essay on the book i read recently

Talk About a Book You Read Recently IELTS Cue Card

Talk about a book you read recently ielts cue card topic.

Talk about a book that you have read recently. Please say

What was its title? Who is the author? What did you learn from it?

And explain why you liked or disliked it.

You should say:

what the book is
who wrote the book
what the book is about

and explain how much you enjoyed reading this book.

Note: You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.

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Sample Answer 1:

Describe a book you have read recently – The Fortunate Pilgrim

The book I have recently finished and enjoyed so much is called “The Fortunate Pilgrim”, and I would like to talk about it for this topic.

It is a novel by Mario Puzo which was first published in the year 1965. The writer Mario Puzo is well-known for his famous mafia book “The Godfather”. He, nevertheless, received numerous positive reviews for his book “The Fortunate Pilgrim”. The writer had developed the story of this novel based on his mother’s immigration struggling for respectability in the United States. Mario Puzo himself considered this novel to be his finest though Godfather earned him much more fame and earning.

The novel tells the story of an immigrant family living in New York City. The mother of the family, Lucia Santa is the protagonist of it. It is her formidable will that steers the family members through the Great Depression and early years of World War II. The story, events, and the characters become so real that the readers can’t stop wondering about them even when they are not reading. The writer had been able to tell an ordinary story extraordinarily. It makes us feel and relate the characters, their happiness, sorrows and sufferings in our lives, and that’s why the characters and stories got the power to keep readers awake the whole night. Mario Puzo has shown literacy excellence in this story and it will keep on surprising readers in the coming decades.

I liked the book very much and finished it within 3 days. I have always been a great admirer of Puzo’s writing style, and “The Fortunate Pilgrim” was a bit different from his famous mafia books. It touches the reader’s mind, keeps them wondering and tells them an amazing story. So, I had every valid reason to enjoy this book to a great extent.

Sample Answer 2:

Describe a book you have read recently – The Wings of Fire

It is a well-known fact that books are best friends. Some people get motivated while reading books, and others read to drain the stress and anxiety. I am an avid reader, and out of all the books I’ve read, the one which I loved was ‘The Wings of Fire’ by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

My sister gifted me the book on my birthday as she knew that I was fond of reading autobiographies. And this book by Dr. Kalam had a great influence on me and still inspires me, and I began devouring it on the same day. The book explains how Kalam started his career and became the best rocket Engineer.

The book is about his journey, accomplishments, and about he managed to overcome his obstacles. He describes his presidential post as a piece of luck, and his achievement as a rocket Engineer was because of sheer hard work. Throughout the book, one thing that stands out is Kalam’s positive thinking and his secret to success hidden in his ability to ignore negative things. That is why he had contributed and accomplished a lot in his life.

Kalam’s journey in the book inspires us to achieve our dreams by beating all the odds. A fable in the book emphasizes the importance of family, relatives, and friends in helping accomplish each other’s goals and turning dreams into realities.

Also Check: Describe a situation when you were bored – IELTS Cue Card

Sample Answer 3:

A Book You Have Recently Read IELTS Cue Card – Rich Dad Poor Dad

I am not fond of reading many books apart from my textbooks. but during this pandemic time, I was free at home so I decided to read a book which my friend gifted me, and I read it all.

I found this book very exciting and motivating and would like to read it again. The book’s name is ‘Rich dad poor dad’. • Rich Dad Poor Dad is about Robert Kiyosaki and his two dads story, and the ways in which both men shaped his thoughts about money and investing • It was first published in 1997 and quickly became a must-read book for people who want to become rich with smart work. The book has been translated into dozens of languages, sold around the world, and has become the number 1 Personal Finance book of all time. Robert Kiyosaki tells the story of his two dads in his childhood. His own father and the father of his best friend. While he loved both, they were very different when it came to dealing with finances. starts with the idea that many of us are too afraid of being branded as a weirdo, 90% of people still stick to the outdated mantra “Go to school, go to college, get a job, play it safe.” when in reality no job is safe anymore. when your greed takes over, you might then spend the extra money on an improved lifestyle, like buying a car, and the payments eat up the money – this way you’re guaranteed to lose 100% But if you educate yourself financially, you can multiply it but take the right decisions I found it very useful for me.

I learned from this book how to use money as a tool for wealth development. if you are born poor it is not your fault but if you die poor it is totally your fault. Hard work is important, but with smart work, you can enhance the productivity of quality of life. If you take a risk you can win but if you do not take risks you definitely lose. This book I found useful, it guided me in my finance management and I recommend any of my friends to read this book

Sample Answer 4:

Describe a Book You Have Recently Read – Harry Potter

Well, the first book I can think of is definitely Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is the seventh book, also the final novel, of the Harry Potter series. I became a fan of this fantasy story when I was still a child. So by the release of the final, I’d been obsessed with the series for almost ten years. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I could finally read the ending of this story.

Anyway, I read it as soon as it was published. Even though this was about twelve years ago, I remember the release like it was yesterday. I waited for hours in front of a bookstore in a hundred-meter line full of excited Hany Potter fans like me, mostly teens, of course, just to get the book on the day of its release. And once I started reading it, I literally couldn’t put it down.

The final Harry Potter book really blew my mind. I mean, it has a happy ending as I expected. Like Hany has to die once and comes back to life so he can defeat the villain, Voldemort. I finished the book with an overwhelmed feeling that was a mix of excitement, happiness and some loss.

Honestly, I’ve reread this novel ton of times. I’ve even written some glowing reviews of the book on social media, which I’ve never done for other books. It’s a really exciting book that left a mark on me.

Sample Answer 5:

IELTS Cue Card Talk About a Book You Read Recently – The Secret

I like to read books not just from my prescribed course, but also additional ones according to my own interest. I personally gain a lot from reading books, as they improve my intellect and make me learn about new concepts. The book that I’m going to talk about is ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Bryne.

I read this book almost a year ago for the first time. I knew about it before but I really never got the chance to read it. I finally looked for it online and bought it.

‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Bryne is a self-help motivational book that shows readers positive aspects of life, and also encourages them to strive for success. The book discusses the law of attraction and how to use it in almost every aspect of life.

The book beautifully explains how thoughts influence your actions and in turn, the experiences that you have in your life. It focuses on setting a goal in the mind and then believing in yourself to achieve that goal. The law of attraction is linked to every walk of life like possessions, dreams, goals, success, and even health. The logic is quite simple, that if ambition is clearly visualized in the mind, then the motivation will attract everything you want.

The Secret is a powerful yet simple book that encouraged my visualization and boosted my motivation. It made me realize that we are the creators of our own reality in a very practical manner. It gave me immense positivity, and the confidence to succeed in work and relationships. It basically gave me the key to being happy.

Sample Answer 6:

Book IELTS Cue Card – How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Last year due to Corona Pandemic, my country was in a state of lockdown. Since I did not have much to do while sitting at home, I went into depression.

I tried many things to come out of it, but all my efforts went in vain. During that time, one of my friends gifted a book to me, written by a renowned self-improvement writer Mr. Dale Carnegie. The name of the book was “How to stop worrying and start living“.

It is a self-improvement book that teaches you the perfect ways to get rid of stress in your life.

This book is about handling depression in our lives. According to the writer of this book, when we have stress regarding something, we find it difficult to focus on work. And due to that, our productivity at work goes for a toss. So just worrying about anything doesn’t do any good to us rather it leads us towards a wrong trajectory.

Moreover, according to him, there is no point in having worries concerning the past or future. We should live our lives in the present. Our past is good for us if we use it as a medium to learn from it. However, if we keep on thinking about our past, we would ultimately become depressed.

Talk About a Book You Read Recently IELTS Cue Card

As far as the future is concerned, there is no harm in having plans for it. But, one shouldn’t service the present for having a worthwhile life in the future.

I find this book exciting because excitement in our lives thrives primarily on having fewer worries and more enjoyment. This book adds to our joys by bringing a paradigm shift in our thinking process.

It helped me to come out of boredom and depression. Due to its valuable inputs, I have started enjoying my life to the full extent. Whenever I have conflicts in my life, I handle them adroitly.

It is a must-read book for people from all walks of life.

Sample Answer 7:

A Book You Read IELTS Cue Card – Atomic Habits

Being a voracious reader, I love to read books. Although I have read many exciting books in my life, there is one book that has caught my attention.

Last month I had to go for a job interview in the capital city. Since the journey was too long, I decided to utilize my time productively by reading a book.

Before boarding the train, I purchased a book by the name of “Atomic Habits“.

This book is so exciting and addictive. During the journey, most of the time, I remained involved in reading this masterpiece.

This book is a self-improvement book.

The central focus of this book is on the habits of people. It says that we can bring a paradigm shift in our lives by replacing our bad habits with good habits.

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Whether we have to improve our skills by working on this. By making a tiny improvement of one percent every day, we can improve our performance by thirty-seven percent at the end of the year.

This book is exciting because, after reading it, you can handle all the conflicts in your life adroitly.

There is no denying this conviction that most people work tremendously hard to gain success in their lives.

This book has explained the process of attaining success in a consummate manner.

It adds excitement to your life by giving you hope.

Such was the impact of this book that, I achieved my most awaited goals, in just six months after reading this book.

In nutshell, this book can add fun and excitement to your life by leading you towards an impressive growth trajectory.

Sample Answer 8:

IELTS Cue Card Topic A Book You Read – Wonder

Today I am going to talk about “Wonder”, the book that left me with lots of thoughts and emotions after I finished it.

I don’t remember exactly when but there was one time my favorite Youtuber said that “Wonder” was the most engaging book she had ever read. Not long after that, I decided to purchase the book online. And she was right, when I finished “Wonder”, I could not stop thinking about how it inspired and refreshed me.

“Wonder” tells an incredibly moving and inspiring story of a little boy named August, who was born with an extreme facial deformity. When August turned 10, he decided to attend school for the first time. During his school days, though August was harassed and mocked for his “alien” look, he was still lucky enough to have some nice friends as companions. Things got worse when August and his schoolmates went camping for three days. On the second night, August encountered a group of older kids who tried to bully him. Luckily, he was rescued by three boys who were usually mean to him at school. After this incident, August and his friends won a special award for their courage and kindness.

“Wonder” is truly a fast-moving and gripping book that I could hardly put it down. All I could feel after reading this story was the sense of love and goodness. I was also infused with inspiration and appreciation for good things and kind people. I think I would always remember this saying: “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind”.

Sample Answer 9:

Describe a Book You Recently Read Cue Card Topic – Wings of Fire

I have not read many books apart from my textbooks. Here, I would like to talk about a book, which my friend gifted me, and I read it all. I found this book very exciting and motivating and would like to read it again.

This book is ‘The Wings of Fire’ by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. My friend got this book as a prize when she participated in a declamation contest. It is Dr.Kalam’s autobiography. It was first published in 1999. This book became popular only after Dr. Kalam became the President of India. He was sworn in as the president of India on 25th July 2002. Mr. Arun Tiwari helped Dr. Kalam in writing the book. In this book, Dr. Kalam says why he wrote his autobiography. This book is very motivating.

From this book, I came to know all about the life and achievements of Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam. Dr. Kalam was born in a very poor family in the southern parts of India at Rameshwaram. The reason why I admire him is that his life shows how & ordinary boy from a deprived class (poor family) could reach the highest level of the nation. He became not only the best rocket engineer but also the first citizen of the nation. It is true that he described his post as the President as a piece of luck, but his achievement as a rocket engineer was because of sheer hard work. He is a role model for one and all.

The success of Dr. Kalam depended on the fact that he was willing to grow daily. He learned everything that come to him and was always looking for things to learn. The real success of Dr.Kalam is in his application of the discipline, what he learned, in other fields also. That is why he could contribute to the making of artificial limbs of lesser weight. In him, we find a person with an insatiable quest for knowledge & great love for suffering fellow beings.

Unfortunately, we don’t have Dr. Kalam with us today, but he will live in the hearts of all Indians. I would like to read this book again, because it is a very motivating book.

Sample Answer 10:

Describe a Book that You Enjoyed Reading Cue Card Topic – Filipino Cuisine

I’d like to talk about a cookbook that was given to me by my best friend several years ago. The title of the book is ”Filipino Cuisine” and what’s inside is a compilation of the Philippines’s mouth-watering dishes such as the Adobo and Kare-Kare. Adobo’s main ingredient is pork or chicken stewed in vinegar, garlic, soy sauce, bay leaves, and peppercorns while Kare-Kare is an oxtail stew and is always best to eat with steamed rice and shrimp paste. They’re actually a perfect pair.

Cookbooks or recipe books belong to non-fiction category since it consists of factual information and a step-by-step guide in cooking. It also includes the name of the author and a short introduction about its content.

Actually, I’m not so fond of non-fiction type of books, however, once in my life, I got interested in cooking and I have always told my best friend about it. We both know that I’m a terrible cook at that time and so that must be the reason why she bought me that book.

