Development of thoughts or ideas, and dissemination of techniques or methods, happens not only in the pages of Journals or on the web, but in books too. Over the last couple of years, we have increased the number of book reviews in Annals of Botany, and put them prominently at the front each issue. For me, reviews have always been part of a lively Journal, and diversity makes them great to read – there is a place for the long, reflective piece, and for the short sharp blow-by-chapter (or should it be chapter-by-blow?) account. We have had free e-books reviewed, and I expect this category will increase. Our instructions have been strict in saying Annals of Botany “publishes reviews of current academic books”, but we are relaxing this criteria, and will use both AoBBlog.com and the Journal (with coverage in the blog too) to review popular books, texts and others where there is some link to botany.

I’m confident this is what I want to do, but now for the poll: what about bad books?