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Our Original Reviews Copyrighted
© 1995-99 Area 51 Research Center
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The rating system is designed to help intelligent readers decide whether to purchase a book. No simple "Buy/Don't Buy" recommendation is offered, because readers can have many different goals. Instead, evaluations are divided into categories, each of which follows its own rules, as discussed below.
All individual ratings are my own and are subject to debate. Other people may have different opinions.
Credibility rates the author and his written work, not the ultimate veracity of his claims. An author can have low credibility yet his claims turn out to be true, and vice versa. Low credibility means only that the author has presented a weak argument. (I offer no rating for "truth.")
Factored into the credibility rating is the criticism the book received after its publication and the quality of the author's response to it.
A book can have low credibility and still have high research value if the author provides a lot of leads to research materials. He might wildly misinterpret the original data, but at least he provides us with it.
Photographs, maps, drawings and graphs are considered visual information. If the book contains any of these, they are rated according to quantity and usefulness. If a book contains nothing but words, then visual information is rated as 0.
Rating levels are...
A book with "high style" is pleasing to the eye or compelling to read. Our preference is for "style" that complements and enhances the information content of the book. For example, in an encyclopedia with "high style," Information is conveniently laid out (regardless of its veracity) and is easily accessible.
But that's not always bad! Silly books can be highly entertaining -- if you are in the right mood -- and they often make interesting gifts. Silly books can also have high cultural interest, reflecting a social movement or belief system. Beware, however, of books with high silliness and a low Wow Factor (both silly and boring), because these aren't any fun.
Silliness is usually inversely related to the author's self-awareness and sense of humor. If he takes himself too seriously and makes a lot of dire warnings based on thin evidence, his book strikes me as silly. Paranoia, hysteria and a reliance wholly on psychic information increase the silliness level. (Anyone can write a book on anything based on psychic information, and there is nothing we can do to evaluate it.) In a silly work, the author jumps to conclusions and ignores the obvious alternatives. Silliness decreases when an author shows more discipline and sticks to the facts.
Silliness is a rating of the author's style, not the subject matter. The subject matter of the book may seem absurd -- claiming, for example, that the earth is flat -- but if the author approaches the topic in a disciplined manner, the book itself may not be silly. Likewise, a book on a reasonable mainstream topic -- like the dangers of preservatives in foods -- can get silly if the tone seems inappropriately ominous.
Silliness is usually inversely related to credibility, but not always. A book can have low credibility and only moderate silliness if there isn't anything funny about it. (For example: a book promoting Nazi ideology.)
Low cost paperback editions usually get a higher bargain rating than the hardcover version of the same book. (If both editions are available for the same book, we evaluate only the papaerback version.) A hardcover book for $25 may get a low bargain rating, but if a paperback version later comes out for $7, I may revise the bargain rating upward. (Paperback versions of new books usually come out about a year after the hardcover version. Sometimes it is worth waiting a few months to save $8 or more.)
Implied in the bargain rating is my own conception of the value of money: $10 or less is a reasonable price to pay for a book; $20 or more is usually too much, unless the book is exceptional or contains some specialized information not found elsewhere. In my experience, a book's price bears little relation to its value. Some of the best books are available for less than $10, while many books over $20 are junk. The bargain rating provides an overall summary of my advice.
If you are interested only in information content, a bargain rating below 3 is essentially a "Don't Buy" recommendation. However, there could other reasons for buying a book, like cultural or entertainment value, which are not included in the bargain rating.
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Created: 3/27/98
Modified: 5/9/98