When I started reading it, I realized that cooking is not really that complicated as it seemed to me before. Through it, I’ve learned to prepare different Filipino dishes from the main course to desserts. Each time I was able to cook a recipe perfectly, I always felt a sense of achievement. This recipe book is very useful for me because firstly, it taught me the do’s and dont’s in the kitchen. Another one is, it helped me develop another essential life skill which is cooking and now finally, I can prepare scrumptious and healthy meals for my family. I probably would like to read it over and over again because I haven’t memorized yet some of the recipes and reading it again will refresh my memory once more.

Sample Answer 11:

Book IELTS Cue Card – The life of loneliness

Thanks for giving me such an interesting topic. Well, books are a prominent source of information, feelings, and inspiration. There are lots of books available nowadays related to emotions, history, poetry, inspiration. I read many books. But now, I have to ask to talk about a that I recently read. I am feeling glad to share that recently I read the book named “The life of loneliness ” written by Dr. Narinder Singh Kapoor.

I heard about this from my friend. He said this book is full of inspiration. Then, I wanted to buy that. But I didn’t find this book in the market. So, my friend gave it to me for some time. When I read this book, I really felt awesome because this book was full of thoughts that described a persons’ thinking, views over different things. After reading this book, I felt that this book did not even contain any poetry, story but contained single-single line thoughts with a number of stories. As the name of the book describes, The life of loneliness means a single sentence containing a particular story about a person.

This book was 330 pages and approximately contained 1071 sentences or we can say 1071 stories about human beings. All the thoughts described a child, younger, older, women, and men’s thinking and views. I must say, this book helps you to understand a person’s thoughts that you meet daily.

I am happy after reading that book and always grateful to my friend who had suggested me to read this book. And I also want to read this book again and again.

IELTS Speaking Part 3 :

Describe a Book You Recently Read – Follow up Questions

Here are some examples of follow-up questions that you may get during your speaking part 3 by the examiner related to cue card “Describe a Book You Recently Read”.

1. Do people in your country like to read books? Yes, people in my country like to read books. There are bookshops in most towns and cities, which are all doing good business.

2. What kinds of books are most popular in your country? All types of books are very popular. India is a diverse country. People have diverse tastes in everything, including reading.

3. Do you think reading is important? Yes, reading is very important. It develops imagination and also develops language skills.

4. Do you think electronic books will eventually replace paper books? Not completely, but to a large extent yes. E-books have a lot of advantages

Benefits of e-books over traditional books Easy to carry while traveling – eBooks allow you to bring a whole library with you wherever you go. You can switch between titles with ease and the weight is lighter than a standard ieltsxpress paperback.

Need less storage space – Those who own a lot of books know how much space they can take up, but with a reader, your bookshelf is located on a small handheld device, your computer, or on both.

Less costly – eBooks are often cheaper in the long run because there are no printing fees associated with them. In fact, you can often find free eBooks online, whereas physical books almost always cost you something. However, you have to spend one time on a reader, such as a kindle or any other tablet.

Immediate purchase – When you buy an eBook, your reward is instantaneous.Whereas if you order a book online you have to wait for it to arrive before the fun begins. You can do font adjustments. With an eBook, you can instantly change the darkness of the lettering or the size of your font. You can do night reading. If you read in bed, an eBook may be a good option as many readers come with built-in reading lights.ieltsxpress

5. Some people like to collect books. Why do you think they do this? They do so because they love books. They treat books as collectibles and are proud of their collection.

6. Is compulsory reading (in school) is a good idea? Yes, definitely. In order for students to achieve in math, science, English, history, geography, and other subjects, reading skills must be developed to the point that most of them are automatic. Students cannot struggle with word recognition when they should be reading quickly for comprehension of a text. But the ability to read and write develops with careful planning and instruction. Children need regular and active interactions with print.

7. What books do children read and what do adults read? Children read fantasy, fiction, and books on supernatural characters like Barbie, Superman, and Shaktiman. Adults read biographies, fiction, and religious and spiritual books.ieltsxpress

8. Why do men and women prefer different books? This is because they have different tastes.

9. Why did some books become internationally popular? This is perhaps because these receive a lot of publicity.

10. What type of books do children read nowadays? What type of books did children like reading in the past and what do you think they will read in the future? Nowadays, generally speaking, the reading habit of children is on the decline. Whatever books they read are based on fantasy, fiction and supernatural characters like Barbie, superman, and Shaktiman.

50 years ago – Children read a lot. They read moral and spiritual books. They read animal stories.

After 50 years – I do not think they will do any reading. All the time will be spent in front of computers.

11. Do you think children have lost their interest in stories? No, I don’t think that children have lost their interest in stories. However, the stories they read today are very different from those in the past.

12. Can storybooks be an ideal gift for children? Yes, definitely! Storybooks can be an ideal gift for children. They can help the child imagine the characters in the mind, which is the first step to creativity. Another important benefit is that we can impart the knowledge of culture, tradition, moral values, and religion in the mind of the child. This forms the basis of the child’s personality. Finally, storybooks enhance the curiosity of the child and enhance their mental growth.ieltsxpress

13. What can be done to encourage the habit of reading among children? A lot can be done to encourage the habit of reading among children. The first and foremost step would be to make books available. There should be good libraries in the schools as well as in neighborhoods. Storytelling competitions could be organized. If children have to take part in these competitions, then naturally, they would be encouraged to read books. Finally, books could be made more interesting by adding graphics.

14. How does reading help a child? Reading helps to improve concentration. It also helps to improve general knowledge. It also improves language skills and satisfies the curiosity of children on various things.

15. What sort of books can be suggested to children to read? Children should be encouraged to read religious and historical books. They should also read biographies and autobiographies of famous people so that they get motivation from them. They should also be encouraged to read books on science and technology. However, these books should be made very interesting by adding pictures.

16. How much should a child read every day? A child should read half to one hour daily.I think that would be enough considering that they have to go to school and do their homework as well.

17. What is the difference between the books sold in the past and the books sold nowadays? In the past, books related to culture, tradition, religion, and history were sold. Nowadays, books are mostly based on fiction and fantasy. E-books have become very popular nowadays as compared to printed books.

Why do You think Reading is Important? Reading is important because it helps in developing creativity and imagination. It will enable the reader to develop a better vocabulary and get a hold of the language. It will eventually lead to better speaking and listening skills as well since it will instill (meaning- firmly establish) confidence in the reader. Reading is a great way to learn and explore, and it surely improves the intellect of a person.

Can Storybooks be Ideal Gifts for Children? Storybooks can definitely be very good gifts for children. They enable children to visualize characters in their minds, which is really helpful in developing creativity. Also, storybooks can impart the knowledge of moral values, culture, tradition, and religion in the mind of children. Also, children who read storybooks are curious and their mental growth is enhanced when they ask questions and get answers.

Which do you prefer paper books or e-books?

I prefer the latter as it is way more convenient than the former. Electronic books like Kindle from Amazon are really handy. I can take it anywhere and anytime. Also, I can purchase and download more digital books online if I want to without going to a bookstore. Yes, I cannot deny the fact that there are some downsides of using electronic books but since my priority is convenience, I cannot trade e-books for paper books.

Do you think people these days still read books? Yes definitely! Even though we are now in the internet era, there are still many people who enjoy reading books since it provides plenty of benefits to them, such as, being able to exercise their mind through learning a new set of vocabulary or enhancing their comprehension skills. Also, through reading, people become well-informed and more creative since it does stir their imagination. In addition, according to science people whose first love is reading are less likely to get dementia because their brain becomes more alert.

With these great benefits, I am confident to say that reading is still a popular hobby among people amid this frontier technology generation. Reading is one of those activities that people can never be taken for granted. How can we encourage children to read books? Well, frankly speaking, it is more than a challenge these days to motivate children to read because of the existing entertainment distractions, such as playing computer games, socializing on social media platforms, and the like. However, I suppose we can make them love reading or influence them to read through modeling. If we adults show them that we enjoy reading, then it is highly likely that they will imitate us.

In reality, the love of reading starts at a very early age. When parents spend time reading bedtime stories to their children before going to sleep, their children will surely get used to reading and it will become a habit to them. However, if parents never practice that with their children, then it is just hard to make them love reading and as a result, they will surely have difficulty encouraging their children to read.

Do children need to learn how to read while they are still young? In my opinion, children have to learn how to read as early as three to six years of age. (Explain) In the first six years, a child’s brain is like a sponge that can easily absorb information and make them easier to teach. (Example) For example, I have been teaching reading classes to graders and after talking to the parents, I figured out that the students who can effortlessly remember what I teach are those who started reading at a very young age.

Do you think there is a difference between reading habits in the past and in the present day? Yes. There is a huge difference in the way people read before and now. (Explain) In the past, people tend to read paper books to gather information or to kill time. However, these days, people prefer reading articles, books, and other written material using electronic devices such as smartphones, computers, and tablets. They say that it’s more convenient to read using these gadgets since it is handy and pocket-friendly. (Example) For instance, if I want to read before sleeping, I don’t have to switch on the light in the bedroom to be able to read. All I have to do is adjust the brightness of my smartphone screen to read well.

What is the impact of e-books on reading habits? In my opinion, the most significant impact of digital books in our reading habit is that it makes our every reading experience hassle-free. (Explain) As we all know, e-books can be accessed conveniently. We can actually read whenever and wherever we please. Therefore, more and more people have the opportunity to gather information and learn. (Example) For example, in the past, people need to buy books or borrow from the library in order to do their homework or to study but now, they can study without bothering to go to other places because all they need is their smartphone or tablet.

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Describe a Book You Have Read Recently

Posted by David S. Wills | Jan 6, 2018 | IELTS Tips , Speaking , YouTube | 0

Today we’re going to look at a question from IELTS speaking part two, also known as the “long answer” question. In this part of the exam, as you probably know, you are expected to speak for about two minutes on a given topic . The topic will be presented to you on a “cue card” and you will then have a minute to make notes before you speak. Today, the topic is books and we will explore how to describe a book you have read recently .

There are lots of different ways that this question could be phrased, and so, as always, you can’t just memorise an answer. In fact, in IELTS it’s always a bad idea to memorize answers. You have questions like “describe your favourite book” or “describe a book that you read in your childhood,” but today I’m going to give you a more general question.

In this lesson, we will learn several things:

How to read the cue card
Note-making skills
Some useful vocabulary
How to answer this cue card fully

The Cue Card: Describe a book you have read recently

As I said, there are many IELTS cue cards about books. You could be asked about your favorite book or a book you really love, but in this case we will just look at a book you have read recently:

Describe a book you have read recently. You should say: what kind of book it is who wrote the book what the story of the book is and explain if it is a good book or not.

Once you have read the cue card, you must think about it quickly. Analyse the topic and ask yourself what exactly you should talk about. In this case, you may ask:

Can I talk about any book? – no, only one you’ve read recently
Could it be a book that I dislike? – yes, that is possible
Must it be a book that I enjoyed? – no, the final part of the question makes it clear that you don’t have to have liked it
Should I talk about the plot? – yes, that is fulfilling the third bullet point

You should quickly choose a book, think about how to explain it, and then try to talk about the ideas on the cue card.

describe a book you have read recently [ielts speaking]

Making Notes

So the first thing you should do is make a few notes on the topic. Of course, as we’ve discussed before, you really shouldn’t write too much. Remember – you just have one minute! Don’t write down sentences or else you’ll only have enough to speak for ten or twenty seconds. Instead, write the ideas you want to discuss or the vocabulary you may need.

In this case, of course we first have to think about the book itself. What was its name, and who was the author? It doesn’t have to be an English book, but you do need to be able to give the English title and – if it was written by an English-speaking author, you also must be able to say their name. Here in China, many famous foreigners have Chinese names, or at least their names are adapted to make it easier for Chinese speakers to pronounce, and so they sound weird to an English speaker. For example, my students always talk about “Jobs” when they mean “Steve Jobs.” So make sure you know the name.

Then you need to think about the tasks outlined in the cue card and make notes on them so that you don’t forget any part of it. This is where you need to make useful notes.

So the first thing we need to talk about, according to the cue card, is the “kind of” book. Another way of saying that is “ genre .” This means, is it a mystery novel or a romance? Is it a horror novel or a coming-of-age story? There are so many kinds of novels. Of course, you don’t need to know them all, but being able to talk about the ones that you actually like is important. Go beyond that and consider being able to discuss the book further in terms of adjectives – is it thrilling? Hilarious? Shocking? Provocative? These are some good vocabulary items to note down during your one minute.

When it comes to genre, you can borrow many words from your movie vocabulary . Here is a video about describing movies. Most of those words can be re-used for describing books:

Next you should really think about the plot of the novel. You don’t need to say everything. Instead, summarize it. Think about the main action and key scenes. Talk briefly about the beginning and ending, or any important moments.

When talking about the plot of a film or book, you can use the present simple or past simple. This is because these events exist outside of time as they are immortalized in a text. They are, in a sense, always happening.

For example, you could equally say:

Romeo kissed Juliet

Romeo kisses Juliet.

