Martial arts related book review criteria?

[tatsujin]

If you were going to read a review of a book on a martial arts related topic, what are the criteria that would be important to you. Keep in mind, this would be for fiction, non-fiction, instructional, informational, etc. Really anything in printed or ebook format that is in any way related to the martial arts.

So far, I have the following:

Quality of Writing: Is the writing on the given topic flowing and easy to understand? Does it break down difficult topics well? Is it dry and boring or does it keep your interest and attention?

Uniqueness of Information: Is this a rehash of information that is already in the public domain or new and unique?

Physical Quality: If printed, is it well put together and constructed...quality paper, well bound, good cover, durable. If an eBook, how is the formatting of the text, quality of images (if used), etc.

Format Availability: Hardback, softback, ePub, Kindle

Price: How much does it cost (in whatever format) when compared to other books in similar categories AND in comparison to the value of the information it contains.

Intangibles: Anything else important to the author of the review that should be pointed out to the reader that does not fall into the other categories above.

What do you think of the criteria above and what others would you add?

Thank you for your input.

[DarthPenguin]

Interesting post!

One addition i would make (for instructional style books mainly) would be

Pictures / Images : Quality and variety of pictures used to illustrate technique/information. Are there sufficient angles covered and are the images easy to follow

Personally i would also slightly amend the uniqueness of information one since if it is instructional based then there should be some commonality of information with other sources on the technique, though i would expect some individual input or opinion from the author.

in my personal book collection the only real technique based martial arts books i have are for BJJ and you can notice a large difference between publishers and authors. I have a couple that have excellent content but the pictures are not easy to follow at all and some others that while they have less content are a million times more accessible. I tend only to purchase ma technique books for BJJ since there are so many techniques and variations on them that i might not be shown all that i would like by my coach as they are focusing on something else. With something like Karate though it has a bit more of a syllabus so i can rely on my instructor to show me all i need to see and then i can adapt my personal style accordingly.