LibGuides: Finding Book Reviews: Helpful Library Resources

Helpful Library Resources

Recommended Databases:

Find book reviews in magazines/journals - for non- literary books

A good beginning place might be this database that covers reviews of all types of books: Book Review Digest Plus.

Other good general databases are: Academic Search Complete and MasterFile Premier, but there are many others.

If your book is a popular one and it was published after 1981 you might check the online version of the Books section of the New York Times for book reviews. Books published between 1850 and 1981 may be review in the New York Times Historical database.

If you do not find what you want in it, check another database listed here or contact a librarian.

How to find reviews of literary books

For literary works check under this section for literature databases such as Literature and Literary Criticism

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Scholarly articles, news, and research on topics in most subject areas.
Bloom's Literature This link opens in a new window
Examines great writers, important works, memorable characters, and influential movements and events in world literature.
Book Review Digest Plus This link opens in a new window
Brings together book reviews on a wide range of topics, from a variety of academic sources.
Essay & General Literature Index This link opens in a new window
Cites records contained in collections of essays and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain and Canada.
Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Contains up-to-date analysis, biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism, and reviews on more than 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods, and from around the world.
Humanities Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides full text, abstracts and bibliographic indexing of the most noted scholarly sources in the humanities, as well as specialized magazines.

Kirkus Reviews

Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
Includes both Gale's Contemporary Literary Criticism -- extensive compilation of literary commentary -- and Gale's Short Story Criticism -- thousands of essays on the critical response to short story writers
Literary Reference Center This link opens in a new window
Provides a broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes.
MasterFILE Complete This link opens in a new window
Articles on most topics including business, health, education, science, and social issues.
Twentieth-Century American Poetry This link opens in a new window
Modern and contemporary American poetry from the early twentieth century to the present.
Twentieth-Century English Poetry This link opens in a new window
Modern and contemporary English poetry from the early twentieth century to the present.