A great way of learning how to do this effectively is to go on Wikipedia or IMDB and then find descriptions of movies. Obviously, you should not try to memorize these, but you can definitely borrow some language or even structure.

Structuring your Answer

The important things about IELTS speaking part 2 are that you actually answer all parts of the question, and that you do it in between 1 and 2 minutes. The order in which you give the details is not important. Therefore, you can talk about any of the cue card suggestions first or last. However, be sensible and think of a logical order in your head. Make sure these are in your notes so that you don’t forget anything.

Sample Answer – Describe a Book

Here’s my answer to the above question.

Recently, I read a novel called Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, who is the writer of some popular TV shows. It’s hard to give the genre because it’s a quite unusual book; however, it is both a drama and a mystery to some degree. The story is about a plane crash. This happens at the beginning of the book, and after that we get the back story of the people who were on the plane. We don’t know why the plane crashed although it seems like an accident. However, the mystery element comes into the book as the story develops because we are shown too many coincidences. The book also details the relationship between a man and a boy who survive the crash, and this gives the story its heart. I really enjoyed this book. Normally I prefer to read non-fiction books but in this case I was attracted to Before the Fall because I really liked the writer’s TV work and I was curious about how he would handle a novel. Ultimately, I was not disappointed. His ability to tell a good story made him an excellent novelist.

Here’s my recording of the sample answer. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel for more IELTS videos. I try to post about once every 1-2 weeks.

I answered the “who wrote it” and “what kind of book” parts very quickly at the beginning and spent more time on the plot and my reaction to the book. It’s important you take into consideration while planning that some parts of the question simply aren’t possible to talk about that much.

Note also the verb “detail” in that second paragraph. It’s a reporting verb used in slightly formal speech meaning roughly the same as “tells”.

About The Author

David S. Wills

David S. Wills is the author of Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the 'Weird Cult' and the founder/editor of Beatdom literary journal. He lives and works in rural Cambodia and loves to travel. He has worked as an IELTS tutor since 2010, has completed both TEFL and CELTA courses, and has a certificate from Cambridge for Teaching Writing. David has worked in many different countries, and for several years designed a writing course for the University of Worcester. In 2018, he wrote the popular IELTS handbook, Grammar for IELTS Writing and he has since written two other books about IELTS. His other IELTS website is called IELTS Teaching.

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June 14, 2021

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July 18, 2018

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September 3, 2020

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Talk about a Book or Novel You Recently Read - IELTS Speaking Cue Card Model Answer

Talk about a book or novel you recently read..

Please tell me:

who wrote this

what it is about

and explain if you enjoyed reading it and why

Talk about a Book or Novel You Recently Read - IELTS Speaking Cue Card Model Answer

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Model Answer 1

Recently, I delved into the captivating world of "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern, a novel that left an indelible impression on me. Morgenstern's masterful storytelling weaves a magical narrative set in a Victorian-era circus that appears without warning and only operates at night. The heart of the story lies in the fierce competition between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who, unbeknownst to them, are pawns in a game controlled by their mentors. As the plot unfolds, their rivalry transforms into a profound love that challenges the very rules of the game and the fate of the circus.

What makes "The Night Circus" particularly enthralling is its unique blend of romance, fantasy, and mystery. Morgenstern's vivid descriptions create an enchanting atmosphere that transports readers into a world where the boundaries between reality and illusion blur. The detailed portrayal of the circus, with tents filled with wonders like a sea made of clouds or a garden of ice, is nothing short of mesmerizing. This novel does more than just tell a story; it invites you to experience the magic firsthand.

My enjoyment of this book stems from Morgenstern's exceptional ability to craft a narrative that is as enchanting as it is thought-provoking. It's a testament to the power of imagination and the complexities of love and destiny. The characters are intricately developed, each adding depth and color to the story's rich tapestry. It's a novel that doesn't just entertain but also lingers in your mind, inviting reflection and admiration for its artistry.

Reading "The Night Circus" was an immersive experience that reminded me of the joy of getting lost in a good book. It's a novel that appeals to a wide audience, offering a magical escape that's as enchanting as the circus it describes. Its blend of fantasy and reality, combined with a compelling narrative, makes it a must-read for anyone who appreciates a well-crafted story.

Why this is a High Scoring Answer

The sample answer discussing "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern is an excellent high-scoring response for an IELTS Speaking Part 2 section, especially when addressing the topic "Talk about a book or novel you recently read." Here's why:

1. Comprehensive Coverage of the Topic: The response thoroughly addresses all aspects of the topic. It not only mentions the author and the plot but also delves into the themes and personal impressions, crucial for a task like "Talk about a book or novel you recently read." This comprehensive approach demonstrates the ability to discuss a subject in depth, a key criterion for a high IELTS score.

2. Fluency and Coherence: The answer flows smoothly from one point to the next, maintaining a clear and logical progression of ideas. This fluency and coherence are vital in showcasing the candidate's proficiency in English, an essential element in the IELTS Speaking section.

3. Lexical Resource: The use of descriptive and varied vocabulary, such as 'captivating', 'mesmerizing', and 'enchanting', aptly demonstrates a strong lexical resource. The response avoids repetition and uses synonyms effectively, which is indicative of a higher language proficiency level.

4. Grammatical Range and Accuracy: The response exhibits a wide range of sentence structures and grammatical forms, all used accurately. This range and accuracy further contribute to the likelihood of a higher band score.

Model Answer 2

I recently had the pleasure of reading "Educated" by Tara Westover, an extraordinary memoir that profoundly impacted me. Tara Westover's journey from a secluded, uneducated childhood in rural Idaho to earning a PhD from Cambridge University is nothing short of remarkable. Her story is a powerful exploration of family, education, and the struggle to carve out a personal identity against overwhelming odds.

"Educated" is more than just a memoir; it's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Westover's upbringing in a family that mistrusted mainstream education and medical care presents a stark contrast to the world she later embraces. The emotional depth with which she recounts her experiences makes her story universally relatable and deeply moving. Her struggles with family loyalty and the pursuit of knowledge raise profound questions about the nature of education and the paths we choose in life.

What I found particularly compelling about this book was Westover's raw and honest narrative. She writes with a clarity and intensity that draws you into her world, making her triumphs feel personal and her setbacks deeply affecting. The book is not just about academic learning; it delves into the education of the self and the courage it takes to question and change deeply ingrained beliefs.

Reading "Educated" was an eye-opening experience that challenged my perspectives on education and personal growth. It's a book that resonates with anyone who has ever struggled to find their place in the world or fought to overcome personal barriers. Westover's story is a powerful reminder of the transformative power of education and the human capacity for change.

The response on "Educated" by Tara Westover is a prime example of a high-scoring answer for the IELTS Speaking task, particularly for the topic "Talk about a book or novel you recently read." Let's delve into why this is the case, focusing on the IELTS Speaking criteria:

1. Coverage of the Topic: The answer comprehensively covers the suggested topic. It doesn't just state the book's title and author; it goes into depth about the content, themes, and personal reflections. This approach demonstrates a thorough understanding and engagement with the topic, a key aspect of the IELTS Speaking section.

2. Fluency and Coherence: The response is well-structured, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It flows logically from discussing the book's plot to its deeper themes and personal impact. Such coherence in presenting ideas is crucial for achieving a high score in the speaking section.

3. Lexical Resource: The use of a rich and varied vocabulary is evident. Terms like 'profoundly impacted', 'extraordinary memoir', and 'transformative power' show a high level of language proficiency. This broad lexical range helps in conveying ideas more effectively and is essential for a higher band score.

4. Grammatical Range and Accuracy: The answer demonstrates a strong grasp of grammar, with complex sentence structures used correctly. This range and accuracy in grammar usage are indicative of a higher level of language proficiency.

For further insights and strategies on excelling in the IELTS Speaking section, you might find our exclusive IELTS books (pdf download) invaluable. They provide you with additional examples and tips to enhance your preparation and performance.

Model Answer 3

One book that has recently captivated me is "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. This novel, set in the marshlands of North Carolina, tells the story of Kya Clark, a girl who grows up isolated in the marshes after being abandoned by her family. As she matures, Kya becomes intertwined in a murder mystery that shakes the local community. Owens masterfully blends a coming-of-age story with a suspenseful mystery, creating a narrative that is both heart-wrenching and compelling.

The allure of "Where the Crawdads Sing" lies in its exquisite depiction of the natural world, intertwined with the poignant human drama. Owens' background as a wildlife scientist enriches the novel with vivid descriptions of the marshland, bringing the setting to life with a sensory richness that is rare in modern literature. Kya's deep connection with her environment is portrayed with such authenticity that it transforms the marsh into a character of its own.

What resonated with me most was the novel's exploration of loneliness, resilience, and the human need for connection. Kya's journey, from a forsaken child to a strong, independent woman, is inspiring. The narrative also delves into themes of prejudice and judgment, revealing the often harsh realities of social exclusion.

"Where the Crawdads Sing" is more than just a story; it's an immersive experience that transports you into its world, making you feel the breeze of the marsh and the sting of isolation. Its blend of lyrical prose and gripping plot makes it a unique literary masterpiece, appealing to a wide spectrum of readers.

Reading this book was a journey through a spectrum of emotions, from deep empathy to heart-pounding anticipation. It's a novel that not only entertains but also invites reflection on the complexities of human nature and the beauty of the natural world.

The response about "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens is an exemplary high-scoring answer for the IELTS Speaking task, specifically for the topic "Talk about a book or novel you recently read." Here's an analysis of why this response stands out:

1. Full Engagement with the Topic: The answer comprehensively addresses the topic, offering insights into the book's plot, themes, and the respondent's personal reaction. This depth of analysis demonstrates an ability to engage fully with the subject matter, which is essential for achieving a high score in the speaking section.

2. Fluency and Coherence: The response is smoothly structured and coherent. It begins with a brief introduction to the book, delves into its thematic elements, and concludes with the respondent's personal reflection. This clear progression of ideas is a hallmark of fluent and effective communication.

3. Rich Lexical Resource: The usage of descriptive language and varied vocabulary, such as 'heart-wrenching', 'sensory richness', and 'lyrical prose', showcases a broad lexical resource. The ability to use diverse and contextually appropriate vocabulary is key to scoring well in the IELTS speaking section.

4. Grammatical Range and Accuracy: The response exhibits a variety of complex sentence structures and grammatical forms, all used accurately. This range and precision are indicative of a high level of proficiency in English.

As you delve deeper into preparing for your IELTS exam, our exclusive IELTS books (pdf download) offer comprehensive strategies and insights to enhance your speaking skills. They're tailored to provide you with the knowledge and confidence needed to excel in your IELTS journey.

Download IELTS eBooks , get everything you need to achieve a high band score

Speaking Cue Card Answers

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Ielts cue card # 184 - describe a book you have recently read, describe a book you have recently read..

what the book is
who wrote the book
what the book is about

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Topic 1: Describe a book you have recently read

What kind of book it is
What it is about
What sort of people would enjoy it
And explain why you liked it.

Sample Answer:

I consider myself as a bookworm so when it comes to describing a book I read, I am really confused since I don’t know which one to choose, but I will tell you about the book that I have just ﬁnished most recently – Angels and Demons – a bestselling mystery-thriller novel written by Dan Brown. The whole story revolves around the protagonist named Robert Langdon who is on a quest to rescue the Pope and discover the underlying mysteries of the Catholic church. Though the book involves a lot of religious issues, it can cater to all kinds of readers as there aren’t many technical terms. From my point of view, it is a true masterpiece, enchanting and captivating, ﬁlled with conspiracies and plot twists that really send shivers down my spine. I was so fascinated by the book that I had to ﬁnd the ﬁlm adaptation online to watch afterwards, and it did not let me down at all. The movie was so action-packed that it kept me on the edge of my seat.

What I especially like about the book is that it is very thought-provoking and it kept me thinking for a very long time after I had ﬁnished reading. I appreciate the moral lessons of the book. The story, though may sound distant to our lives, conveys meanings that are relatable to readers, and I am grateful that I learnt something from the book.

All in all, it is an outstanding book that I would deﬁnitely recommend to my friends.

Topic 2: Describe a book that you would like to read again

What the book was about
Why you read it the first place
What you learned from this book
And explain why you would like to read it again.

Sample Answer

Okay so I would like to tell you about the book called Harry Potter, which is a fantasy novel, written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It’s one that I can reread time and time again.

The book describes the life of a young wizard named Harry Potter and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione. Harry has to struggle to kill the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort, whose aim is to become immortal and destroy all those who stand in his way of ruling the world.

The reason why this book comes to mind is that it is a reminder of my childhood. It was a gift for my birthday from my parents to reward my high score in an exam at school. Up until now, I can still remember clearly how fascinated I was when I received it.

Thanks to this book, I realized that determination and effort play essential roles in achieving my goals. Since then, I have always worked hard to overcome all obstacles and challenges in my life.

