Hi all

I'm new here and saying hi!

I've studied literature and try to write as much/as often as I can.

One thing I do, is read a lot of book reviews, literary journals and book and publishing magazines.

A lot of the time it's to get a taster of books I might want to buy but also to get an insight into the critical thinking of book reviewers and the publishing world with the hope that some of the collected wisdom will filter through into my own writing.

Two of my favourite journals are;

The Barcelona Review: http://www.barcelonareview.com/

and

London Review of Books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/

Would love to hear if you also read these and what you think of them? Or, do you read any other 'books' journals that you would recommend?

Hi Greentown and welcome to WW

Hope you're finding things on the site - do shout in the forum if you need a steer.

I read the TLS, and sometimes pick up a copy of Granta, but as a matter of policy as well as inclination I don't read fiction reviews.

I love non-fiction reviews, though: the TLS is my education in all the subjects that I'll never have time to study properly.

Thanks EmmaD

I'm pretty much the opposite.

Not a great non-fiction reader but find that the quantity of new fiction published is so huge that the reviews and analysis help me to focus on literary fiction (my preferred 'genre' rather than have to filter out everything else myself.

I'm also a fan of literary journals that give new writers a forum for publication every now and again with short stories and so on, and like to imagine that someone somewhere is monitoring the readers they get and hopefully saying to their editors,
"Look, people read new fiction - let's keep publishing it."

After all, that's how we get the breaks...

I think lots of aspiring writers simply don't read enough, especially new, contemporary fiction and if you're going to write challenging new fiction - then you've got to know what's going on - like a doctor keeping up with the lates research.

That's my theory anyway

I'm kind of with Emma - my favourite are the non-fiction reviews (although all too often they're not reviewing the book but telling you why the publisher should really have hired them to write it in the first place )

Have you looked at the Literary Review? Slightly Foxed is also good - I don't read it regularly but I enjoy it whenever I do. And the publishers inhouse magazines (Five Dials, Night and Day etc) are often fascinating.

My favourite though (and a slightly guilty pleasure) has to be Private Eye's Books and Bookmen column. Painfully funny. Though sometimes just plain painful. It appears to be generally written by someone with a chip on their shoulder the size of a small tree, and all the more entertaining for that.

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I think lots of aspiring writers simply don't read enough, especially new, contemporary fiction and if you're going to write challenging new fiction - then you've got to know what's going on - like a doctor keeping up with the latest research.

I'm with you on this, but I don't personally think reading reviews can teach you how to write. Reading reviews can teach you how to review. But that's an entirely different skill.

It's definitely a good way of seeing what's out there, though.

although all too often they're not reviewing the book but telling you why the publisher should really have hired them to write it in the first place

LoL - so true, Flora!

Very true about how many writers don't read enough, too.

But I'm not sure that I'd say it's because you need to know what's going on as you need to know what's going on in politics, say, so you know how to vote. For me it's more about fuelling and exercising the writing-mind.

Those Slightly Foxed limited editions look lovely - worth looking into!

I think the journals whether they're more acdemic or more populist give me a sense of what people are writing about, you know, what are the subjects of the day, what's capturing the zeitgeist.

I read them to see where ideas are evolving, what's making people angry in society, what are their concerns and if or how society is responding.

They feed my thoughts on what is happening outside my 'real world' and see what other writers are doing in expressing/addressing the zeitgeist.