Books, books, and more books

Over at the Internet Review of Books, my good friend Gary Presley and I collect, edit, and publish book reviews on a wide range of topics and genres. We assign most titles to other writers, but we write a few of them ourselves. Publishers will send us catalogs or online listings of new titles, and sometimes they will send books directly to me without my asking. Honestly, I love getting them. Most often I mail them to other reviewers, but sometimes I greedily keep them for myself to read and review. Such is the case with "Mr. President" by Harlow Giles Unger, about George Washington. Once in a while there's a book I simply don't know what to do with, such as Symmetry: A Very Short Introduction by Ian Stewart. Understanding it takes more knowledge of mathematics than I have, and it may not be suitable for review anyway. Selection of books to review is based on what's available to us, as well as on Gary's preferences and mine. We don't review lots of self-published books, but we review some. If you have something you'd like reviewed, feel free to check with one of us. Be forewarned, though, that our reviewers don't write fluff. If they have criticisms, they say so. Our aim, which should be the aim of all reviewers, is to serve the reader, not necessarily the author.

Gary and I have been working on the IRB since its inception by Carter Jefferson in 2007. If you haven't seen it yet, please check it out.