ENG 200: Critical Reading and Writing About Literature
A guide to basic resources for literary criticism.
Humanities and Literature Review Indexes
- Humanities Full Text, 1984--For all of the humanities (literature, religion, philosophy, art, etc.).
- Times Literary Supplement, 1902-1990For older literary and cultural book reviews. Part of the Times of London newspaper.
Subject Specific Indexes for Book Reviews
Many of the specialized subject specific online indexes include book reviews. These are some of the broader subject specific indexes with book reviews.
Best Starting Indexes
These indexes cover publications in all subject areas and are good sources for recent book reviews. Make sure the indexes cover the date of your book's publication! All have some, but not complete, full text.
- ASU New York Times AccountAs an ASU student you can create your own account to the NYTimes and have full access to it for free!
- Book Review Index Online Plus, 1965--A comprehensive online index to book reviews that includes more than five million review citations from thousands of publications, with links to more than 630,000 full-text reviews.
- Academic Search Premier, 1975--A good general magazine and journal index.
- Booksinprint.com (books currently in print)Short reviews for more popular titles. Reviews come from library publications.
- Nexis UniA HUGE index to newspapers from around the world. Not the best place to start, but if you want a variety of reviews from around the world, this is the place.
- Access World News, 1977--Book reviews in regional and local newspapers from around the country.
Book Review Web Sites
- BookSpot.comA well organized collection of book review sites.
There are thousands of Web sites that provide book reviews. This is a selected list of some of my favorites.
- Literary Hub: The Best of the Literary InternetBook reviews and more.
- Guardian BooksBook reviews from a major British newspaper.
- H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social SciencesCritical reviews of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences.
Indexes for Older Books and Reviews
- Periodical Archive Online, 1770-1995Goes way, way back in time. Some limited full text available online.
- Reader's Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982Popular books reviewed in magazines.