Amazon Customer Reviews

When I'm undecided about buying a book, Amazon customer reviews comes in very handy. It's easy to be cynical and think there's some kind of manipulation going on, since you really can't tell if a review is authentic. From the looks of most reviews and the star rating distributions, it looks like there's no manipulation.

It's easy enough to judge by the number of stars, but that's like judging a movie the same way and it doesn't work. There are movies I like that rate 2 stars and those that I dislike that rate as 3 or more (out of 4 stars). What I find more useful is to go read the one and two star reviews. If most of the negative reviews are ad hominem attacks or just plain old loudmouthing with no good reasoning and factual proof, then that bodes well for the book and increases my likelihood of buying it. Also, if the used price is really low, it can't be all that great - unless it's a "classic" - the books you have to read in English Lit.

Now if the negative reviews make sense and are objectively written and a good percentage of folks found the reviews useful, then I probably won't buy it.

Most of the 4 and 5 star reviews aren't really very revealing. They usually consist of high praise, but not really much backing for it.

All this is irrelevant for political non-fiction. If you support Bush, you're not going to agree with any of the Iraq fiasco books and vice versa.