A definite must read

Abstract The present study aims at clarifying how in literary reviews value judgements about novels are justified. For this purpose we first give an overall description of the place of literary reviews in journalism. Then, we characterize literary reviews as an argumentative activity type. Next, we turn to the argumentative pattern prototypical of literary reviews. To illustrate our account of literary reviews, we present an exemplary analysis of a particular review. In so doing we propose a tool for the empirical study of literary reviews.