I Like to Read

I'm currently reading two books on my Kindle. One of them is by acclaimed author Cormac McCarthy callled Blood Meridian. The other is by Lemony Snicket and is part of the fictional author's A Series of Unfortunate Events series. Blood Meridian is considered by some to be one of the best American novels ever written. Lemony Snicket is technically a series written for children and young teenagers. Blood Meridian is, thus far (like all of the Cormac McCarthy books I've read) AWFUL. Lemony Snicket's books are AWESOME (I've read them once before).

Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" in all its glory.

So what makes a good book? Some people will tell you it's the writing. Yeah, I suppose writing matters. If I spent my entire walk through your book tripping over commas and bumping my head on typos, it will distract from my enjoyment. I get that. That said, I just finished a great book called One Day by David Nicholls. There were an alarming amount of typos, but I cared so much about the two central characters of the book, I couldn't leave their world even when the book wasn't in my hands.

"If you're going to read only one book about grocery carts, make sure it's The Road." --Oprah

Other people will tell you it's the idea. Another one of Cormac McCarthy's overrated books is called The Road. It won a lot of awards. Oprah liked it. It's about the end of the world. It also sucks. I love post-apocalyptic stories as much as anyone, but this one is about a man and his boy walking through a dead world with a shopping cart. Every now and then they have a tense moment. Yippee. Sometimes when I walk through Hy-Vee with my shopping cart I bump into someone I don't know but who knows me, and it's tense for a bit until I remember who they are. That doesn't mean that I should spread that story out over 250 pages.

The situational plot doesn't really matter. Whatever neat concept the book is going for doesn't matter. A plot can involve dinosaurs, furniture, or British people, but the only way a book will be good is if it features characters I like. That's the problem with Cormac's books. No one is likable. They all kill each other. Also, he doesn't use quotation marks. I don't know why he doesn't do that. Being a literary author, I'm sure he has an overly pretentious reason. I probably wouldn't understand his overly pretentious reason because he probably stated said reason with too many big words.

This book is violent, sexist, racist, and filled with a bunch of drunks, but somehow it still manages to be boring.

On a happier note, do you know what has a compelling story? Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. If you would have told me a rather dark story about an evil Count Olaf making the lives of three orphans miserable could be funny, sweet, and meaningful, I would have said, "Olaf is a good name for a Count." Then I would have taken your suggestion and read the first book. Then I would have enjoyed the first book and read the next twelve of them. The three orphans laugh together and support each other at every turn. The books make me literally angry at the naive, stupid adult characters in the book not named Olaf. The author also has some of the best random asides of any author ever. For instance, he started chapter three in the fifth book of the series "The Austere Academy" with the following:

"The expression “Making a mountain out of a molehill” simply means making a big deal out of something that is actually a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came about. Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they have never caused anyone any harm except for maybe a stubbed toe if you were walking through the wilderness without any shoes on. Mountains, however, are very large mounds of earth and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes two countries fight over who really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy or wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a war or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe."

Source: Snicket, Lemony (2009). A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy (pp. 31-32). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition.

Compare that to Cormac McCarthy, who would write something like this:

I am a character. I don't have a name. The book will keep calling me the Kid or the Man or something. I'm talking right now but you don't know I'm talking because there are no quotation marks. This will get very annoying as time goes on because I'm not doing this for any reason. I'm so sad.

Source: McCarthy, Cormac (2013). Cormac's Next Crappy Book (pp. all of them). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition.

A good book for you to read this summer.

I will leave you all with this: summer is coming. You need to find something to read. Cougar Town won't be on TV until the fall, so you need to keep your brain occupied. You can only handle so much exercise before your heart explodes so start reading. I'd suggest you read Lemony Snicket because it's great. I'd also suggest Harry Potter. Or, if you're an adult that refuses to acknowledge most of the best stories are kids stories, read The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon or Catch 22 by Joseph Heller or, better yet, anything the great Kurt Vonnegut ever produced. You can even read Cormac McCarthy. I know a lot of people like him. Either way, just read. It's good for you.

The master: Read Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse-Five.