Book Reviews - Contact the Author First?

[coffeekid]

I was recently solicited by a editor friend to do a book review on a recent publication by a (still) living author. This will be my first book review, and it is in a reputable review journal in my field.

 

My question: Is it appropriate or helpful to contact the author whom one is reviewing before submitting the final review? Perhaps, "Here's what I'm planning on submitting as a review for your book. Please let me know if you have any helpful feedback before I finalize it."

 

Of course, I understand that this might make it difficult to offer serious critique if it were warranted. I'm confident that what I'm writing is intelligent, and especially this being a first book review (and the fact that I'm a younger student) I will be pretty moderate in any critiques. I simply was wondering if people who have written book reviews have done this or found it helpful to get feedback or their perspective on what they're offering.

 

Any thoughts from people with experience in doing book reviews would be appreciated.

[rising_star]

I've never heard of anyone doing this, though maybe this varies by field. If anything, we'll have a session where the author and then some reviewers/critics will do a roundtable or panel together at a conference. If you want feedback on your review, ask other grad students in your field or your advisor to review it before you send it to the journal.

[Josh J.]

I would recommend against contacting the author.  A standard review, regardless of what level you are at, will normally both include praise and (carefully worded) criticism of the text.  So contacting the author ahead of time if you don't know them would probably be somewhat awkward, and, will draw their attention to you, which might not be good if they could ever be on an adcomm that you are being considered by.

 

I'm working through a text right now where the author, who is a professor and friend, asked me to review it for the same journal I wrote the last one for.  That is a bit different because he asked for the review and I know him.  He knows that I will be kind and that any criticisms I make will be fair ones. Someone you don't know, however, may take it differently.

 

Josh