Words to Read By: Evaluating Books by Their Blurbs

BLOGGER’S NOTE: I usually try to keep my blog family-friendly and age-appropriate, but this entry will describe briefly some of the things I avoid when choosing reading material.

The last time I was at the library I went on another borrowing binge. As I was scouring the stacks searching for my next Great American (or any other nationality, I’m not particularly picky on that count) Novel, I realized that I was judging books by their covers…but more than that, I was judging them by their blurbs.

This is perfectly acceptable library behavior. Blurbs—the description of the book’s contents either on the back cover or inside the front flap of the dust-jacket—are carefully crafted in order to communicate how great and readable the book is, in order to sell as many copies as possible.  It’s important to remember that a badly written blurb does not mean the book itself is badly written or vise-versa. However, it is also important to put some time into decoding a blurb in order to get a correct idea of what the book will actually be about.

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Some Short Story Reviews

I don’t often review short stories, and that’s mostly because I don’t often read short stories.  Especially during this time of year where I live, the days are short and dreary and windy, making for great atmosphere to read a long novel by Elizabeth Gaskell or one of the Bronte sisters. But just as sometimes one hankers for a feast, and other times is just a pit peckish for a small snack, sometimes it’s just the right time for short stories. I’ve had my fill of Araby, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Awakening from my college years—though oddly enough I didn’t get any Kafka or Dostoyevsky assignments, which is a conundrum and a shame in my opinion. But when it comes to picking out contemporary fiction—short stories and novellas in particular—I look for less depressing fare, mostly quirky, magic-realism or almost science-fictional genres.

Beginnings and Endings…not necessarily in that order…

Every year I make the same reading resolution, and every year I break it: to not start any new book series before I finish the ones I’m already working on. This includes but is not limited to the Amelia Peabody mysteries, all books by P.G Wodehouse, various YA books that seemed like one-off novels until the last page when it read “Such and such characters will return in ________.”  The worse repeat offenders of my ruined resolutions are Agatha Christie novels and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries. Not that I’m complaining; these mysteries, either in paper or audio book form, are among my favorite reads. However, since there are so very many of them, I have given up trying to read them in order.

This had proved problematic for two reasons. First, sometimes Poirot or Wolfe refers to an incident in the past which is actually in a previous novel which I may or may not have read yet.  This is not as problematic for me personally, since chances are by the time I get around to reading that other mystery I will have forgotten the “clue from the future” and besides, these mentions rarely spoil the climax of the whodunit. 

More problematic is when I read the last book of a series and it spoils an aspect of the books that have gone before. Much like trying to watch any of the earlier Newhart episodes after seeing the historic ending, it’s hard to go back “home,” as it were, by reading any previous books.