Harry Potter will always be on my to-read list for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have always been a great admirer of science fiction books so I love the way that the author describes the whole magical world with the magic school, Hogwarts, and the flying brooms. Secondly, reading this book not only helps me to relax after a long day of work or study but also cheers me up whenever I am feeling blue.

Source: zim.vn

Another Topics:

Describe a book that enjoyed reading because you had to think a lot.

IELTS Speaking Part 2: describe a book answer

Describe a book you liked to read in your childhood

Describe an exciting book you have read

Describe the book you read that you found useful

[…] Sample Answer […]

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Describe a book you have recently read, describe a book you have recently read..

what the book is
who recommended it to you
what you think about the book
Describe your favourite book.
Describe an interesting book you have read.
Describe a book or news story you have recently read.
Describe a story or book you remember well.
Describe a famous book in your country.
Talk about a story that impressed you.
Describe a book you would recommend others to read.

IELTS Speaking topic: A book you have read recently

Describe a book you have read recently. You should say: who recommended it what book it was what the book was about and explain what you learned from it.

Let me tell you about a book I read recently. Its name is 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline , which was written by a Chinese historian Ray Huang, first published in 1981. Though the book seems like a thesis, it’s very engaging and provoking because in this book it examines how a number of seemingly insignificant events in 1587 might have caused the downfall of the Ming Dynasty.

I bought the book in a bookshop in Nanjing when I was travelling there last month. The bookshop keeper told me that this book was always the best seller among the history category. And finally it turned out that it was really a page turner.

The book was about in-depth analysis of the traditional Chinese court politics during the Ming Dynasty by introducing the Emperor Wanli and other six prominent officials from the Ming ruling class. In each chapter it centres in an informative way on one man and moves through how they interact with the court and especially the emperor. In the end, it comes to the conclusion that the Ming emperor was not the ultimate power, but the massive Chinese bureaucracy which manipulated the entire Chinese political process and led the country to decline.

11 Comments

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Dear blogger,

Would you like to give us an speaking example about “an experience that you got lost”? Thank you.

Hello, ruby, Thank you for your comment in my blog, I’ll write your essay in the future, so please just wait for a couple of days.

My exam on16th may speaking can anybody give me a solid tips about reduce my fillers

My exam on16th may speaking can anybody give me a solid tips about reduce my fillers9878868063

Sorry, could you please rephrase reduce my fillers?

hi Pirlo, you know, finding your website is really a gift for me. the answer samples for ielts speaking part 1 and 2 make me feel more confident. can you show the questions for part 3, please. thank you very much

Sorry, currently I don’t provide the sample answers to the part 3 because I really don’t have enough time to accomplish these work.

sorry, I know. But I just want to know about the Question for part 3

Help a) Do you like to help others? b) When was the last time you helped others? c) Did your parents teach you the importance of helping others when you were young? d) Have you ever refused to help others? e) Would you keep helping people in the future?

Teacher a) Do you have a favorite teacher? b) Do you want to be a teacher in the future? c) Do you like strict teachers? d) What’s the difference between young and old teachers? e) Is it importance for teachers to interact with students frequently? f) Do you think teachers should be angry at students or not? g) What’s the most important part in your study, teachers or classmates?

Thank you 🙂

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Describe a book you have recently read

IELTS Cue Card # 184 – Describe a book you have recently read

IELTS Speaking Part 2: IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card.

Describe a book you have recently read.

You should say:

what the book is
who wrote the book
what the book is about

and explain how much you enjoyed reading this book.

Model Answer 1: I believe that there are only a few people today who don’t know A.P.J Abdul Kalam as one of the most brilliant minds and inspirational figures of the 21st century. Needless to say, I also like this prominent figure who was the 11th president of India. He had also written some famous books. Today I would like to talk about one of his famous books which I have recently read.

The name of this book is “Forge Your Future”. Originally published in October 2014, it has been acclaimed as one the most inspirational books of all time all over the world. The contents of this book are unique in the sense that it is based on the mails and the questions which were asked by several people all over the country to Mr Abdul kalam. On the other hands, Mr Kalam, as usual, in his own beautiful, simple yet without missing the point, gave solutions to the most complex questions that every young person go through in their lives.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest that this book is a complete package or encyclopedia of all kinds of problems from individual to the nation, and Mr Kalam gave practical solutions to every problem based on the experiences and struggles of his own life. In fact, the message of this book is if a person like him can become educated, a prominent nuclear scientist and eventually the president of a great country like India, even after growing up on an isolated island of south India with sorts of obstacles, then anybody else can attain success with some effort.

I enjoyed reading this book primarily because it much relates to regular persons like me. Besides, I really enjoyed the way the author chose his words in a very simple way to explain some of the toughest of the problems, any person or nation can face. All in all, it is one of the most inspirational books I have ever read because these days, I also say that “yes, I can do it too”.

Sample Answer 2: The book I have recently finished and enjoyed so much is called “The Fortunate Pilgrim”, and I would like to talk about it for this topic.

Describe people you know who you believe are good parents

Describe an occasion when someone visited your home, leave a reply cancel reply.

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Talk about a book you recently read

You should say:, what type of book do you like, which one do you read recently, where did you hear about it.

Well, I have read a variety of books during my whole life. And here I would like to talk about a book named “God gives happiness”. Is a very fascinating book. When I read it I felt immensely glad. I explain its story briefly.

Accoring to this book’s story, once a time a king named gurudas was lived in the big palace. He cared very much for other people. There was a minister named Raghu in his residence who worked for the ing. One day, the king was cleaning his sword with a piece of clothe but unfortunately, one finger of the king’s hand had cut with a sword.

He was screaming with pain. But his minister raghu said to the king to be patience as well as he told him a line that “whatever happens, happens for the goodness”.King got very angry and threw Raghu into the prison. Then, once a day, the king went for hunting in the jungle and his compainions went on other pathes. King was alone in the thick andhorrible jungle.

Suddenly, a few tribe people came there and caught the king into a net. Tribes men took the king to their residence. Because they were finding a person to kill for the worship of their Godess. Then one tribe man saw a cut finger of the king and told to their leader about it.

Tribe Leader released to the king. After this incident, the king recalled the words of his minister that “Whatever happens, happens for the goodness”. he felt very bad. He came back to his palace and ordered to release the minister from the prison. King apolozised to the minister for his misbehavior.

All in all, whenever, I recall this story, It refills me with motivation and trust on God.

I love to read books. mostly I like thriller books and biographies as well. here I would like to talk about a book which I have recently read. this book name is target America and I read it just one week ago, it is a novel,” a sniper elite novel” which was written by Scott McEwen. this novel is based on crime which probably had done by terrorists in the US.

It contains an interesting story. the main character is “Gil Shannon” in it which one of the seal’s officers in the US. the main story of this novel is that Gil Shannon & his friends were searching out for a suitcase presumably containing a nuclear bomb. the Chechen terrorists made this bomb to detonate in one area of the US. terrorists just wanted to devastate the US and the lives of many people.

one terrorist kashkin brought a bomb suitcase in Washington DC because he wanted to explode this city. kashkin had hidden the suitcase somewhere in the US. all the seal’s officers were finding this suitcase. then officers decrypted the Keskin is a computer which contained the information about suitcase in the US.

then, seals officers found out this deadly suitcase and then, they took it when it was just near to explode.gil Shamnon and his two other friends took this suitcase in a helo, a type of helicopter and devastate it in the ocean .gil shamnon had saved plethora lives of the US citizens. he was a very brave officer in this novel.

I really like this novel when I was reading this novel ” target America”, I was always thinking that what will happen next because it is a very interesting novel. it is improved my reading skills brainstorming. I really like this novel. perhaps, I like to read this type of novel again in the future.

Well, books are a prominent source of information, feelings, and inspiration. There are lots of books available nowadays related to emotions, history, poetry, inspiration. I read many books. But now, I have to ask to talk about that I recently read. I am feeling glad to share that recently I read a book named “The life of loneliness ” written by Dr. Narinder Singh Kapoor.

I heard about this from my friend. He said this book is full of inspiration. Then, I wanted to buy that. But I didn’t find this book on the market. So, my friend gave it to me for some time. When I read this book, I really felt awesome because this book was full of thoughts that described a persons’ thinking, views over different things. After reading this book, I felt that this book not even contain any poetry, story but contain single-single line thoughts with the number of stories. As the name of the book describes, The life of loneliness means a single sentence contains a particular story about a person.

This book was of 330 pages and approximately contained 1071 sentences or we can say 1071 stories about human beings. All the thoughts described a child, younger, older, women and men’s thinking and views. I must say, this book helps you to understand a person’s thoughts that you meet daily.

I am happy after reading that book and always grateful to my friend who had suggested me to read this book. And I also want to read this book again and again.

Describe something interesting your friend has done but you haven’t.

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Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book.
A book review will offer an evaluation of the work.
A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience.

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

How much of a book nerd are you, really?

Find out here, once and for all. Takes 30 seconds!

Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim. To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .

And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!

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Essay on The Most Interesting book I read

Our school library is having books which I like very much. One of my friends showed me a certain book in the library and he said that is his favorite book. He also said that is was the second part of the most famous Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain.

I borrowed the book from the librarian on the advice of my friend. When I went home that day, I had an immediate lunch, when to my room and started reading the book.

Home interesting was it! It was a wonderful book. The book was full of adventures. The main character was Huckleberry Finn who was a poor English boy whose father was a third class drunkard. This father wanted to get his son’s fortune which he get previously in yet another adventure with Tom Sawyer, his friend. So Finn runs away from the custody of his father and meet another boy. This boy was Jim who had been running away from master. He had been a slave boy.

The two friends go to the sea and get on to a ship. They become friendly with the seamen and go on fishing. They also go to various island in the sea and engage themselves in many adventures. At last they come home. Finn finds that his father had died and hi was no more in danger. Jim also get his freedom with Finn’s help.

This interesting children’s novel had been written by well-known English Author Mark Twain who had previously written the famous book Tom Sawyer. Both these books are popular even today. So many millions of children throughout the English speaking world must have read these books. Much more than Tom Sawyer, it was the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which was the most interesting book I have ever read.

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The Best Reviewed Essay Collections of 2021

Featuring joan didion, rachel kushner, hanif abdurraqib, ann patchett, jenny diski, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Essay Collections .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett (Harper)

21 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed Read Ann Patchett on creating the work space you need, here

“… excellent … Patchett has a talent for friendship and celebrates many of those friends here. She writes with pure love for her mother, and with humor and some good-natured exasperation at Karl, who is such a great character he warrants a book of his own. Patchett’s account of his feigned offer to buy a woman’s newly adopted baby when she expresses unwarranted doubts is priceless … The days that Patchett refers to are precious indeed, but her writing is anything but. She describes deftly, with a line or a look, and I considered the absence of paragraphs freighted with adjectives to be a mercy. I don’t care about the hue of the sky or the shade of the couch. That’s not writing; it’s decorating. Or hiding. Patchett’s heart, smarts and 40 years of craft create an economy that delivers her perfectly understated stories emotionally whole. Her writing style is most gloriously her own.”

–Alex Witchel ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Knopf)

14 Rave • 12 Positive • 6 Mixed Read an excerpt from Let Me Tell You What I Mean here

“In five decades’ worth of essays, reportage and criticism, Didion has documented the charade implicit in how things are, in a first-person, observational style that is not sacrosanct but common-sensical. Seeing as a way of extrapolating hypocrisy, disingenuousness and doubt, she’ll notice the hydrangeas are plastic and mention it once, in passing, sorting the scene. Her gaze, like a sentry on the page, permanently trained on what is being disguised … The essays in Let Me Tell You What I Mean are at once funny and touching, roving and no-nonsense. They are about humiliation and about notions of rightness … Didion’s pen is like a periscope onto the creative mind—and, as this collection demonstrates, it always has been. These essays offer a direct line to what’s in the offing.”

–Durga Chew-Bose ( The New York Times Book Review )

3. Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (Viking)

12 Rave • 13 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Orwell’s Roses here

“… on its simplest level, a tribute by one fine essayist of the political left to another of an earlier generation. But as with any of Solnit’s books, such a description would be reductive: the great pleasure of reading her is spending time with her mind, its digressions and juxtapositions, its unexpected connections. Only a few contemporary writers have the ability to start almost anywhere and lead the reader on paths that, while apparently meandering, compel unfailingly and feel, by the end, cosmically connected … Somehow, Solnit’s references to Ross Gay, Michael Pollan, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Peter Coyote (to name but a few) feel perfectly at home in the narrative; just as later chapters about an eighteenth-century portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and a visit to the heart of the Colombian rose-growing industry seem inevitable and indispensable … The book provides a captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker … And, movingly, she takes the time to find the traces of Orwell the gardener and lover of beauty in his political novels, and in his insistence on the value and pleasure of things .”

