I was talking with a friend recently about the overwhelming number of books (not to mention digital books) on offer, and the impossibility of keeping on top of what is out there, and what, from the huge pile, one might actually want to read.
I know this is not in any way an original thought, but there are times when the choice between 100 brands of breakfast cereal, (or 100 equally garishly packaged books all brandishing equally gushing by-lines to their excellence and life-changing quality) is just too much.
Sometimes it would be rather restful to be able to identify that what you really want is a wholesome packet of perfectly ordinary oats, unenhanced, doing what you expect oats to do, not claiming to change your life, be better than any other oats, or, even worse, claiming to be box of diamonds, rather than the oats they so obviously are
I’ve been burned too many times now, particularly by hyped marketing, often from ‘quality’ papers on how this or that book is the beautifully written heaven of my dreams, life will never be the same without reading it, and how it rivals (insert name of excellently written book on particular subject matter, genre or setting) and (insert name of second highly lauded book on aforementioned particular subject matter, genre or setting) in its particular splendour.
Excitedly I embark upon the new golden wonder book – only to find that what lies within will, if I’m lucky, be average or competent – but may equally well be toe-curlingly BAD.
The Victorian writer George Gissing identified an ‘I’ll say good things about your book if you say good things about mine’ clique in professional reviewing well over a hundred years ago. i don’t suppose things have improved much
It strikes me that the factory production line of books cannot be kept up with by any professional reader with a life to live, not to mention their own novel to write. What goes on must surely be skimming and the turning out of adulatory phrases in a ‘hope for kind payback’ kind of way.
And that’s just the books that succeed in getting a publisher.
Having recently struggled with reading an ARC of a book which shall remain nameless in terms of the appalling crimes it committed against sense, veracities of time, place, plot and characterisation – not to mention coherent language and dialogue, I feel heartily disinclined to want to read those who are self-publishing. The rationale being ‘if a book THAT bad got a publisher, what does it say about the one’s which DON’T’ (Apologies to those who deserve to get the publisher they cannot, as yet, find)
Lest this all sound like resentful sour grapes from an unpublished writer – I state my interest:
I do NOT have a burning desire to be a writer (if I wrote, it would be about a particular area of expertise/skill which I have some knowledge of – i.e. it would not be fiction)
I do not have a novel/play/book of poetry languishing in my cupboard waiting to be polished up and sent to editors, agents and publishers. Such a thing does not even exist in my head.
I am, though, a lifelong, excited, enthusiastic, thoughtful, immersive appreciator of literature and in awe of good writing and good writers – of pretty well all sorts.
Time was when I could browse the bookshop, or read the broadsheets arts pages, and generally know that if a book was described as having the qualities I was looking for, there would be truth in the claims.
That time is long gone. Moonshine made of potato peelings gets put in a shiny bottle and sold as champagne. Gallons of the stuff
I stopped relying on professional reviewers a long while ago (other than certain writers I value, if THEY say good things about another writer, I’m half-inclined to listen)
I began to trust ‘ordinary reviewers’ like me, on Amazon, liking some of the same stuff and disliking some of the same stuff for similar reasons.
However, the moving in big time of shill reviewers who only review one book – the particular potato peeling variety which is released and instantly gets a handful of 5 star rave reviews – often poorly written, plus the various shenanigans and jostlings and foulings which go on in Amazon’s ‘Top Reviewers’ ranking battles, means I trust that avenue less and less. If a reviewer gets appreciative of their own ranking, they know that to give something a negative review is to court the attentions of the shillers, so it seems to me honesty is declining fast in that area.
IS there light at the end of the tunnel? – well, I must say I HAVE started to look very 
carefully at what bloggers, not selling anything, might be reading, and finding books which people are carefully reviewing, judiciously saying why they do or do not like the book, and following particular readers and their recommendations.
But having (by just such a route) been steered towards a couple of properly brilliant writers, new to me, I’m sad that the trumpeting publicity and promotion machine seems to not be serving those particular writers well. They languish unread and un-bought.
Meanwhile, I continue to shake my head in disbelief to see writing commended as beautiful when it would not pass muster in a high school essay.
I’m (almost) becoming afraid of taking a chance on new writers. It may be time to revisit writers long turned to dust, who understood the craft
Lady Fancifull 
Agreed! Agreed! Agreed!!
Honestly I blame editors and publishers more than authors. Presumably the author actually believes their work is good and is unaware of the grammatical howlers. But that’s what the editor and publisher get paid to sort out. I have slightly more sympathy with the self-published author than the publisher who publishes dross and sells it as gold. And the nameless book in question has three 5-star reviews on Amazon, all from first-time reviewers, one of whom who compares this barely coherent drivel to Dickens! Sometimes I despair – and then I stumble across someone like Ken Kalfus and my faith in the magic of writing is restored. At least I’m confident that long after the nameless one has gone to the big recycling bin in the sky, discerning readers will still be finding Kalfus and Flanery and being genuinely thrilled and moved by them.
