the complete review Quarterly
Volume I, Issue 2   --   May, 2000



The complete review's Survey
of Book Review Sites (page 2)

Review Index:

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Complete Review

Site:   The Complete Review -- A Literary Saloon & Site of Review
Reviews per Week:   about 5
Total:   762 (as of 22 January, 2002)
Types of Books reviewed:   All -- with a heavy emphasis on literature, philosophy, and science. Reviews new publications and old books, as well as some foreign-language titles.
Registration:   Not necessary
Cookies:   None
Advertising:   None
Archive:   Yes
Search capability:   No
Index:   Alphabetical by author and title, and numerous indices by genre, national origin, subject, as well as indices of new, highly rated, low rated, and foreign language books.
User Friendliness:   High
Reviews:   Vary in quality and length. Tend to be more informational than critical. Often useful in providing context and background information.
Links in reviews:   Yes, both to other reviews onsite and outside sources.
Additional Features:
  - Summaries of -- and quotes from -- other reviews
  - Author pages devoted to authors with multiple books represented.
  - Monthly bestseller list of 15 most accessed reviews
  - Monthly Editor's Choice list
  - The complete review Quarterly -- additional reviewing forum.

Overall Grade:   B+

      Summary:   

  Pros:      Cons:      Overall:   The complete review offers reviews of an unusual selection of books. The emphasis is literary, but there are many surprising and quirky selections. While the selection is relatively small it is broad. User-friendly, with a high literary standard (and a sometimes wicked sense of humour), the site is in an interesting place to browse and find information about a (limited) number of authors and books.
    The quotes and summaries from other reviews are an excellent feature. The complete review also has by far the best links of any review site. These two aspects of the site in particular boost it above the vast majority of online review sites.

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Daily Telegraph

Site:   BooksOnline (Daily and Sunday Telegraph)
Reviews per Week:   about 12 to 20, including some very brief reviews
Total:   over 1000
Types of Books reviewed:   all -- with main emphasis on new British publications
Registration:   Not necessary
Cookies:   None
Advertising:   None
Archive:   Yes
Search capability:   Yes -- but slow and a bit cumbersome
Index:   None
User Friendliness:   Fairly high
Reviews:   Consistently high quality, wide variety of reviewers
Links in reviews:   None
Additional Features:   
  - Bestseller lists
  - Excellent weekly columns
  - access to entire Electronic Telegraph site

Overall Grade:   B+

      Summary:   

  Pros:      Cons:      Overall:   The Electronic Telegraph site is not the most attractive, but the content is excellent and the archive one of the largest among review sites. It has a good stable of reviewers, and also provides other interesting literary content. The search engine is not ideal but is manageable. For up-to-date information about recent British publications it is a very good site. The absence of links limits the information available to that onsite.

    (UPDATE - January, 2002: As of mid-January 2002, BooksOnline (previously found at www.booksonline.co.uk) no longer exists. The site has been completely integrated into the redesigned Telegraph-site. Book coverage remains good at the site, and the archive is still there, but the new design is far inferior to the previous stand-alone Books-page (from every point of view but the aesthetic), and very disappointing.)
    (UPDATE - February, 2002: Now they apparently also require you to register to access the reviews, rendering the site essentially unusable. Sad.)

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Danny Yee's Book Reviews

Site:   Danny Yee's Book Reviews -- ramblings of a pathologically eclectic generalist
Reviews per Week:   about 1
Total:   608 (as of 31 January, 2002)
Types of Books reviewed:   all, with heavy emphasis on non-fiction, in particular science. Fiction titles ca. 20-25 percent of total.
Registration:   Not necessary
Cookies:   None
Advertising:   None
Archive:   Yes
Search capability:   Yes -- good search engine on site
Index:   Yes - alphabetical by title, author, publisher, and recent additions, plus decent (though cluttered) subject index
User Friendliness:   High
Reviews:   Vary in quality and length, but generally solid
Links in reviews:   Some, at the end of the reviews (leading to other onsite reviews)
Additional Features:
  - Mailing list (to receive latest reviews)

Overall Grade:   B-

      Summary:   

  Pros:      Cons:      Overall:   Danny Yee's Book Reviews is a good site for finding basic information about the books under review. In its areas of greatest strength -- science books -- the reviews are particularly valuable, and there are links to (onsite) reviews of similar books. The lack of links to outside information and the relatively small number of books under review does, however, limit the site's usefulness.

    (UPDATE - February, 2002: The many subject and other indices are now more clearly indexed -- and are very useful for finding reviews in specific categories. There are now also helpful, very brief (one-line) book-descriptions in the indices. Also new: a "best books" page.
    Danny Yee's Book Reviews continues to provide very good reviews about the eclectic selection of books under review. Non-fiction (history and science, especially) continues to be the mainstay, but there is good variety here, and considerable depth in certain areas.)