–Claire Messud ( Harper’s )

4. Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury)

16 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Girlhood here

“Every once in a while, a book comes along that feels so definitive, so necessary, that not only do you want to tell everyone to read it now, but you also find yourself wanting to go back in time and tell your younger self that you will one day get to read something that will make your life make sense. Melissa Febos’s fierce nonfiction collection, Girlhood , might just be that book. Febos is one of our most passionate and profound essayists … Girlhood …offers us exquisite, ferocious language for embracing self-pleasure and self-love. It’s a book that women will wish they had when they were younger, and that they’ll rejoice in having now … Febos is a balletic memoirist whose capacious gaze can take in so many seemingly disparate things and unfurl them in a graceful, cohesive way … Intellectual and erotic, engaging and empowering[.]”

–Michelle Hart ( Oprah Daily )

5. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told by Jenny Diski (Bloomsbury)

14 Rave • 7 Positive

“[Diski’s] reputation as an original, witty and cant-free thinker on the way we live now should be given a significant boost. Her prose is elegant and amused, as if to counter her native melancholia and includes frequent dips into memorable images … Like the ideal artist Henry James conjured up, on whom nothing is lost, Diski notices everything that comes her way … She is discerning about serious topics (madness and death) as well as less fraught material, such as fashion … in truth Diski’s first-person voice is like no other, selectively intimate but not overbearingly egotistic, like, say, Norman Mailer’s. It bears some resemblance to Joan Didion’s, if Didion were less skittish and insistently stylish and generated more warmth. What they have in common is their innate skepticism and the way they ask questions that wouldn’t occur to anyone else … Suffice it to say that our culture, enmeshed as it is in carefully arranged snapshots of real life, needs Jenny Diski, who, by her own admission, ‘never owned a camera, never taken one on holiday.’” It is all but impossible not to warm up to a writer who observes herself so keenly … I, in turn, wish there were more people around who thought like Diski. The world would be a more generous, less shallow and infinitely more intriguing place.”

–Daphne Merkin ( The New York Times Book Review )

6. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)

12 Rave • 7 Positive Listen to an interview with Rachel Kushner here

“Whether she’s writing about Jeff Koons, prison abolition or a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem, [Kushner’s] interested in appearances, and in the deeper currents a surface detail might betray … Her writing is magnetised by outlaw sensibility, hard lives lived at a slant, art made in conditions of ferment and unrest, though she rarely serves a platter that isn’t style-mag ready … She makes a pretty convincing case for a political dimension to Jeff Koons’s vacuities and mirrored surfaces, engages repeatedly with the Italian avant garde and writes best of all about an artist friend whose death undoes a spell of nihilism … It’s not just that Kushner is looking back on the distant city of youth; more that she’s the sole survivor of a wild crowd done down by prison, drugs, untimely death … What she remembers is a whole world, but does the act of immortalising it in language also drain it of its power,’neon, in pink, red, and warm white, bleeding into the fog’? She’s mining a rich seam of specificity, her writing charged by the dangers she ran up against. And then there’s the frank pleasure of her sentences, often shorn of definite articles or odd words, so they rev and bucket along … That New Journalism style, live hard and keep your eyes open, has long since given way to the millennial cult of the personal essay, with its performance of pain, its earnest display of wounds received and lessons learned. But Kushner brings it all flooding back. Even if I’m skeptical of its dazzle, I’m glad to taste something this sharp, this smart.”

–Olivia Laing ( The Guardian )

7. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan (FSG)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 5 Mixed • 1 Pan

“[A] quietly dazzling new essay collection … This is, needless to say, fraught terrain, and Srinivasan treads it with determination and skill … These essays are works of both criticism and imagination. Srinivasan refuses to resort to straw men; she will lay out even the most specious argument clearly and carefully, demonstrating its emotional power, even if her ultimate intention is to dismantle it … This, then, is a book that explicitly addresses intersectionality, even if Srinivasan is dissatisfied with the common—and reductive—understanding of the term … Srinivasan has written a compassionate book. She has also written a challenging one … Srinivasan proposes the kind of education enacted in this brilliant, rigorous book. She coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

8. A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)

13 Rave • 4 Positive Listen to an interview with Hanif Abdurraqib here

“[A] wide, deep, and discerning inquest into the Beauty of Blackness as enacted on stages and screens, in unanimity and discord, on public airwaves and in intimate spaces … has brought to pop criticism and cultural history not just a poet’s lyricism and imagery but also a scholar’s rigor, a novelist’s sense of character and place, and a punk-rocker’s impulse to dislodge conventional wisdom from its moorings until something shakes loose and is exposed to audiences too lethargic to think or even react differently … Abdurraqib cherishes this power to enlarge oneself within or beyond real or imagined restrictions … Abdurraqib reminds readers of the massive viewing audience’s shock and awe over seeing one of the world’s biggest pop icons appearing midfield at this least radical of American rituals … Something about the seemingly insatiable hunger Abdurraqib shows for cultural transaction, paradoxical mischief, and Beauty in Blackness tells me he’ll get to such matters soon enough.”

–Gene Seymour ( Bookforum )

9. On Animals by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press)

11 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed Listen to an interview with Susan Orlean here

“I very much enjoyed Orlean’s perspective in these original, perceptive, and clever essays showcasing the sometimes strange, sometimes sick, sometimes tender relationships between people and animals … whether Orlean is writing about one couple’s quest to find their lost dog, the lives of working donkeys of the Fez medina in Morocco, or a man who rescues lions (and happily allows even full grown males to gently chew his head), her pages are crammed with quirky characters, telling details, and flabbergasting facts … Readers will find these pages full of astonishments … Orlean excels as a reporter…Such thorough reporting made me long for updates on some of these stories … But even this criticism only testifies to the delight of each of the urbane and vivid stories in this collection. Even though Orlean claims the animals she writes about remain enigmas, she makes us care about their fates. Readers will continue to think about these dogs and donkeys, tigers and lions, chickens and pigeons long after we close the book’s covers. I hope most of them are still well.”

–Sy Montgomery ( The Boston Globe )

10. Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South by Margaret Renkl (Milkweed Editions)

9 Rave • 5 Positive Read Margaret Renkl on finding ideas everywhere, here

“Renkl’s sense of joyful belonging to the South, a region too often dismissed on both coasts in crude stereotypes and bad jokes, co-exists with her intense desire for Southerners who face prejudice or poverty finally to be embraced and supported … Renkl at her most tender and most fierce … Renkl’s gift, just as it was in her first book Late Migrations , is to make fascinating for others what is closest to her heart … Any initial sense of emotional whiplash faded as as I proceeded across the six sections and realized that the book is largely organized around one concept, that of fair and loving treatment for all—regardless of race, class, sex, gender or species … What rises in me after reading her essays is Lewis’ famous urging to get in good trouble to make the world fairer and better. Many people in the South are doing just that—and through her beautiful writing, Renkl is among them.”

–Barbara J. King ( NPR )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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50 Must-Read Contemporary Essay Collections

Liberty Hardy

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

View All posts by Liberty Hardy

I feel like essay collections don’t get enough credit. They’re so wonderful! They’re like short story collections, but TRUE. It’s like going to a truth buffet. You can get information about sooooo many topics, sometimes in one single book! To prove that there are a zillion amazing essay collections out there, I compiled 50 great contemporary essay collections, just from the last 18 months alone. Ranging in topics from food, nature, politics, sex, celebrity, and more, there is something here for everyone!

I’ve included a brief description from the publisher with each title. Tell us in the comments about which of these you’ve read or other contemporary essay collections that you love. There are a LOT of them. Yay, books!

Must-Read Contemporary Essay Collections

They can’t kill us until they kill us by hanif abdurraqib.

“In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s is a voice that matters. Whether he’s attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown’s grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.”

Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas by Jenny Allen

“Jenny Allen’s musings range fluidly from the personal to the philosophical. She writes with the familiarity of someone telling a dinner party anecdote, forgoing decorum for candor and comedy. To read Would Everybody Please Stop? is to experience life with imaginative and incisive humor.”

Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds by Yemisi Aribisala

“A sumptuous menu of essays about Nigerian cuisine, lovingly presented by the nation’s top epicurean writer. As well as a mouth-watering appraisal of Nigerian food, Longthroat Memoirs is a series of love letters to the Nigerian palate. From the cultural history of soup, to fish as aphrodisiac and the sensual allure of snails, Longthroat Memoirs explores the complexities, the meticulousness, and the tactile joy of Nigerian gastronomy.”

Beyond Measure: Essays by Rachel Z. Arndt

“ Beyond Measure is a fascinating exploration of the rituals, routines, metrics and expectations through which we attempt to quantify and ascribe value to our lives. With mordant humor and penetrating intellect, Arndt casts her gaze beyond event-driven narratives to the machinery underlying them: judo competitions measured in weigh-ins and wait times; the significance of the elliptical’s stationary churn; the rote scripts of dating apps; the stupefying sameness of the daily commute.”

Magic Hours by Tom Bissell

“Award-winning essayist Tom Bissell explores the highs and lows of the creative process. He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel of Ernest Hemingway to the final work of David Foster Wallace; from the films of Werner Herzog to the film of Tommy Wiseau to the editorial meeting in which Paula Fox’s work was relaunched into the world. Originally published in magazines such as The Believer , The New Yorker , and Harper’s , these essays represent ten years of Bissell’s best writing on every aspect of creation—be it Iraq War documentaries or video-game character voices—and will provoke as much thought as they do laughter.”

Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession by Alice Bolin

“In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks , Britney Spears, and Serial , illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men’s stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator.”

Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life by Jenny Boully

“Jenny Boully’s essays are ripe with romance and sensual pleasures, drawing connections between the digression, reflection, imagination, and experience that characterizes falling in love as well as the life of a writer. Literary theory, philosophy, and linguistics rub up against memory, dreamscapes, and fancy, making the practice of writing a metaphor for the illusory nature of experience. Betwixt and Between is, in many ways, simply a book about how to live.”

Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give by Ada Calhoun

“In Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give , Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which ‘the first twenty years are the hardest.'”

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

“ How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing—Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh , and the election of Donald Trump.”

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose

“ Too Much and Not the Mood is a beautiful and surprising exploration of what it means to be a first-generation, creative young woman working today. On April 11, 1931, Virginia Woolf ended her entry in A Writer’s Diary with the words ‘too much and not the mood’ to describe her frustration with placating her readers, what she described as the ‘cramming in and the cutting out.’ She wondered if she had anything at all that was truly worth saying. The attitude of that sentiment inspired Durga Chew-Bose to gather own writing in this lyrical collection of poetic essays that examine personhood and artistic growth. Drawing inspiration from a diverse group of incisive and inquiring female authors, Chew-Bose captures the inner restlessness that keeps her always on the brink of creative expression.”

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“‘We were eight years in power’ was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s ‘first white president.'”

Look Alive Out There: Essays by Sloane Crosley

“In Look Alive Out There, whether it’s scaling active volcanoes, crashing shivas, playing herself on Gossip Girl, befriending swingers, or squinting down the barrel of the fertility gun, Crosley continues to rise to the occasion with unmatchable nerve and electric one-liners. And as her subjects become more serious, her essays deliver not just laughs but lasting emotional heft and insight. Crosley has taken up the gauntlets thrown by her predecessors—Dorothy Parker, Nora Ephron, David Sedaris—and crafted something rare, affecting, and true.”

Fl â neuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin

“Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse takes us on a distinctly cosmopolitan jaunt that begins in New York, where Elkin grew up, and transports us to Paris via Venice, Tokyo, and London, all cities in which she’s lived. We are shown the paths beaten by such flâneuses as the cross-dressing nineteenth-century novelist George Sand, the Parisian artist Sophie Calle, the wartime correspondent Martha Gellhorn, and the writer Jean Rhys. With tenacity and insight, Elkin creates a mosaic of what urban settings have meant to women, charting through literature, art, history, and film the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes fraught relationship that women have with the metropolis.”

Idiophone by Amy Fusselman

“Leaping from ballet to quiltmaking, from the The Nutcracker to an Annie-B Parson interview, Idiophone is a strikingly original meditation on risk-taking and provocation in art and a unabashedly honest, funny, and intimate consideration of art-making in the context of motherhood, and motherhood in the context of addiction. Amy Fusselman’s compact, beautifully digressive essay feels both surprising and effortless, fueled by broad-ranging curiosity, and, fundamentally, joy.”

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay

“In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are ‘routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied’ for speaking out.”

Sunshine State: Essays by Sarah Gerard

“With the personal insight of The Empathy Exams , the societal exposal of Nickel and Dimed , and the stylistic innovation and intensity of her own break-out debut novel Binary Star , Sarah Gerard’s Sunshine State uses the intimately personal to unearth the deep reservoirs of humanity buried in the corners of our world often hardest to face.”

The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl

“ The Art of the Wasted Day is a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. She begins with two celebrated eighteenth-century Irish ladies who ran off to live a life of ‘retirement’ in rural Wales. Her search then leads to Moravia to consider the monk-geneticist, Gregor Mendel, and finally to Bordeaux for Michel Montaigne—the hero of this book—who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind, thus inventing the personal essay.”

