You work for CSM’s newspaper, and your editor-in-chief has asked you to write a book review of the first two sections of The Uninhabitable Earth for the next edition of the paper. So your task is to write an evaluative essay that makes clear whether or not you believe that the book would be valuable to the newspaper’s readers. In a nutshell: Should students at CSM read the first two sections of The Uninhabitable Earth? If so, why? If not, why not?
Audience
You are writing for student readers of the college’s student newspaper. You can safely assume that most of your readers haven’t read — or even heard of — the book.
Process
Most book reviews contain three basic elements:
A summary of the book’s content.
An analysis of its ideas, structure, and writing style.
A recommendation as to whether or not your audience should read the book.
Your essay should contain all of these elements.
Be careful, however, to avoid excessive summary. Give your readers a basic idea of the book’s content, then use the bulk of your review to analyze its content and to take a clear position on its overall value for CSM students.
You should quote from the book to support your claims about its content and its quality.
Consider incorporating a counterpoint section into your essay. For example, if you do not recommend the book, you might include a section in your review that acknowledges why some students might find it valuable. On the other hand, if you do recommend the book, you might concede that it has some weaknesses.
You must incorporated at least one outside review of the book into your essay. Be sure the source of that review is credible — not merely an Amazon customer’s review, for example, or the thoughts of someone who has posted something on goodreads.com. Any review that you decide to reference should come from an established, respected publication.