Maybe we should start a Soapbox on Sunday meme…
Yep, you are right of course; the not very good writers can’t necessarily be blamed for their lack of insight though one might wish they had paid more attention to basic grammar and done the necessary research into whatever it was they were writing about. Athill, in Stet was writing about the changes in publishing, and the decline in small independent publishing houses whose staff had a deep respect and love for literature, and, though of course the need to make a living was needed, an author could be, and would be, nurtured, not expected to deliver today’s ‘what is big at the moment is a book about…..’ and shift high volumes of stock
Recently there was an article in the Guardian (don’t remember author or title), panning the “book reviewer.” The author was talking about the New York Times Book Review section, and I sent him a short reply, “stop gutting literature.” Writers writing book reviews are as needed now, if not more than ever. Book reviewers are writers, they are writing about literature. What I especially like about your blog, is that you have intricate sensibilities, and write about works outside of the mainstream. You have a very unique and great blog. And, you are a writer.
Ah Folio and Ink, that moved me. I should have qualified I am not a writer of fiction, I was of course being too narrow. I do write factual material as part of my professional role, but although of course people who write books about…..science, politics, history, how to use Windows must of course BE writers as well as having knowledge about what they write, I probably too narrowly think that a writer is someone who creates works of imagination.
I was listening to an interesting series of lectures by a psychoanalyst yesterday, and something he was talking about surprised me – this was the damning effect of unthinking overpraising, which starts early in childhood. Effectively he was saying (and cited some studies) that the unthinking praise of a child for something they can do ‘what a beautiful picture’ as a given, is as damning to confidence as the blanket withholding of praise. This was a new thought to me – and an interesting one. They discovered that praising what was true (the effort) in a task, but not the result, meant that the group who had their effort praised were more likely to work at the next more difficult task, whereas those who had had the overpraise as a given, gave up the challenge. And in some ways it connected for me with the overpraising of mediocre work.
The novel which finally called forth my ‘rant’ was a dreadful piece of writing. Sure, there are always subjective responses – but there are some obvious ‘rules’ to writing and the ability to construct a sentence which makes sense might be one of them. This book had so many abysmally written sentences which failed to make sense – high school stuff. And yet, and yet, the hype was ‘beautifully written’ Was the editor incompetent or overworked? There was a lot of inappropriate sex in the book (inappropriate because historical time and class, and cultural influences had been ignored) I cynically felt this may have ‘sold’ it.
Not everything needs to be ‘high literary fiction’ of course. Am currently reading a book of eulogies about highly successful mainstream hardboiled detective writer Robert B Parker, by other writers from the genre. Simple books with a clear repeating formula – but within that, extremely well written.
As a writer, who hopes one day to be published, your last remark sort of stung. Yes, a lot of mainstream, popular writing is garbage, poorly written, but I also know of many emerging, indie writers who are insanely talented. Hope is not completely dead. Remember that.
Yes, I’m sorry A.
I did say ‘almost’.
And really, what i am bewailing is the fact that books are being treated like commodities. Writers, like any other creative artists, and indeed like anyone with any sort of skill and craft, need nurturing. Even that oh-so-bad book I read, might have been a good deal better if an editor with a love of writing and with skills in helping a writer’s voice to come clear, had helped that writer into better expression.
Agreed. I feel that the only nourishment I happen to get comes from good friends – on the Internet and a few in ‘real life.’ For the most part, it is a constant struggle. I find solace in small literary journals and the like, but as for the larger problem of breaking into a bigger platform, that seems like an impossibly. I suppose, as a writer, you need to find your niche. And then network like mad. Maybe the 21st century writer is many things at once – publicist, publisher, editor.
On a slightly unrelated note… Have you read that Kalfus book? I have it on my to-read list. Mostly because I am a sucker for awesome covers.
Yes I have (and reviewed it on this blog) Its one of my 2 ‘best books of this year’ The other is Patrick Flanery’s Fallen Land
The 2 of them are what is ruining new reading for me at the moment (and the new Hosseini) as they rather grabbed hold of me and fully possessed me.
It’s a wonderful book, and to add to the wobbly pile of books to be read is now an earlier book by him.
The cover, for once, is exquisitely adding to and illumininating the book (well at least the soulful lady’s face rising out of the sands cover is) – there seems to be another (dull) cover in blue with a man on a horse, in front of a blue pyramid, looking like a weird Western