A Really Big Lunch: The Roving Gourmand on Food and Life by Jim Harrison

“Jim Harrison’s legendary gourmandise is on full display in A Really Big Lunch . From the titular New Yorker piece about a French lunch that went to thirty-seven courses, to pieces from Brick , Playboy , Kermit Lynch Newsletter, and more on the relationship between hunter and prey, or the obscure language of wine reviews, A Really Big Lunch is shot through with Harrison’s pointed aperçus and keen delight in the pleasures of the senses. And between the lines the pieces give glimpses of Harrison’s life over the last three decades. A Really Big Lunch is a literary delight that will satisfy every appetite.”

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me by Bill Hayes

“Bill Hayes came to New York City in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at forty-eight years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city’s incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera.”

Would You Rather?: A Memoir of Growing Up and Coming Out by Katie Heaney

“Here, for the first time, Katie opens up about realizing at the age of twenty-eight that she is gay. In these poignant, funny essays, she wrestles with her shifting sexuality and identity, and describes what it was like coming out to everyone she knows (and everyone she doesn’t). As she revisits her past, looking for any ‘clues’ that might have predicted this outcome, Katie reveals that life doesn’t always move directly from point A to point B—no matter how much we would like it to.”

Tonight I’m Someone Else: Essays by Chelsea Hodson

“From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing.”

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.: Essays by Samantha Irby

“With We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. , ‘bitches gotta eat’ blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making ‘adult’ budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette—she’s ’35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something’—detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes, sharing awkward sexual encounters, or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms—hang in there for the Costco loot—she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.”

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins

“Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our country’s larger discussion about inequality. In This Will Be My Undoing , Jerkins becomes both narrator and subject to expose the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large.”

Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays by Fenton Johnson

“Part retrospective, part memoir, Fenton Johnson’s collection Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays explores sexuality, religion, geography, the AIDS crisis, and more. Johnson’s wanderings take him from the hills of Kentucky to those of San Francisco, from the streets of Paris to the sidewalks of Calcutta. Along the way, he investigates questions large and small: What’s the relationship between artists and museums, illuminated in a New Guinean display of shrunken heads? What’s the difference between empiricism and intuition?”

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi Koul

“In One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter , Scaachi Koul deploys her razor-sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with Internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of color: where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision, or outright scorn; where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, leaving little room for a woman not solely focused on marriage and children to have a career (and a life) for herself.”

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli and jon lee anderson (translator)

“A damning confrontation between the American dream and the reality of undocumented children seeking a new life in the U.S. Structured around the 40 questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman’s essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—both here and back home.”

All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers by Alana Massey

“Mixing Didion’s affected cool with moments of giddy celebrity worship, Massey examines the lives of the women who reflect our greatest aspirations and darkest fears back onto us. These essays are personal without being confessional and clever in a way that invites readers into the joke. A cultural critique and a finely wrought fan letter, interwoven with stories that are achingly personal, All the Lives I Want is also an exploration of mental illness, the sex industry, and the dangers of loving too hard.”

Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish: Essays by Tom McCarthy

“Certain points of reference recur with dreamlike insistence—among them the artist Ed Ruscha’s Royal Road Test , a photographic documentation of the roadside debris of a Royal typewriter hurled from the window of a traveling car; the great blooms of jellyfish that are filling the oceans and gumming up the machinery of commerce and military domination—and the question throughout is: How can art explode the restraining conventions of so-called realism, whether aesthetic or political, to engage in the active reinvention of the world?”

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding

“When 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump and 94 percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, how can women unite in Trump’s America? Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.”

Don’t Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life by Peggy Orenstein

“Named one of the ’40 women who changed the media business in the last 40 years’ by Columbia Journalism Review , Peggy Orenstein is one of the most prominent, unflinching feminist voices of our time. Her writing has broken ground and broken silences on topics as wide-ranging as miscarriage, motherhood, breast cancer, princess culture and the importance of girls’ sexual pleasure. Her unique blend of investigative reporting, personal revelation and unexpected humor has made her books bestselling classics.”

When You Find Out the World Is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments by Kelly Oxford

“Kelly Oxford likes to blow up the internet. Whether it is with the kind of Tweets that lead Rolling Stone to name her one of the Funniest People on Twitter or with pictures of her hilariously adorable family (human and animal) or with something much more serious, like creating the hashtag #NotOkay, where millions of women came together to share their stories of sexual assault, Kelly has a unique, razor-sharp perspective on modern life. As a screen writer, professional sh*t disturber, wife and mother of three, Kelly is about everything but the status quo.”

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen

“You know the type: the woman who won’t shut up, who’s too brazen, too opinionated—too much. She’s the unruly woman, and she embodies one of the most provocative and powerful forms of womanhood today. In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud , Anne Helen Petersen uses the lens of ‘unruliness’ to explore the ascension of pop culture powerhouses like Lena Dunham, Nicki Minaj, and Kim Kardashian, exploring why the public loves to love (and hate) these controversial figures. With its brisk, incisive analysis, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud will be a conversation-starting book on what makes and breaks celebrity today.”

Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist by Franchesca Ramsey

“In her first book, Ramsey uses her own experiences as an accidental activist to explore the many ways we communicate with each other—from the highs of bridging gaps and making connections to the many pitfalls that accompany talking about race, power, sexuality, and gender in an unpredictable public space…the internet.”

Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls by Elizabeth Renzetti

“Drawing upon Renzetti’s decades of reporting on feminist issues, Shrewed is a book about feminism’s crossroads. From Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign to the quest for equal pay, from the lessons we can learn from old ladies to the future of feminism in a turbulent world, Renzetti takes a pointed, witty look at how far we’ve come—and how far we have to go.”

What Are We Doing Here?: Essays by Marilynne Robinson

“In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson’s peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.”

Double Bind: Women on Ambition by Robin Romm

“‘A work of courage and ferocious honesty’ (Diana Abu-Jaber), Double Bind could not come at a more urgent time. Even as major figures from Gloria Steinem to Beyoncé embrace the word ‘feminism,’ the word ‘ambition’ remains loaded with ambivalence. Many women see it as synonymous with strident or aggressive, yet most feel compelled to strive and achieve—the seeming contradiction leaving them in a perpetual double bind. Ayana Mathis, Molly Ringwald, Roxane Gay, and a constellation of ‘nimble thinkers . . . dismantle this maddening paradox’ ( O, The Oprah Magazine ) with candor, wit, and rage. Women who have made landmark achievements in fields as diverse as law, dog sledding, and butchery weigh in, breaking the last feminist taboo once and for all.”

The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life by Richard Russo

“In these nine essays, Richard Russo provides insight into his life as a writer, teacher, friend, and reader. From a commencement speech he gave at Colby College, to the story of how an oddly placed toilet made him reevaluate the purpose of humor in art and life, to a comprehensive analysis of Mark Twain’s value, to his harrowing journey accompanying a dear friend as she pursued gender-reassignment surgery, The Destiny Thief reflects the broad interests and experiences of one of America’s most beloved authors. Warm, funny, wise, and poignant, the essays included here traverse Russo’s writing life, expanding our understanding of who he is and how his singular, incredibly generous mind works. An utter joy to read, they give deep insight into the creative process from the prospective of one of our greatest writers.”

Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race by Naben Ruthnum

“Curry is a dish that doesn’t quite exist, but, as this wildly funny and sharp essay points out, a dish that doesn’t properly exist can have infinite, equally authentic variations. By grappling with novels, recipes, travelogues, pop culture, and his own upbringing, Naben Ruthnum depicts how the distinctive taste of curry has often become maladroit shorthand for brown identity. With the sardonic wit of Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola and the refined, obsessive palette of Bill Buford’s Heat , Ruthnum sinks his teeth into the story of how the beloved flavor calcified into an aesthetic genre that limits the imaginations of writers, readers, and eaters.”

The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks

“Sacks, an Oxford-educated polymath, had a deep familiarity not only with literature and medicine but with botany, animal anatomy, chemistry, the history of science, philosophy, and psychology. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.”

All the Women in My Family Sing: Women Write the World: Essays on Equality, Justice, and Freedom (Nothing But the Truth So Help Me God) by Deborah Santana and America Ferrera

“ All the Women in My Family Sing is an anthology documenting the experiences of women of color at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It is a vital collection of prose and poetry whose topics range from the pressures of being the vice-president of a Fortune 500 Company, to escaping the killing fields of Cambodia, to the struggles inside immigration, identity, romance, and self-worth. These brief, trenchant essays capture the aspirations and wisdom of women of color as they exercise autonomy, creativity, and dignity and build bridges to heal the brokenness in today’s turbulent world.”

We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America by Brando Skyhorse and Lisa Page

“For some, ‘passing’ means opportunity, access, or safety. Others don’t willingly pass but are ‘passed’ in specific situations by someone else. We Wear the Mask , edited by Brando Skyhorse and Lisa Page , is an illuminating and timely anthology that examines the complex reality of passing in America. Skyhorse, a Mexican American, writes about how his mother passed him as an American Indian before he learned who he really is. Page shares how her white mother didn’t tell friends about her black ex-husband or that her children were, in fact, biracial.”

Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith

“Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world’s preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.”

The Mother of All Questions: Further Reports from the Feminist Revolutions by Rebecca Solnit

“In a timely follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me , Rebecca Solnit offers indispensable commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, Solnit mixes humor, keen analysis, and powerful insight in these essays.”

The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays by Megan Stielstra

“Whether she’s imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses, recounting the story of going underwater on the mortgage of her first home, or revealing the unexpected pains and joys of marriage and motherhood, Stielstra’s work informs, impels, enlightens, and embraces us all. The result is something beautiful—this story, her courage, and, potentially, our own.”

Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms by Michelle Tea

“Delivered with her signature honesty and dark humor, this is Tea’s first-ever collection of journalistic writing. As she blurs the line between telling other people’s stories and her own, she turns an investigative eye to the genre that’s nurtured her entire career—memoir—and considers the price that art demands be paid from life.”

A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause by Shawn Wen

“In precise, jewel-like scenes and vignettes, A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause pays homage to the singular genius of a mostly-forgotten art form. Drawing on interviews, archival research, and meticulously observed performances, Wen translates the gestural language of mime into a lyric written portrait by turns whimsical, melancholic, and haunting.”

Acid West: Essays by Joshua Wheeler

“The radical evolution of American identity, from cowboys to drone warriors to space explorers, is a story rooted in southern New Mexico. Acid West illuminates this history, clawing at the bounds of genre to reveal a place that is, for better or worse, home. By turns intimate, absurd, and frightening, Acid West is an enlightening deep-dive into a prophetic desert at the bottom of America.”

Sexographies by Gabriela Wiener and Lucy Greaves And jennifer adcock (Translators)

“In fierce and sumptuous first-person accounts, renowned Peruvian journalist Gabriela Wiener records infiltrating the most dangerous Peruvian prison, participating in sexual exchanges in swingers clubs, traveling the dark paths of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the company of transvestites and prostitutes, undergoing a complicated process of egg donation, and participating in a ritual of ayahuasca ingestion in the Amazon jungle—all while taking us on inward journeys that explore immigration, maternity, fear of death, ugliness, and threesomes. Fortunately, our eagle-eyed voyeur emerges from her narrative forays unscathed and ready to take on the kinks, obsessions, and messiness of our lives. Sexographies is an eye-opening, kamikaze journey across the contours of the human body and mind.”

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams

“From forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.”

Can You Tolerate This?: Essays by Ashleigh Young

“ Can You Tolerate This? presents a vivid self-portrait of an introspective yet widely curious young woman, the colorful, isolated community in which she comes of age, and the uneasy tensions—between safety and risk, love and solitude, the catharsis of grief and the ecstasy of creation—that define our lives.”

What are your favorite contemporary essay collections?

