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Midwest Book Review

Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review.gif
Organization logo
Formation 1976
Legal status Active
Purpose Book reviews
Headquarters Oregon, Wisconsin
Region served
California, Wisconsin, upper Midwest
Official language
English
James A. Cox
Website Official website

Midwest Book Review is an organization that maintains several book review publications. Established in 1976, the organization's Editor-in-Chief is James A. Cox. Midwest Book Review produces nine book review publications per month, with a goal of encouraging literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. It selects for review about 600 books out of an average of 2000 titles submitted each month. The organization has a focus on serving community and academic libraries, booksellers, and the general reading public.

All reviews produced by Midwest Book Review are indexed by Gale Cengage Learning's publication "Book Review Index".

Midwest Book Review was established in 1976. The Editor-in-Chief of the organization is James A. Cox. The review puts out nine publications on a monthly basis, with a focus on community and academic library organizations, booksellers, and the general reading public. The organization maintains a website at www.midwestbookreview.com.

Publications produced by the organization include: The Bookwatch,California Bookwatch, The Children's Bookwatch,Internet Bookwatch,Library Bookwatch,MBR Bookwatch, The Midwest Bookwatch,The Reviewer's Bookwatch,Small Press Bookwatch, and The Wisconsin Bookwatch.The Children's Bookwatch is a newsletter made as a resource for librarians. Some reviews from Reviewer's Bookwatch are provided in greater depth at the organization's website.Midwest Book Review is made up of volunteers, and frequently seeks additional individuals to serve as book reviewers for the organization. The organization is located in Oregon, Wisconsin. It has a motivation of increasing literacy, public utilization of libraries, and fostering small press, to which it gives priority. Of the 1,500 books submitted to Midwest Book Review for consideration per month, the organization chooses to review approximately 450 of them.

A visitor to the website Amazon.com emailed Cox in 2006 and asked about the organization's practice of giving all reviews posted to the site a five-star recommendation. Cox replied explaining that he disagreed with the star-rating system in general, and noted, "If a book isn't good enough to pass our initial screening then it doesn't get reviewed in the first place." In 2007, an author asked Cox about the organization's position with regard to Amazon.com ratings. Cox explained, "for a book to make it all the way through the Midwest Book Review process. ... it merited the highest recommendation available under the Amazon rating system. Inferior books, flawed books, substandard books are assumed to have been weeded out and never made it to the 'finish line' of publication in one of our book review magazines."


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