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Ed's Internet Book Review

Site:   EIBR (Ed's Internet Book Review)
Reviews per Week:   about 5
Total:   1000s
Types of Books reviewed:   all, with emphasis on popular books, including genre fiction
Registration:   Not necessary
Cookies:   None
Advertising:   None
Archive:   Yes
Search capability:   Yes -- Excite search engine covering onsite archive
Index:   Yes -- author (but not title) index, recent additions, as well as subject and genre indices
User Friendliness:   High
Reviews:   Generally short, very many very superficial
Links in reviews:   No
Additional Features:   
  - Multiple reviews of some titles
  - Editorials (none since 9/98)
  - Author interviews (none from authors we have ever heard of)
  - Numerous top 10 most popular review lists

Overall Grade:   C+

      Summary:   

  Pros:      Cons:      Overall:   Ed's Internet Book Review site is an elegant, simple site. Easy to navigate and clear in its presentation it is well-designed. Regrettably, its content does not measure up to the same standard. The site is spread very thin in what books are covered (anything under the sun, from cartoon books to serious literature), and the quality of many of the books is fairly low. The reviews also often leave much to be desired.
    EIBR does actively solicit outside reviews: it is to be hoped that more people will take up the call and post good reviews, gradually improving the quality of the content of this well-run site.

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The Guardian - The Observer

Site:   BooksUnlimited -- site of The Guardian and The Observer
Reviews per Week:   15 plus
Total:   100s (and growing fast)
Types of Books reviewed:   all -- but mainly new releases
Registration:   Theoretically
Cookies:   YES
      Number:   20 (!!!) -- the same cookie submitted (and rejected) 20 times. Of course, if you accept it it only appears once. Rejecting the cookie leads to annoying pop-up ads popping up.
      Type:   NGUserID from ad.guardianunlimited.co.uk
      Max. Duration:   The cookie lasts until the end of the year 2037. We kid you not. 2037.
Advertising:   Yes -- pop-up ads (very annoying) and banner ads.
Archive:   Yes -- still relatively small but growing fast
Search capability:   Yes -- very good
Index:   Yes -- author, genre, reviewer indices
User Friendliness:   Except for the cookies, very high
Reviews:   Very good -- from both The Guardian and The Observer
Links in reviews:   No
Additional Features:   
  - The Loafer column
  - Critical Mass -- other reviews
  - London Review of Books essay
  - Lists of authors' 10 favourite books
  - Literary news
  - Interviews
  - Columns
  - Links
  - Access to other content from The Guardian and The Observer

Overall Grade:   B+

      Summary:   

  Pros:      Cons:      Overall:   The Guardian - The Observer site is in many ways exemplary. Despite the advertising, it is a very attractive site, and fairly easy to use. The content is excellent, going far beyond providing only reviews. The reviews themselves are very solid. The archive is still relatively small; once more reviews are available the site will be considerably more useful.
    Regrettably, the site is also a privacy-invading nightmare, with a pernicious cookie that keeps trying to invade users' hard drives until it has burrowed its way in. There is no question that the site goes way overboard: the cookie doesn't expire until the end of the year 2037 -- a time when these hard drives will all be long gone (as will a fair number of users).
    Users must decide whether the bother (and the invasion of privacy) of using the site is balanced out by the valuable content. At the moment it would appear to be no contest: NO.

    (UPDATE - December, 2001: They continue to annoy with their pointless pop-up ads, but with the flurry of other sites making their archives off-limits except to those willing and able to pay, BooksUnlimited -- which still gives free access to its archive -- moves to the top of the heap. Lots of book coverage, lots of reviews -- and freely accessible archives. What more can one want ? Oh yes: no pop-up ads ! But other than that, BooksUnlimited is now probably the best literary site on the Internet.)

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The Independent

Site:   The Independent
Reviews per Week:   10-15
Total:   low 100s, growing fast
Types of Books reviewed:   all, including recorded books. Mainly new releases.
Registration:   Not necessary
Cookies:   Yes
      Number:   2
      Type:   doubleclick.net
      Max. Duration:   9/11/2030
Advertising:   Pop up ads, banner ads -- moderately annoying
Archive:   Yes, but only from late 1999 onwards (they tossed out a heap of reviews available on the predecessor site)
Search capability:   Yes
Index:   None
User Friendliness:   Fairly high
Reviews:   High quality
Links in reviews:   No
Additional Features:   
  - The Literator
  - Boyd Tonkin's Week in Books

Overall Grade:   B (but will improve as archive grows)

      Summary:   

  Pros:      Cons:      Overall:   A solid review forum, The Independent provides interesting reviews about current publications, as well as other news about literature and publishing. Their archive is regrettably very, very small, and tragically they apparently tossed out all the reviews that were previously available online (on the earlier The Independent site). An attractive site, attached to a large newspaper site, The Independent is a useful, though still limited, resource.

    (UPDATE - December, 2001: Steady coverage, and a freely accesible (and readily searchable) archive -- The Independent has become a considerably more valuable resource since we first conducted our survey.)

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