When you don’t like the book you’re reading….
By Richard Horan | 07.29.09
I’ve always wondered what percentage of books started actually get finished, and of those books not finished, which are on loan and which are purchased at the local bookstore. I tend to think that people will suffer through a bad book that they bought in order to protect their investment, but cast a free-read aside at the first sign of yawndom. It’s probably a similar percentage to those movies viewed in their entirety at home on television versus those watched at the local cinema. Perhaps I’m a little more sensitive to this issue of reading books cover to cover because I write and review books for a living. Like an idealistic teacher who looks at each and every student in the classroom as capable of wondrous achievements, I approach the reading of a new book with sanguine expectation.
But cockeyed optimism will carry you just so far (about fifty pages).
I mention this because when I started writing book reviews eight years ago, I made a vow never to review a book I couldn’t finish. Easier said than done. I think it was the third book I was contracted to review that I realized my folly. After reading nearly two hundred pages (holding my nose most of the way), I just couldn’t continue. I had to call the newspaper and tell them the bad news – no review. They understood.
But that didn’t solve my problem. It only made me aware of it. From then on it seemed every galley proof and editor’s copy I picked up was a real stinker. Before too long I was well on my way to becoming a raging bibliophobe. I tell you I couldn’t even look at a book without grinding my teeth and getting a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I was in a real pickle. A handful of books assigned and nary a one read and reviewed. Something had to give. So, I took stock of the situation, even consulted a Zen mystic healer (an old roommate of mine). The epiphany came like a lightning bolt. Here it is: As a novelist I was being asked to review other novels. Asking a novelist to review other novels is like asking an Italian chef to critique another Italian chef’s spaghetti sauce. How objective could I be? Answer: Don’t review novels.
Now I review everything but novels e.g., biographies, histories, science, travelogues, polemics, etc. And it seems every book I open is a finisher. Ultimately (or I should say ironically) isn’t that the mission of every book, to teach the reader something novel?
Richard Horan is an award-winning author who lives and writes in Central New York. His forthcoming novel, “SEEDS: One Man’s Journey to Find America’s Literary Trees,” is due out in 2010.
Comments
2. Mike | 07.30.09
Years ago I was reading some Canadian novelist. Finished one book but had a bad feeling about it and 10-200 pages nto his second book I realized he didn’t have anything to say.
On a different note, maybe topic for another conversation, how many people have read a book, enjoyed it, and gone back to reread it and scratched their heads asking why did I like it in the first place. What I have been searching for is a word in the english language that describes this.
4. Mell Schoening | 07.30.09
“Three Cups of Tea” A must read— I’ve been slow getting to it, but savor every word about this remarkable man and his work.
5. Jolie | 07.30.09
Life’s too short to read bad books—no matter where it comes from or how much you paid…
6. Lisa Guidarini | 07.30.09
I don’t feel the slightest guilt at not finishing a book, whether I bought it or borrowed it from the library. There are just too many very good books out there to bother finishing a bad one.
I, too, review books, and when I dislike a book I say so on my blog. I occasionally will mention it as something I couldn’t personally get along with, but state if I couldn’t finish it and give reasons why that was so. I often try to find something good to say about it, like “I really liked the font,” or, “The page numbers were reassuringly successive,” but too much junk is getting published not to rail against terrible books. That makes me angry, so I feel the need to express dismay at awful books, whether I finished them or not.
P.S.: What on earth are “America’s Literary Trees?” I must know.
7. Joan | 07.30.09
I started reading a book club assigned book last month. I was holding my
nose all the way also. I finally put it down unfinished. I don’t normally do this with book club selections. The author’s unusual writing style and the moral of the story was excellent. I just could not stand reading the gross over-detailed explanations. The book was from the library. Even if purchased I would have donated it to the local library’s bookstore–unfinished. Similar
events described in another author’s book did not affect me in this way.
8. Richard Horan | 07.30.09
Dear Lisa,
You make a great point about expressing dismay for awful books. However, keep in mind that “Gone With the Wind” was rejected 38 times before it was finally bought and published. My wife always says, “There’s no accounting for taste.” As a novelist, I’ve had been blessed with great reviews and even better readers. However, I’ve received a few nasty critiques and letters along the way. I made the personal commitment never to be nasty to other writers. Writing is hard enough; we don’t need hecklers along the way. Nonetheless, you are right about too much junk. We live in a noisy world (as another car alarm beep, beep, beeps off in the distance) with printed information doubling every five years; we certainly don’t need more junk.
As for the literary trees. I am traveling around America, collecting seeds from trees from famous American writers’ childhood homes. Most of the trees I have collected knew and saw and delighted the authors when they were alive. I take the seeds and put them in pots and grow them. I have about a hundred little saplings everywhere I look, scattered around my home. I have thousands of seeds in potting soil in my refrigerator. If they wrote something great and they’re American, I’ve probably got a tree growing from their home. Have any suggestions of trees I should meet?
Best,
Richard Horan, author
Life in the Rainbow, Goose Music, SEEDS
9. Alia Yunis | 07.31.09
I’m still waiting for the universally loved or hated book. There are a few for kids under 12, but I don’t think beyond that.
10. Terrie Goldstein | 07.31.09
I am an avid reader and when I am loyal to a writer I read all that they write. But although I savor the new book of my favorite author, there have been some that I just couldn’t read. Or felt so negative about the book that I returned it to the bookstore for a refund…didn’t even want it in my collection.
And the second think I do is read the first chapter to see if it grabs me…and then read the ending. I want to see if I really care how the author moved the character and the plot forward. Sometimes I never read the middle…maybe its my loss. I’ll never know.
11. Ruth Douillette | 08.15.09
Once out of school, I vowed never to finish a book that I didn’t like. However, I *do* finish all the books, I review. It’s only fair. As an editor of the Internet Review of Books, I occasionally (rarely) have reviewers who say the book they are reviewing is so bad they can’t summon up a good word. In that case, we scratch the review. The point of a review isn’t to trash a book, but telling some of the negative along with the positive in an otherwise worthy book is fine.
Richard, Your book sounds intriguing. It’s called a novel in your bio, but it sounds like nonfiction to me.
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1. rod at the worsthorse.com | 07.29.09
what’s a “Zen mystic healer”? as a longtime student of Zen and Buddhism, this sounds quite dubious to me.