Review Guidelines

Book reviews make up the bulk of reviews, but we also review audio and video media, as well as rune sets, 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 General Submission Guidelines.

Topics

Spiral Nature 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 very rarely review fiction, poetry, ebooks or self-published material.

Recommendations

Consider the book’s intended scope and target audience.  You may not be the target audience, but in knowing who the book was written for, whether it’s an introductory book for a novice on a topic you’re adept at, 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 say so, with examples. 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 information:

• 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, and/or an index
• Publication date

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

If your piece is selected for publication, we will contact you for your approval of final edits prior to publication. Either way, we aim to send a response in a timely fashion.

Length

Reviews should be between 600 to 900 words in length, but we’ve been known to publish reviews in excess of 1,200 words when the reviewer gets deep into a text.

Byline

Please send a byline with 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

Please inquire for the address to send catalogues and review material.

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 editor with any questions you may have.

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