Review Guidelines

Book reviews make up the bulk of reviews, but we also review audio and video media, and runes, tarot and oracle decks.  We don’t review any other products at this time.

Most our reviews come from our staff, but we also accept reader-submitted reviews.

For articles and essays, see our Submission Guidelines.

Topics

SpiralNature.com is dedicated to exploring philosophy, spirituality and magickal subjects and our reviews focus on media that deal with these themes.  For an idea of what we’ve reviewed in the past, please see our Reviews section.

We rarely review fiction, poetry, ebooks or self-published material.

Recommendations

Consider the book’s intended scope and target audience.  You may not be it, but in knowing who it was written for, whether it’s an introductory book for a novice on a topic you’re adept it, or an academic work in a field you’re less familiar with, you can construct your review with this in mind.

And please, review, don’t summarize.  Have an opinion, and justify it.  If an author has contributed something insightful or novel, give the reader a reason why they should care about this book.  If misinformation abounds, cite examples and correct them. Opinion alone is not enough.

The great Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote:

The critic has always been called a judge of literature, which means, not that he’s in a superior position to the poet, but that he ought to know something about literature, just as a judge’s right to be on a bench depends on his knowledge of the law…The critic’s function is to interpret every work of literature in light of all the literature he knows, to keep constantly struggling to understand what literature as a whole is about.¹

Take notes as you read.  Write what you think of passages as you read them, note interesting points, passages you agree or disagree with, what inspired you, what annoyed you.  Try the exercises. Test the recipes.  Record your results.

If you do this the review tends to write itself.  You won’t necessarily include everything you’ve noted, but you will have a better understanding of your overall impression of the book.

Things to Include

All reviews should be accompanied by the following:

• Title and subtitle
• Author(s) name(s)
• Illustrator(s) (if applicable)
• Publisher
• ISBN
• Page count and note if it includes appendices, a glossary, a bibliography, resources, an index
• Copyright date

If you are familiar with the author or artist in some way, please disclose the relationship in your review.

Length

Reviews should be between 500 to 1200 words in length, but ultimately the reviewer should use hir best judgement.

Byline

Bylines are optional, but may follow your review.  They should be a few sentences long, and contain any links back to your blog(s) or website(s) you’d like to include.

Publishers & Authors

Catalogues and review material can be sent to:

SpiralNature.com – Reviews
2100 Bloor Street West
P.O. Box 6-239
Toronto, ON M6S 5A5
Canada

Due to the volume of review material we receive, we cannot guarantee that all unsolicited material will be read or reviewed, though we will do our best.

Questions?

Please feel free to Contact the curator with any questions you may have.

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1. Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination. [↩]