Ressurection of Book Reviewing Styles Classification

Peter Kettle | 7:45am BST 22 August 2025

In late-July (the 22nd and 29th), Peter Kettle published on this site a two-part article on contrasting styles of book reviewing, with attention to how they handled factual and other sorts or errors, which culminated in a classification of the different styles that readers could choose between.

Here the classification of styles is reproduced, so that more readers can express their personal preference for one or more of them – now that most people’s summer holidays are drawing to a close.

We suspect that most of you who use this site, in one way or another. will have a liking for a certain style, or styles. We now invite – and encourage – you to express your particular preference.

Please note that the categories relating to “serious” errors indicate that it is liable to distort the meaning of what is being said and mislead the reader in consequence. 

Fully Opaque 

1. No mention of any typos, grammatical or factual errors, no matter how many appear or how serious they are. 
2. Mention the number of typos, grammatical and factual errors occurring. 
3. Also mention where errors occur.3.1 Mention where in the text each one of the serious factual errors appears.

   3.2

   In addition, mention where in the text each one of the non-serious factual errors appears.

   3.3

   In addition, mention where in the text each one of the typos and grammatical errors appears. 

4. Also provide corrections.

   4.1

   Provide corrected versions for each of the serious factual errors.

   4.2

   In addition, provide corrected versions for each of the non-serious factual errors.

   4.

   3 In addition, provide corrected versions for each of the typos and grammatical errors

Fully Transparent

An outside observer might well think that all, or nearly all, readers of cricket book reviews would immediately plump for the final category – where all is revealed. But one shouldn’t jump to conclusions, for that would be to pre-empt the purpose of this exercise.

After two weeks have passed, we shall tot up the scoring for each option and let you know how the findings should guide future book reviewing on this site.