Holy shit this book is awful
So, as many may have noticed, I’ve been doing a lot of writing about books lately over at Jeff Bloviating at Barnes and Noble and Jeff Bloviating at About.com. It’s a lot of fun, and since I am one of those people who lives in constant danger of being buried under his immense piles of books that he keeps around his house like some sort of over-educated hoarder, it’s a perfect fit. But it’s also a job, so I am often expected or encouraged to read outside my normal taste, including some things I frankly would not choose to read of my own free will. And you know what? It’s been fantastic.
Here’s the thing: Most books have something to offer. I really do believe that — even the books cynically created by marketing divisions to absorb cash from gullible morons, even those books have something in them that you haven’t seen before, or, if nothing else, are edifying in their sheer monstrous evil hollowness. Reading widely doesn’t mean reading an occasional book you haven’t heard of. It means reading shit you would rather walk on glass than read. It means reading shit by political commentators and authors who resemble corporations with divisions pushing novels out of the corporate colon several times a year and reading immensely popular phenomenon novels that appear to have been written by a drunk superfan of other overwrought phenomenon novels.
It means reading everything.
Not all this stuff is good, of course, but it’s all interesting if you find the right angle. And I’ve found myself reading a few books that I would never have otherwise read that turned out to be awesome and incredibly enjoyable books, and as long as that rate hovers somewhere above 0%, I’m pretty much winning.
The Rut
I’m a man of ruts and habits, deep, deep habits that tend to get ossified over time.If left to my own devices I would be reading nothing but classic novels, old science fiction, and old-school detective fiction, repeated endlessly. If I were to design an experiment to encourage me to read more widely, I might create something like this: One third paid assignments, one third rando recommendations from people, one third drunk shopping on BN.com. Maybe a bit more of the latter, depending on how drunk I am that week. Which, judging from past weeks, is typically pretty drunk.
Anything that breaks me out of my usual routines is a good thing. And reading everything — including some hair-raisingly bad books — and then figuring out a way to comment on those books intelligently (or so I kid myself) has been a blast, and will likely continue to be a blast. Some people act like reading a book they know is outside their wheelhouse and is also probably pretty badly written will somehow infect them and ruin their palette for good books. That’s ridiculous. Read the bad books. Think of something smart to say about them. It’s good for you.
Can you find something good to say about a teenage vampire romance novel?
Probably. Is there a novel out there so devoid of ideas that I can’t say anything nice about it? Sure. But it’s a surprisingly small number. Of course, maybe I just have no taste – though I should specify that finding *something* good to say about a book doesn’t necessarily mean I think it’s a *good* book.
If you can find a copy, read Spindrift: Flotsam on a Psychic Sea.
Note: you will need to be *very* drunk.
Done and … done.
Pretty recently I realized that a book I’d borrowed from the library was turning out to be the opposite of my cup of tea, but I read it anyway and largely for reasons similar to ones in this post. Gotta read widely, gotta see what is going on out there outside my comfort zone.
Unfortunately this book, in the end, came across as a really smug and self-righteous rehash of The Lord of the Flies. “Humanity sucks,” said the author, “except the protag, who is
probably based at least loosely on meis too smart to fall for the veneer of civilization in the first place.”I guess the author was pretty good at turning a phrase, though? If I have to find something good to say about it? I don’t actually regret reading it. It was interesting, because it’s rare to see a published novel so misanthropic. Generally when someone has THAT little faith in humanity they don’t have a message to share with the world, certainly not one that requires the passion necessary to write and publish an entire novel. So there was the feeling of reading something unique.
There are still books, though, that I would rather walk on glass than read. So I agree with this post but also confess to lacking the strength to carry out its wisdom. You’re a more rugged reader than I.
Oh man, half that comment is in italics and I can’t edit it, sorry. >.<
Just to be mean, I’m leaving it that way. Thanks for the comment!