In a book that is as humorous as it is learned, author Sutherland tells you how to read fiction better than you do now. He reminds readers how the delicate charms of fiction can be at once wonderful and inspired and infuriating. On one level this is about novels: how they work, what they're about, what makes them good or bad, and how to talk about them. At a deeper level, this book describes what happens when a reader meets a novel. Will a great love affair begin? Will the rendezvous end in disappointment? Taking his readers to the bookshop, Sutherland helps them judge a book by its cover, wondering aloud what genre might be best, even going so far as to analyze one of the latest American bestsellers, all to help the reader choose the novel that is right for him or her.--From publisher description.
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Sutherland is obviously well-read, and any reader can discover this from his effortless allusions to well-known classics to today's popular fiction, to books I've never heard of. (Thankfully, the latter is a small number.) His prose is easy to read despite it being full of asides to his audience. If you don't know much about the publishing industry, this is a great introductory book, as Sutherland goes through the history of the novel, as well as take the novel apart, explaining every facet of the book you hold in your hands.
I will say, however, that about halfway through the book, I started to feel like Sutherland was just ranting about the deprecation of the situation, that people don't spend enough time reading fiction and yet, there isn't anything we can do about it, because there is no way anyone today can possibly read everything that is available. Which is part of his point. A moderately entertaining read, I feel like I wasn't exactly the target audience, given that I knew a lot of what Sutherland said already, but hadn't read it in such an entertaining, so characteristically cynical and British fashion.
Originally posted at http://worderella.com/2007/03/book-how-to-read-a-novel/
