Is a preview a review?

Jim Schmidt takes me to task for "reviewing" a book I hadn't read and notes that this isn't the first time. Well, it isn't the first time I have heard this criticism, which is in error.

When I'm linking to a description of a book and I use terms like "looks like" or "it seems" I am signalling that I have not read the book and am reacting to the marketing of the book: the description of its content, the blurbs, it's positioning in the marketplace. If a book is sold on the basis of how Ohio won the war, I don't have to read it to be provoked. The provocation is in the marketing. The publisher is trolling.

I am going to make this previewing impression more explicit in the future so that there can be no mistake; let people criticize me on sounder ground than faking a review.