OUR MISSION
As stated on our home page in the words of Tom Auer, the founder of The Bloomsbury Review:
We don’t plug the mega-bestsellers. We don’t push celebrity biographies or “how-to-get-richer-thinner-smarter-happier books.” And we don’t hype books or authors that are reviewed in every newspaper and magazine in the country. You hear enough about them already. The Bloomsbury Review is simply lively writing about good reading and great writers.
With more than 275,000 new books published each year in the USA—according to R.R. Bowker, the company that issues and maintains information about ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers)—only a small fraction will ever see a review. And many of those books and their authors do deserve attention—good, sometimes great, books fly under the mainstream review-media radar. These may be books from the large corporate publishing houses that don’t get the promotional budgets assigned to their best sellers, or they may be books from small, independent, nonprofit, or university presses. This is where The Bloomsbury Review is unique. We can’t cover all the books that are overlooked and underserved, of course, but we can seek out hidden gems and see that some of those new books find an interested and talented reviewer to do them justice.
Aside from Tom’s caveat above, all genres are considered—from fiction to poetry, from gardening to art and photography, from books with a regional focus to books dealing with history and politics, as well as books for young adults and children, and much more. Beyond book reviews, The Bloomsbury Review also features interviews with and profiles of writers, established as well as those taking their early steps into literary history; essays on writing; and original poetry.
Our reviewers, experts in their fields and based around the world, are asked to be wise and creative, but thoughtfully critical. With all the superb books being published every year, crying out for coverage, The Bloomsbury Review prefers not to publish negative reviews—we want our readers to discover fascinating new books they won’t find reviewed elsewhere. And now, more than ever, when newspapers and magazines are cutting back on their review pages, The Bloomsbury Review is an even more valuable resource for the discriminating reader, young or old, who knows how sublime time can be when spent with just the right book.