That Old Back Magic: 9 Must-Read Historical Fantasy Books

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About the first book I read

IELTS essay About the first book I read

The government spends about 220 million pounds a year supporting museums and art galleries in the UK, and a similar amount subsidising the visual and performing arts. This is a huge sum to spend on minority interests, and the money would be better spent on more important things. It should be up to people who enjoy cultural attractions to pay for them. Some articles have reported that the UK government invests millions of dollars a year in museums and galleries, spending less money on visuals and performing arts. I agree that this is beneficial in some ways, I believe that money should be spent on essentials. Museum preserves history and it has e ...
Some people think that the best way to reduce time spent time in traveling to work is to replace parks and gardens close to City Center with apartment building for commuters, but others disagree discuss both views and give your own In the fast-paced world, relaxing our body and mind is essential because the whole body procedure is dependent on it. Most echelons of the society reckon that public parks and gardens are the greatest method to relax rather than time spending on traveling because parts are easily available near the ...
Because of the pressure of new subjects such as business studies, many schools have dropped sport of physical education (PE) from the curriculum. How important is sport or PE in a young person's education? In today's modern world, the incorporation of career-oriented subjects such as Business studies in the educational system has removed Physical Education (PE). This is a very big threat to the lives of our younger generations. According to the latest survey in schools and colleges, students are more ...
People nowadays work hard to buy more things. This has made our live more comfortable, but many traditional values and customs have been lost a and this is a pity, to want extend During those days, the living standard for human beings have significantly increased, modern technologies benefits normal lives. However people purchase goods beyond their needs, causing the valuable customs faded. I completely agree with this view. As employees work harder, their income will incre ...
In today's competitive world, many families find it necessary for both parents to en to work. While some say the children in these families benefit from the additional income, others feel they lack support because of their parents' absence. What are your opinions on this? The problem of children lacks care has been more note in society. People usually say parents should take the most responsibility for young children, but there are many reasons make the situation out of control. Whole family suffered by busy life and less love. First, why both folks should have jobs ...
e live today in an electronic information age. It is easier to be connected by technology yet many people seem to no closer to feeling happy in their lives. it is real that we are living in the era of electronic information that we can’t doubt that it is easier to be connected to with technology; however, the involvement of technology still left many people left to live no closer to feeling happy. This essay will discuss these problems. Firstly, nowada ...
The youth in many countries are unemployed and unskilled, while at the same time, the military services are in need of people. Compulsory military service is beneficial and necessary. with this statement? There is no denying that in most of the countries people, especially adolescents prefer to avoid the military service and start thinking to be part of the work force without having any experience or studies. I strongly agree with the idea of having mandatory military service can bring many benefits ...
The number of books that were borrowed in four different months in 2014 from four village libraries, and the pie chart shows the percentage of books, by type, that were borrowed over this time. The two sets of data illustrate the quantity of books checked-out in various libraries, during the months of June, July, August and September; additionally depicting the types of books borrowed by percentage. Overall, Sutton Wood’s library had mayor fluctuations, in contrary to the other three whom ...
An international language would remove one of the main differences separating people of different nationalities, and this would lead to greater international understanding and cooperation. There should be one international language that everyone agrees to learn and speak There are about over a hundred different languages in the world. Every country has its unique language related to either their culture or religon or maybe both. However, in order to comunicate with the rest of the world there. has to be one language that everyone should learn and speak Nevertheless, ...
Violence in playgrounds is increasing. However, it is important that parents should teach children not to hit back at bullies. Discuss this view and give your own opinion. In recent years violence and bullying have become a serious issues especially between teenagers. We can see that these problems are going up not only among young people but also adults. Parents have different ways to educate their children how to deal with it in case they face it. Schools can be re ...
Air transport is increasingly used to export fruit and vegetables to countries where they cannot be grown or are out of season. Do the benefits of this trend outweigh the drawbacks? With the growth in aviation, many countries now choose this mode of transport to export food such as fruit and vegetables to places where they are not in season or cannot be grown. I would argue that this has more positive than negative effects. The first positive effect is that it helps local farm ...
Write a letter to the editor to give your opinion about a magazine that you purchased. Include Why you bought it What you liked and disliked about it Suggestions for improvement Dear editer I've purchased few days ago, your feetball magazine via your website. I received the magine yesterday and I finished reading it this morning, I'm writing you this letter to give you seme foodback I am a football fan and I really enjoy reading feetball news. I have been following footba ...

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The experts: librarians on 20 easy, enjoyable ways to read more brilliant books

Do you love reading – but all too often find yourself just scrolling through your phone or watching TV? Here is how to get lost in literature again

I n the age of digital distractions, it is easy to struggle to find the time and headspace to get lost in literature. How can you get back into the habit? Librarians share the best ways to rediscover reading, make it a regular habit – and their tips for the most unputdownable books.

1. Don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t read in years

“A whole combination of things have come together in an unfortunate way to make it harder for people to read,” says Nancy Pearl, who is referred to as “ America’s librarian ” and lives in Seattle, where she worked for almost 40 years in public libraries. “The state of the world makes it very hard to read, because there is so much to worry about. People don’t have the energy to concentrate on reading as we used to.”

2. Listen to a book rather than ‘read’

“The thing about reading is that it is a choice that you make,” says Pearl. “You can read or you can go out in the garden and get rid of some weeds or watch the television. If you have consistently not found pleasure in reading, then you’re not going to choose reading, because it involves sitting down doing one thing at a time – except if you’re listening to audiobooks.

“I was a very late adopter of audiobooks. Now I would much rather listen to a book than sit down and read a book because I can do it while I’m walking.”

“Listening to an audiobook is reading,” says Louise Morrish, a librarian turned novelist who has worked at all kinds of libraries, including a haunted one, and now works at a secondary school in Hampshire. “There have been scientific studies where they’ve stuck sensors on to people’s heads, and the areas of the brain that are lighting up and connecting are the same when you’re listening to a story as when you’re reading it yourself.”

3. Join a library

“Your local library is a really good source,” says Morrish. “The librarians there are brilliant at helping you find books and it is free: you can take a punt on something and won’t have wasted money.”

“I always suggest going to the library or bookstore and talking about what you’re looking for,” says Pearl. “Say: ‘I just read this book, I want another book just like it.’”

There is so much more than just books in libraries. Danny Middleton works at Manchester Central Library , which has to be the coolest public library in Britain (and officially the busiest, with 4,200 visitors a day), offering murder mystery nights, silent discos and drag bingo. Middleton is in charge of reader development, which involves “encouraging people to come through the doors and discover what magic is inside”, he says. “Once we get them in the library, then it’s bam! You can’t go out until you’ve joined.”

4. Widen your search

“Think about books that you have liked in the past,” says Morrish. “Searching on the internet for ‘books like …’ or ‘books written like …’ is always a good place to start. Goodreads is incredible. It has lists and lists of books: novels, short stories, thrillers. There are so many bespoke lists on there so you can find books that you fancy. A new website – shepherd.com – collates books in terms of your interests. You can type in, ‘I want to read books about women who have overcome adversity,’ and you’ll have people on there who have curated lists of books with that as the subject matter.”

Morrish also recommends BookTok and following authors and book bloggers on social media, which she says is a “fantastic corner of the internet to hang out”. Joining a local book club “is a really good way of meeting people who love books”, Morrish says.

5. Work out what you are drawn to in books

For some readers this will be characters, for others it will be a sense of place, but for most it is all about the plot, says Pearl. “One book that satisfies all three of those needs is Larry McMurtry ’s Pulitzer prize-winning Lonesome Dove,” says Pearl. “It is the story of two Texas Rangers after the [American] civil war, taking a herd of cattle across the United States to be slaughtered. You will never forget the experience of meeting those two characters. And for those who are plot people, oh my gosh, the story of that cattle drive, and what happens on the way, that keeps the pages turning.”

Illustration of a man putting birthday candles in a book

6. Create a positive reading routine

“My big life hack is to read every single day,” says Morrish. “I read every night without fail, even if it’s just for five minutes or a page. You get through a book that way. You don’t lose your place or forget what is going on in the story. It becomes a habit.” If you are too tired at night, “you could create a routine where you read when you commute or listen to an audiobook when you walk the dog”, Morrish suggests. Setting a reading target can be a good incentive: “Say to yourself: ‘This month I’m going to try to read two books a week.’ And if you reach that target, give yourself a treat,”.

7. Read what you love

Finding the right thing to get back into reading depends entirely on your preferences, says Middleton, who doesn’t “do grisly”. But for many people, crime and thrillers are very accessible, with Richard Osman, James Patterson, Ann Cleeves and Lee Child particularly hot in Manchester, Middleton says. “Don’t be put off reading things by worrying about what other people might think,” says Ian Cooke, head of contemporary British and Irish collections at the British Library in London. “Loads of people love reading romance and it’s a really strong, innovative genre. I love reading comics, which some people think isn’t ‘proper reading’; it’s a different type of literacy.”

8. Be open minded

“Experiment with trying something new,” says Cooke, which you can do easily through public libraries. “If you don’t like something, take it back, borrow something else.” He gives poetry as an example, which he got into eight years ago after previously being slightly scared by it: “It’s like music; it’s people talking about their experiences in very personal ways.” Charlotte Wetton is a current favourite poet of Cooke’s. “Try to read as widely as you can because your tastes may have changed if you’ve had a gap,” says Morrish. “You may have once loved vampire books but now you’ve moved on to something else.”

9. Consider nonfiction

If you struggle to get into a story, head to the non-fiction aisle, says Morrish. “I’m very interested in the gut microbiome at the moment so am finding books on that. If you watch a lot of true crime on television, there are loads of books out there that are based on true crime cases. Biographies and memoirs are very readable, too.” Literary prizes can offer inspiration: “The Women’s prize have their inaugural prize for non-fiction this year and there is the Walter Scott prize for historical fiction,” says Morrish. “Reading comes in all forms – magazines, catalogues, books, short story collections, manuals – it doesn’t have to be a novel.”

10. Pick up a Quick Read

Middleton suggests the Quick Reads series, which are short and accessible versions of novels and non-fiction. “Massive authors contribute page-turning thrillers, comedy or holiday read romances. They are written in very accessible English, with short, snappy chapters, and are only about 150 to 200 pages.”

An illustration of a dog bringing a woman a book

11. Remove any distractions

When reading, “turn your phone off or put it in a different room”, says Morrish. “It is the biggest distraction possible. For children particularly, if they get a notification on their phone, then they’re off and they don’t get back to the book.”

12. Surround yourself with books

“Leave books lying around your home that look enticing,” says Mariesa Dulak, a librarian at a primary school in Ealing, west London and a children’s author . This is a helpful technique to encourage yourself and family members to read more: “If you let children see you reaching for a book rather than your phone, then it is going to make them want to read, too.” This can also be replicated in the workplace says Middleton: “If you have books in the staff room, when you’re sat having a brew, the books will be staring at you and you might be tempted to pick one up.”

13. It is never too early to establish good reading habits

Start reading to kids as soon as possible, says Dulak. “If you are taking your baby out with the buggy, in the same way that you might pack a snack, make sure you’ve got a board book in there which they can interact with. Hearing you read the words out loud to them is such an important part of learning language: there is nothing that a child likes more than their parent’s voice.”

14. Read aloud

“Somehow we stop reading to kids when they learn to read themselves,” says Pearl. “One of the best things to do is to set aside a part of the evening for a family read, which can be all of you sitting around reading, not having your phone handy. I do think reading out loud through the teen years is a great way to share that experience with your children.” Cooke recommends attending or tuning in online to an author reading, such as through the library Living Knowledge network.

15. Keep a reading diary

“Write down what you’re reading, who wrote it, who published it and what you thought of it,” says Cooke. “So over time, you can go back, see what you’ve read and what you’ve liked. It doesn’t have to be very involved, just a couple of sentences to jog your memory.”

16. Ebook or print?

“Print,” says Middleton. “I’m old school, I like holding it in my hands and turning the page. I like an audiobook when I’m doing the ironing, though.” Pearl adds: “I read Susie Boyt’s book Loved and Missed recently and that was a book that I really needed to hold to encounter the words and the characters myself.” Dulak says: “I would say that a Kindle has its place but only when I’m on holiday,”

Cooke is an ebook enthusiast: “What’s really exciting about digital is it can allow new ways to tell stories and engage people, such as books that include the reader making a choice as they go through or [a book] that reacts to the reader’s environment.” He recommends Breathe by Kate Pullinger , a ghost story that is designed to be read on your phone and uses data about you to create a personal experience of the book based on your circumstances.

17. Avoid fines

The best way to do this, says Dulak, is to “keep your books visible – not under the bed – and in the same place so you always know where they are”. “Don’t fear the fine,” says Cooke. “Find out what your library’s policy is, how to renew online, and set a calendar alert.”

18. For the perfect unputdownable holiday read, try …

Pearl: “What I would look for is a good saga or a really good fantasy novel. Rosamunde Pilcher was a great holiday book writer.”

Morrish: “For people who don’t read regularly, I would recommend Tahereh Mafi , a crossover author who writes adult and YA. Her writing style is almost like a text message: short, sharp chapters, written in stream of consciousness.”

Middleton: “The Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin. I’m halfway through the new one – it’s brilliant.”

Cooke: “ 80 Days by Inkle Studios , an online retelling of the classic in which you help Phileas Fogg around the world and get drawn into your own adventures too.”

Dulak: “The Skandar series by AF Steadman is good for kids because it’s got bloodthirsty unicorns and Harry Potter-esque magic but with a more contemporary twist. For older readers, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a beautifully written page-turner about love, loss and gaming.”

19. Know when to give up

The librarians agree on the 50-page rule. “Read to the bottom of page 50,” says Pearl. “If you’re enjoying it, of course go on. If you just can’t slog through it, then stop reading. If all you care about is, did they get the killer?, then turn to the last page.” She adds: “As my 50s came and went, I realised that you don’t have enough time left to read all the books that you want to read. So if you’re 51 and up, subtract your age from 100 and that number, which gets smaller every year, is the number of pages you should read before you can guiltlessly give up on a book. When you turn 100, the ultimate reward is that you can judge a book by its cover.”

