A Letter from the Book Review Editor

I am pleased to announce that in January 2021 the AJA will begin to release book reviews on a monthly basis. They will be announced via the AJA e-Update email and posted on AJA Online (https://www.ajaonline.org/). We are making this change to provide our content to readers more rapidly, as this new procedure will make it easier for our readers to discover new books—and ideas—that interest them. The change will also benefit authors and publishers by making reviews of their books available closer to the time of publication, as well as reviewers by issuing their contributions sooner. We currently publish book reviews between three and six months after submission; our new plan should reduce the time lag by one to two months, on average. All book reviews will continue to be available as open access content on AJA Online and listed in the table of contents of each quarterly issue. Readers can sign up for the AJA e-Update at https://www.ajaonline.org/e-update.

During the last year, we made other changes to our book review process. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many publishers are transitioning to sending ebooks or information about newly published books rather than hard copies. We want to encourage publishers to continue this practice if they desire and are asking them, if possible, to ship a printed book directly to a reviewer once the appropriate person has been identified. Our reviewers—already spending many hours reading screens—are for the most part eager to engage with books in paper formats.

The AJA welcomes new reviewers: those who hold a Ph.D. degree may submit a curriculum vitae specifying geographic, methodological, temporal, or thematic fields of expertise at the address below. To request a book, recommend a reviewer, or comment on issues of policy, I encourage all readers to contact me here as well. To share opinions on AJA book reviews, readers may use the comments feature that appears online at the end of each review.

I look forward to this new process of issuing book reviews on a monthly basis, as it promises to be a significant step toward the timely provision of resources to AJA readers. 

David L. Stone
Book Review Editor
Department of Classical Studies
University of Michigan
2160 Angell Hall
435 South State Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1003
bookreviews@archaeological.org