Week 37- Is It Good? Is It Bad? Who can tell?

[Joanna]

Great guessing everyone, but the Bible was not the first book printed in English- it was actually printed in Latin! The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye was a French book written in 1463. It took translator William Caxton three years to translate the book and was printed in English in 1474. The book recently sold at auction for over 1 million pounds.

Care to guess what year the Encyclopedia Britannica debut? Head on over to the Book Trivia page to guess.

This week, let's talk about reviews. How do you all handle reviews? Do you look them up before reading a book? After? How do you handle disparate reviews? Or do you just dismiss them completely and read what you want?

I'll admit, I have to be very careful about reviews. They can bias my opinion of a book immediately. Due to this, I don't log books into Goodreads until after I am a good way into them. That way I don't see the average number of stars given and think, "Huh, guess this is going to be a bad book." I really want to form my own opinion.

Let us know how you handle reviews!

[J]

I do not even think to look at how many stars was given to a book in goodreads. I do however read the reviews - I tend to go with the 3 stars but I will read the 4-5 or 1-2 ratings.

Thing is - I don't usually read reviews until I have started a book - if I'm not feeling the book I will see what others say about it to see if their reason is the same reason I'm have a difficult time. If I am having a hard time putting it down - I read the reviews to see who else loved it as much as I have been so far. It is a weird way to get into the reviews but it makes me feel better in my choices and often I feel a connection to others about the books I have chosen.

[Ingrid]

If I'm on the fence about a book I will read some reviews. No spoilers though. If it's a good book that's been recommended or a lot of people have been reading it then I will read it without checking in the reviews.