20. Read a book and reap the rewards

“If you take 10 minutes a day to sink into a book, newspaper or read anything, it is very good for your mental health,” says Middleton. “There is lots of medical evidence of that being the case. Reading a book for 10 minutes is better for you than listening to your favourite record.”

Morrish makes a final impassioned plea: “It has been scientifically proven that reading increases your powers of empathy, social skills and ability to relate to other people. It relaxes you, it lowers your cortisol levels and blood pressure. It increases your vocabulary, your knowledge, creativity and imagination. If you read for pleasure, your grades will be better. To read from a book gives you time off the screen, which is hugely beneficial for your mental health.”

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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11 Books to Read This Month

By Keziah Weir , David Friend , Madison Reid , and Charlotte Klein

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Maybe it’s the longer hours of daylight, maybe the surreal momentary darkness of last week’s eclipse reset our sense of seeing the world. Whatever the reason, several members of the VF staff gravitated to books that foreground close visual observation this month: two rich works of photography, a close-read of the Sistine Chapel. But don’t worry, we’ve got range—an audiobook narrated by one of Hollywood’s most comforting voices requires no eye work at all. —Keziah Weir

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‘Hong Kong’ by Mikko Takkunen

Hong Kong is a tiny triumph. The first monograph from Finnish photographer Mikko Takkunen , a New York Times picture editor, Hong Kong is the print equivalent of a spring cherry blossom: the glorious first blush of a budding visual artist.

Takkunen’s eye is delightfully quirky yet bracingly cogent—in the grand tradition of quirky-cogent street photography. As viewers, we feel as if we’ve been made privy to a newly discovered cache of vivid color photographs by Saul Leiter or William Eggleston or Alex Webb , all converted into contemporary movie stills. We see a woman and her shadow, both smoking on a rooftop at night. A man in a green stairwell with the word CITY emblazoned nearby. A taxi driver parked in front of an impossibly orange wall, suspended in time, in space, in his own inescapably quotidian—and Instagrammable—existence.

It is no wonder that in his marvelous introduction, Geoff Dyer cites Leiter and Eggleston and Webb. Takkunen, like these photographic forebears, makes a city and its people pulse with secret, febrile, irrefutable life. We can almost smell the photographs, as if made in the tingly minutes after a passing sunshower. We can imagine these moments having been first envisioned in all their mescaline clarity by Aldous Huxley, then set to music by Laurie Anderson , then flash-fried by René Redzepi , and finally curated by Yayoi Kusama . (Kehrer Verlag, April 2024) —David Friend

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‘The Dutch House’ by Ann Patchett, narrated by Tom Hanks

Continuing on the Ann Patchett actor-narrated audiobook train—I recently listened to Meryl Streep read Tom Lake , which made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside—I just finished listening to Tom Hanks narrate The Dutch House . The book, a sort of dark modern fairy tale about a brother and sister, is told from the brother's perspective. I really liked the story, but I loved hearing Tom Hanks tell it. It just brought it to life in a way that I don't know I would have felt were I just reading the text. Truly like seeing (listening to?) a one-man play. (Harper, 2019) —Charlotte Klein

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‘This Train’ by Justine Kurland

Justine Kurland ’s This Train brings two bodies of work together in a thematically rich (and beautifully made) concertina-style book. On one side of the accordion fold of pages, her large-format film photographs, taken from 2005 to 2010, show Kurland and her young child, Casper, living out of a camper van as they travel through the American West; several of the images capture Casper playing with model trains along real railroads. The photos are “domestic” in genre (the family unit of two cooks, plays, and naps together), but subversive by nature. Kurland and her child exist in transitory spaces rather than Suburbia: wayside rests, the banks of a river, and campground picnic tables. A new essay by Constance Debreé builds around the idea that Kurland’s images defy the conventions of family photos and road trip photos until she drops stunning truths about parental love, childhood, and being together, alone, in the world. On the other side of the concertina pages are large-scale photographs of the railways, without people. Long stretches of trains and tracks intrude on the land, and yet Kurland shows that the land ultimately prevails. Mountains and fields dwarf the trains, making the mythology of Manifest Destiny–at least its man-made hubris–feel trivial in comparison. Another original essay, this one by Lily Cho , recontextualizes the body of work in relation to the history and humanity of 19th-century Chinese railroad workers, reminding us of the “quiet violence” of this overlooked era and the historical undercurrents of Kurland’s images. Happily, this rich book object invites multiple viewings, so that all of its meanings might unfold. (Mack, 2024) —Madison Reid

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‘All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel’ by Jeannie Marshall

Last fall I did something completely out of character. I—a person who does not like to wait for anything, who will always choose the food truck with the shortest line—stood for more than three hours in a queue of people shuffling toward the Vatican Museums entrance. I don’t know what compelled me to do it, although at a certain point it was probably the influence of sunk costs. Once inside, I was able to choose from two routes: the long way, or the beeline to the Sistine Chapel, the much-viewed, much-memed, secretly photographed, blue-skied, fingers-touching apotheosis of Christian art. (All western art, some might say.) It’s this known quality that Jeannie Marshall seeks to peel back in her rich, meditative All Things Move , which charts the evolution of her relationship with the chapel, from hostility toward the Christian content (“too much, too enormous, and too religious”); through her early, mystified visits; to a somber and eerily empty viewing in 2020. She compares her shifting experience of the Chapel over time to Michelangelo’s own return to it, having painted the ceiling frescoes between 1508 and 1513, and “after a gap of more than twenty years in which he witnessed war and plague,” The Last Judgment in 1536. “Michelangelo’s return to the Sistine Chapel after such destruction was a show of faith in art as much as anything. For me, returning to see it is a show of faith in this work of art’s capacity to point backward and then forward in time…” The book is part art history, part memoir; a case for slowing down, curiosity, a closer look. “The Sistine Chapel comes from a world before us with our twenty-first-century preoccupations, where we don’t really believe that art can do anything to us, but we come to see it anyway, just in case.” (Biblioasis, 2023) —KW

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‘The Living Days’ by Ananda Devi translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

This novel is strange, fetid, disturbing, exquisitely written—a beguiling story of power and exploitation in which Mary, 75 years old, white, and languishing in an inherited house on Portobello Road, recalls the only man she’s ever slept with, and imagines the wartime death that kept him from coming back to her. In her youth she shaped sex scenes out of clay, which she mashed up and remade into more salable goods; in old age, when arthritis strips her of her income, she resorts to eating dog food. Cub, a Jamaican 13-year-old, shows up and shakes her out of a decades-long squalor. But all is not right in their world. Worms fall from a corpse in a hole in the ceiling. First Cub has his own room, and then he is in Mary’s bed. “I’m an ever-growing belly that has to be fed, and fed, and fed, she said.” (Feminist Press, 2020) — KW

LIGHTNING ROUND

From the magazine, a taster-plate of noteworthy new titles.

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‘The Sleepwalkers’ by Scarlett Thomas

Scarlett Thomas’s sharp, stylish thriller finds a pair of feuding honeymooners at a Greek hotel, where another couple’s earlier disappearance looms increasingly large. (Simon & Schuster)

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‘The Garden’ by Clare Beams

In Clare Beams’s teeming gothic, would-be mothers with a history of miscarriage flock to a Berkshires manor for experimental treatment—and a mysterious walled garden works its own strange magic. (Doubleday)

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‘The Audacity’ by Ryan Chapman

A scammy start-up, superyachts, “Guggenheimed” as a verb: Ryan Chapman’s delicious satire charts a career implosion that sends a husband to a private island and his wife into hiding. (Soho Press)

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‘Table for Two’ by Amor Towles

From Amor Towles, a collection of six NYC-based short stories plus a novella that revisits the thread of his 2011 debut, Rules of Civility: A young woman seeks her fortune in 1930s Los Angeles. (Viking)

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‘Real Americans’ by Rachel Khong

Spanning three continents and as many generations—China’s Cultural Revolution to San Francisco, 2030—Rachel Khong’s precise, tender family history considers inheritance of all kinds. (Knopf)

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‘The Cemetary of Untold Stories’ by Julia Alvarez

A Dominican author buries her unfinished manuscripts—but her characters are unwilling to go gently into that good night, in Julia Alvarez’s inventive latest. (Algonquin) — KW

Keziah Weir

Senior editor, royal watch.

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By Brooke Baldwin

Paperback Row

6 New Paperbacks to Read This Week

By Shreya Chattopadhyay April 26, 2024

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At the end of your reading list? This week’s paperback recommendations include a biography of Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, Dennis Lehane’s newest detective novel, a study of monstrosity in art and more.

Here are six paperbacks we recommend →

Lehane’s latest mystery is set in the summer of 1974, when a busing backlash is roiling Boston. It “has all the hallmarks of Lehane at his best: a propulsive plot, a perfectly drawn cast of working-class Boston Irish characters, razor-sharp wit and a pervasive darkness through which occasional glimmers of hope peek out,” our reviewer wrote.

This biography traces the life of Tony Hsieh, the founder of the shoe retailer Zappos, “with the gathering tension of a slow-motion disaster,” according to our reviewer — from selling his first company to Microsoft to his struggles with isolation and addiction and his death at age 46.

Du Bois hoped that by fighting “against militarism and for democracy we would be fighting for the emancipation of the Negro race,” Williams recounts in his history of Du Bois’s changing views on World War I, including his trips to interview Black troops and his 20 years spent writing an unfinished history of the war.

Dederer’s book, which expands her viral 2017 essay, “What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?,” plumbs the relationship between art, gender and morality in the work and lives of famous artists. It is “part memoir, part treatise and all treat,” Alexandra Jacobs wrote in her review.

“A gloved hand severed the umbilical cord, and there began my aloneness,” notes this novel’s 27-year-old narrator, Emily, whose mother died in childbirth. Tired of her copywriting job, Emily finds change in the shock of an unplanned pregnancy and the shifting intimacies of a friendship in this book exploring patriarchy and parenthood.

“In the Age of Extinction, two tagalong daughters traveled to the edge of the world with their mother to search the frozen earth for the bones of woolly mammoths,” starts Ausubel’s absurdist romp, which follows two teenagers as they contend with their father’s death and their paleobiologist mom’s desire to birth a woolly mammoth in a lab.

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

How did fan culture take over? And why is it so scary? Justin Taylor’s novel “Reboot” examines the convergence of entertainment , online arcana and conspiracy theory.

Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker unearth botany’s buried history to figure out how our gardens grow.

A new photo book reorients dusty notions of a classic American pastime with a stunning visual celebration of black rodeo.

Two hundred years after his death, this Romantic poet is still worth reading . Here’s what made Lord Byron so great.

Harvard’s recent decision to remove the binding of a notorious volume in its library has thrown fresh light on a shadowy corner of the rare book world.

Bus stations. Traffic stops. Beaches. There’s no telling where you’ll find the next story based in Accra, Ghana’s capital . Peace Adzo Medie shares some of her favorites.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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Describe a book you have read recently - The Fortunate Pilgrim. The book I have recently finished and enjoyed so much is called "The Fortunate Pilgrim", and I would like to talk about it for this topic. It is a novel by Mario Puzo which was first published in the year 1965. The writer Mario Puzo is well-known for his famous mafia book ...
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The Cue Card: Describe a book you have read recently. As I said, there are many IELTS cue cards about books. You could be asked about your favorite book or a book you really love, but in this case we will just look at a book you have read recently: Describe a book you have read recently. You should say: what kind of book it is. who wrote the book.
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and explain why you liked it. IELTS Speaking Part 2: Recently, I had the pleasure of reading a captivating mystery novel titled "The Silent Detective." It falls under the genre of detective fiction and revolves around a brilliant but reclusive detective named Alex Reynolds, who is determined to solve a series of puzzling murders in a small town.
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Our school library is having books which I like very much. One of my friends showed me a certain book in the library and he said that is his favorite book. He also said that is was the second part of the most famous Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain. I borrowed the book from the librarian on the advice of my friend.
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Didion's pen is like a periscope onto the creative mind—and, as this collection demonstrates, it always has been. These essays offer a direct line to what's in the offing.". -Durga Chew-Bose ( The New York Times Book Review) 3. Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit.
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Interview Question: "What Was the Last Book You Read?"
3. Briefly explain the book. If an interviewer asks you this question, start with the title of the book and a brief explanation. Describe either the premise of the book if it's nonfiction or a plot summary for a fiction story. This helps introduce the interviewer to the book and can allow them to understand the essence of what you've read.
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Those books were my mother's and I was not interested in them. I used to read comics at that time. But one day, I was bored and there was no new comic for me to read, so I picked one of my mother's books. And what I chose was the first book I read and my favourite book of all time. It was a thin book and the author's writing is very simple.
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Pearl adds: "I read Susie Boyt's book Loved and Missed recently and that was a book that I really needed to hold to encounter the words and the characters myself." Dulak says: "I would say ...
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Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

Should you become a book reviewer?

What must a book review contain?

How much of a book nerd are you, really?

Book review examples for fiction books

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

Examples of genre fiction book reviews