These kinds of reference books provide overviews that address major issues and topics within a field of study. The authors not only discuss key content but they also provide a more sophisticated level of analysis and contextualization than you might find in a textbook or introductory study. The authors are chosen for their research in specific areas and deliver authoritative essays. The material they choose to include in their bibliographies are good points of departure for further research and reading. Titles useful for this class include:
You can find more companions, guides and handbooks by searching in your college's Tripod catalog 
in
Collections of Handbooks from Notable Publishers:
Literature reviews often resemble annotated bibliographies. The point of this kind of resource is to gather together many of the important sources pertinent to a given subject, topic, or question. These are particularly useful when you are first getting acquainted with what has been written in a certain area of inquiry and may not be sure where to begin, or when you have limited time, how to determine what the most important literature for you to read may be.
In some cases the descriptive annotation may be very limited (and some of these resources may simply be bibliographies, as lists of citations), or in the case of bibliographic essays, they are complete articles, often driven by a thesis/make an argument.
