Book Review Links

Here are some of our favorite places to find reviews of books on science and mathematics, followed by a more-comprehensive listing of venues by type. If you have questions or comments about this page, or if there's a site you'd like to nominate for inclusion, please e-mail aphillips at sigmaxi dot org.

Favorites

All books, all the time:

The New York Review of Books

The London Review of Books

Women's Review of Books

The Los Angeles Review of Books: A recent redesign makes this site easy to navigate, and the reviews are high quality. Check out what’s newest at their homepage, or find science and technology reviews here.

Some books, sometimes:

Slate: Their new page devoted to book reviews often yields interesting critiques. Although you have to poke around a bit to find science titles, it’s worth looking.

Salon: Their redesigned site is harder to navigate, but their books coverage, headed up by the excellent Laura Miller, is quite good.

Newspapers:

The New York Times

The Guardian

The San Francisco Chronicle

And check your local newspaper or alt-weekly: These often publish good reviews.

More:

The Atlantic Monthly books page

Download the Universe: Excellent, lively new site with reviews of science e-books

The American Mathematical Society's Math Digest: A monthly compendium of media coverage of mathematics, including book reviews, blogs and more.

Confessions of a Science Librarian blog: News about science, publishing, and science libraries

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts: It never hurts to keep track of how well the big book-review outlets are doing with gender balance and other, similar issues. VIDA offers a yearly tally of how magazines and newspapers are faring when it comes to gender equity. The resulting discussion is sometimes disturbing but always entertaining.

Science Book News: Weekly e-newsletter and website featuring new titles and new reviews

Powell’s Books: An independent bookstore with fast shipping, a smart, engaged staff and a huge selection of new and used books. Their Review-A-Day feature, now discontinued, nonetheless contains a large archive of reviews from a variety of publications, including American Scientist.

By Title and Type

Science Journals and Magazines

American Journal of Bioethics
Articles and recent news on important issues in bioethics

Archaeology
Featuring reviews of books, museums and TV programs featured in the pages of Archaeology Magazine

Audubon
The Magazine of the Audubon Society

BioScience
Free access to many book reviews

CERN Courier
International Journal of High-Energy Physics

Conservation Magazine
The magazine of the Society for Conservation Biology

Discover *
Monthly science magazine
* Subscription required for many articles

Edge
Online journal that seeks to unite scientific and literary intellectuals; frequently publishes author interviews

Grist Magazine
Grist, an online environmental magazine, does publish book reviews but the reviews are not labeled as such, nor are they gathered in one location, so some searching is required to find them

Issues in Science and Technology

The MAA Online Book Review
Published by the Mathematical Association of America; has an archive of more than 300 reviews. Subscription required

Math in the Media
A monthly magazine from the American Mathematical Society

Nature *
International weekly journal of science
*Subscription required

New England Journal of Medicine *
Two or three books are reviewed every week
* Subscription required for access to recent content, but issues more than six months old are accessible with registration

New Scientist
Book section of British popular magazine of science and technology, published weekly

Physics Today *
Monthly magazine of the American Institute of Physics
* Subscription required

Physics World *
Monthly British physics magazine
* Subscription required for access to full text

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin

Science *
Online book section of the weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
* Subscription required

Scientific American
Monthly science magazine

Smithsonian
Monthly magazine from the Washington, D.C., institution

The Space Review
Essays and news covering space exploration and policy

Zoogoer

Science Book Review Sites

Science Book News, Philip Manning's science book-reviews website and e-newsletter

Download the Universe, a review of science- and math-oriented e-books

ACQweb's subject list of places to find book reviews online. Somewhat out of date, but nonetheless useful

Additional Magazines

The Atlantic Monthly

BookBrowse
Books site with reviews by category, genre and more

Book Links
Magazine for adults interested in connecting children with high-quality books; each issue is devoted to a specific subject area, but most content is not available online

Booklist
The American Library Association magazine

BookPage
Monthly publication distributed to bookstores; author interviews and reviews of nonfiction, fiction and children's books

Canadian Review of Materials
Biweekly electronic reviewing journal of the Manitoba Library Association; covers books for children and young adults that are by or about Canadians or Canada

The Economist
The magazine's books page

Library Journal
Offers brief descriptive reviews of forthcoming nonfiction a few months before publication

London Review of Books
Monthly magazine with an archive easily browsed by subject

New York Review of Books
"The premier intellectual-literary magazine in the English language"

Salon *
Book section of the online magazine
* Subscription required for many items

Spiked Review of Books
Book review section of the online journal Spiked

Think Magazine

Times Literary Supplement *
Weekly journal reviewing fiction, nonfiction and the arts
* Most of the magazine's content is available only by subscription

Wilson Quarterly
A magazine whose stated aim is to present the best thinking of academics and specialists to a broad audience

Newspapers

Boston Globe
Online book section of the newspaper

Chicago Sun-Times
Online book section of the newspaper

The Chronicle Review *
Review section of The Chronicle of Higher Education weekly
* Subscription required

The Christian Science Monitor
The paper's books page

The Denver Post
The paper's books page

The Guardian
Online book section of the British newspaper; reviews are searchable by genre

The Independent

The London Times
The paper's books page

The Los Angeles Times

The New Statesman
Books page of the weekly magazine

The New York Times
The paper's books page

The San Francisco Chronicle
The paper's Sunday books page

The Scotsman
Books section of the Edinburgh newspaper

The Spectator
Books section of the British magazine

The Horn Book
Reviews of books for children and young adults