Need for Honest Book Reviews

There is an urgent news to purge the book review industry of motivated reviews. Most book reviews are being done on the request of author/publisher. It is a cancer that is spreading. Friends review books of friends and I would not be surprised to be told that spouses review each other's books! Such dishonesty has prevented us from becoming an intellectual giants that we can. the book review editors patronise their coterie as reviewers who in turn do favorable reviews of his/her friends' books. It is so disgusting. A simple survey of academic journals will prove this suspicion.
and this has gone on in India basically because we don't buy books after reading reviews. Much like film critics whose panning a film has never harmed the box office prospects of the films, in the academic world we purchase books by visiting book fairs, book distributors and the book sellers who visit colleges and universities. book reviews are read for amusement not for making up mind to buy them. As it is many book reviews are done years after the book had hit the market and hence such reviews are important only for academic interest. This is why journals and reviewers get away with murders.
But with the speed of online publishing all that can change. And today's academic freedom and transparency demands that too. So we would expect all our reviewers to declare that that they do not know the authors of the book under scrutiny and that they will not let their biases influence the reviews. We owe it to the nation and owe to to ourselves. Till then the book reviews will be treated with disdain they deserve
Please register and send message to me with books in mind and then we shall decide what to do.
mean while the first book review meeting is slated next week of a classic and then you will get to read the post about it too.
Till then happy reading!

This Blog!

There is an urgent need for independent book review. Most book reviews are motivated or sponsored. In most cases the reviews are solicited/motivated by the publishers. many a times authors get them reviewed by people closely associated with them. This blog intends to review books mainly on Indian history and allow students, teachers and book buyers to make up their minds regarding these books.
I and the group of reviewers would meet once a month and review all kinds of books on Indian history: old and new; classics and outdated. The idea is to be able to visit and revisit a book that has been done on Indian History. new generations of students would not have read say a book by R.P. Tripathi or Sir Jadunath Sarkar or a Lane Poole. We may have missed a book in our area of interest or say in modern India or Ancient Indian history if our specialisation is medieval Indian history! so we can catch up with books in those areas and empower ourselves in teaching and research.
we solicit books for review from all sources: authors, publishers, distributors or donors. but we are since we are just a few academic in South Asia, we are not in a position to return them or pay them the cost. The books will be given to us on this condition. obviously we are no obligation to do their kind of review. Till we are able to get books from independent sources, we shall source them from libraries or purchase ourselves.
The people intending to have the books reviewed may write to us through this blog and we shall respond soon.