuing other books or authors mentioned. I’ve been finding some articles and books mentioned in a book on Tolkien that I’ve been reading and it’s really been fascinating to see what new takes are being offered by scholars.
I would love to read about your scholarly Tolkien rabbit hole! And yes, I did wonder if I would forget what I was reading (and I do wonder about that now with a book I’m reading) but I think I interacted so much more with the book that I remember a lot more of it!