John Sutherland “How To Read a Novel”
I have to admit, when I first read the title of this book, I was a bit confused. One would think that if one can read at all it shouldn’t be much of a problem to read novels. After all, I have done it for years. For a moment I even was afraid this would be one of those ‘how to interpret novels correctly and discover the hidden theme’ kind of books, which I absolutely loathe. After reading the Amazon reviews, though, I was not only reassured on that point, but also intrigued to find out more.
I found out that the title is completely misleading, for one thing. What this book is, or tries to be, is a help in picking the right novels to read in today’s world of overflowing bookstores, so by rights it should be titled “How To Choose a Novel”.
Nobody can ever hope to read all the books that are published every year and with the prices for new books (especially the hardcover versions) being quite hefty, you obviously need a way to choose the right book for you. But with all those beautiful covers, the enthusing blurbs and the hype surrounding certain books, picking and choosing is easier said than done.
Sutherland tries to give readers some pointers to the possible pitfalls in choosing their reading matter. He covers more or less any point that might influence your decision to read a book or leave it on the shelf, from reviews to reading page 69 in the bookstore, or watching Oprah and see what she recommends. He discusses the relative merits of a “book of the film” versus the “film of the book”, the question of hardcover versus paperback, the annoying phenomenon of overhyped bestsellers, the relative helpfulness of various fiction prizes for deciding on what to pick, and lots of other stuff.
Some of his tips are just plain common sense. Of course you would take the blurb on the back of a novel with a grain of salt, because obviously no publisher would put anything negative about it on there. And reading the first couple of pages should go without saying as well. As to reviews: personally I rather like the reviews on Amazon, because the people writing them usually say what they really think and have no personal store in the success or failure of the book. I just trust those reviews more than the ones of paid reviewers. But that’s just me.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this book, even though I didn’t really learn anything new that would make picking my next book any easier. For the most part this enjoyment was due to the fact that I found John Sutherland a very likeable guy. Reading the book was like having a chat with him about books. He mentioned a lot of books I have read (and some others that I have just added to my wishlist) and generally I agree with his opinion of them. It is certainly not a book you absolutely have to read if you love books, but it doesn’t hurt either.
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