Book Review Rating Policy

I saw the other day that I'd reached fifty pages linked to the subject of book reviews and thought it was about time that I said something about how I rate books using the palette system.  So here goes.

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A book scores one palette if it's a book I regret buying (or, equivalently regret putting on my wishlist).  It's a bad score.  I give these books one or two stars as Amazon ratings.

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Two palettes is kind of bleh.  This is awarded to books that I can't really say I regret buying but that, if I were to have all my books stolen, wouldn't replace.  They look good on the shelf and I'll occasionally take another look through them but, when I do, I find that they're not really teaching me anything new.  But I still like having them on that shelf.  They score two or three stars on Amazon, more likely three.

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Three palettes is a decent score.  These are books that were definitely worth buying.  I wouldn't say they're amazing but art books are expensive and they have to be pretty decent to be worth the money.  Three or four stars on Amazon, probably four.

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Four palettes mean that we're talking about really good books.  Books that have taught me a lot and continue to do so.  Books packed with ideas and with inspiring artwork.  You need to buy these books!  I normally give them five stars on Amazon.

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And then there’s five palettes.  These are the galacticos. Absolute jaw dropping books.  You don't realise what I mean by this until you've read one of them.  Most of them are bibles to read again and again but there are also books like Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain and Hazel Soan's Watercolour Rainbow that you only need to read once to change your life.  Obviously these score five stars on Amazon.

As I was putting this post together, I came to realise that many of my historic book reviews have over-inflated ratings.  Sometimes ratings are over inflated because the books were gifts and I didn't want to upset friends and family.  Others are over inflated because they're expensive-feeling hardbacks.  And some are over inflated because the first thing I want to do with every four palette book is to award it five palettes.

So I've revisited my historic reviews and reduced the ratings in many cases.  This was a painful process, demoting so many books from their earlier ratings.  But I think my ratings are more consistent now.

Looking back over time, for every four books reviewed I give roughly one book five palettes, one four, one three and one one or two.  Quite a flat looking distribution, which I think is a good thing.