Look to your right, and you’ll see a “Recommended Reads” section on my sidebar. (Scroll down if you don’t see it. Please, be my guest.)
I decided to use the GoodReads widget in a slightly different way.
Instead of announcing to the world what I’m reading right this very moment, I decided to use it to recommended those books I especially liked, really liked, or thought were amazing (GoodRead’s classifications, not mine).
Now: I’m not a critic. I don’t judge stories based on artistic merit. (Well, I don’t recommend stories based on artistic merit.) There are brilliantly-written stories that I’d never recommend (A Widow for One Year, for example), and there are stories I’ll insist that everybody read, even though they’re flawed on some level (Harry Potter).
So: how do I judge a story? In two ways.
First and foremost: as a reader. Like all readers, I want an experience. If a story gives me a great time — if it makes me feel a range of emotions, if it gives me wonder and pleasure — I’ll love that story until the end of my days, despite its flaws. Hence: The Dragons of Autumn Twilight is on my recommended list, as is War and Peace. Yes, one is a D&D novel and the other is frickin’ Tolstoy. But both gave me deep, emotional experiences — which is what I want most when I read.
Second: as a writer. (Yes, I’m one of those annoying bloggers who is also an unpublished writer.) Reading as a writer means I read on both the macro-level (character, plot, setting, structure) and on the micro-level (words, sentences, style).
However: (is it me, or am I using an abundance of colons in this post?) I do not recommend books based on writing, but only how they moved me. Often, great writing means a great emotional experience, but that’s not always the case. Both A Widow for One Year and The World According to Garp are brilliantly-written novels, but only Garp makes the cut because Garp moved me whereas Widow left me flat.
So there you have it. The recommended reads list is what it is: books that worked . . . for me.
