On reviewing old books

By Brian Clegg

This week I’m reviewing two books on the Popular Science website, neither of which was published this year. Usually, book reviews are of the latest titles. This is partly because these are the titles publishers are enthusiastic to get seen, but also tend to be selected to ensure that the reviewer seems current. I think, though, that there are several reasons to consider a book that’s been around a while.

Sometimes it’s because there’s a new edition. This may not make much difference to the content, but the book might have been out of print or otherwise hard to come by. Occasionally there may also be genuinely interesting new content (as opposed to yet another preface no one wants to read). I’ve got a lot in the past out of some annotated books, though my experience with Frankenstein ‘annotated for scientists, Engineers and Creators of all kinds’ was not great. One of my reviews this week will be a new edition.

The visibility created by a new edition (even if it’s just a paperback following the hardback) can also mean that a book you overlooked the first time around comes to your attention (or, frankly, becomes more affordable). This is the case with my other review this week – a book that I initially missed and then, frankly, intentionally avoided because it got so much hype that I was put off. Not at all fair, but I find i easy to take this stance. Finally, though,  when the dust was settling (and some of the comments were getting more critical) I gave in and bought a copy.

One other way an older book review might get published is a look back at an old review. This may be simply to bring a forgotten delight back to visibility, or it could be that, on a re-read, the book seems very different from the experience the first time around. 

It’s entirely possible that your reaction to a review of a book published in 1999, as is the case with one of my reviews is ‘So what? It’s old news.’ But I don’t think books necessarily become old, nor is a review news. I’m not generally a great enthusiast for ‘the classics’ – I confess, I struggle, for instance with the verbosity and silly names of Dickens. But I’m a sucker for Jane Austen. In non-fiction, and popular science in particular, there are fewer classics that hold up well, partly because science moves on, and also because non-fiction styles from, say, the 1930s or 1950s can seem very turgid now. However, I believe it would be a mistake to stick purely to the latest titles, and hope that I will continue digging up the occasional blast from the past.

Image by Chris Lawton from Unsplash – when I say ‘old books’ I don’t mean ones likes these

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.