  Book reviews play important roles in scholarly communication especially in
arts and humanities disciplines. By using Web of Science's Science Citation
Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation
Index, this study probed the patterns and dynamics of book reviews within these
three indexes empirically during the past decade (2006-2015). We found that the
absolute numbers of book reviews among all the three indexes were relatively
stable but the relative shares were decreasing. Book reviews were very common
in arts and humanities, common in social sciences, but rare in natural
sciences. Book reviews are mainly contributed by authors from developed
economies such as the USA and the UK. Oppositely, scholars from China and Japan
are unlikely to contribute to book reviews.
