Oh, the Agony of a Bad Book

02/21/2010 - Anyone who walks into my home knows that I love books; the piano room, where my beloved grand sits waiting for my attention, is perched in front of a wall-to-wall bookcase filled with all sorts of books. On every shelf, in every nook, I’ve got books piled, some to read, some that need shelving. Unfortunately, I can’t say that they’re all “great” books... especially after a couple of days ago. I’ll elaborate:

When I read an author and enjoy his book, I usually buy his next offering; this was the case with Dan Brown, whose books I’ve enjoyed in the past, even though they’re farfetched and clearly meant to entertain while providing a thin veneer of history to hold together his plots.

However, after reading “The Lost Symbol,” I wanted to find his home phone number and demand my money back. The book was filled with interesting history, but not enough to justify the absurd plot and terrible ending. After reading Brown’s book, I vowed never to buy another of his, and this will be a promise easily-kept.

Such is now the case with James Patterson as well. I just finished “I, Alex Cross,” and found it worse than Brown’s awful book--and this is an achievement not easily accomplished. Patterson released a book that smacked of deadlines and contract fulfillment; it failed in almost every category except for money-waster. The plot was weak, the story unnecessarily grisly, the character development non-existent, the sentiment lace-thin and totally nonbelievable. Here’s a guy suffering through his grandmother’s catastrophic illness, and yet in the next dozen or so pages he goes on as though it never happened. Let’s see, I’ll leave my dying grandmother’s bedside (don’t worry, if you’re foolish enough to read this crap I haven’t given anything away--she may or may not die, although sadly, Patterson’s career will linger on I’m afraid) and go on a meandering hunt for a serial killer.

After all of this, the ending was abrupt and terrible. To add insult to injury, the publisher then proceeds to insert some pages from Patterson’s next steaming pile; I suspect this was to make the book feel thick enough to justify its cost. Sorry, didn’t work, I shan’t be reading any of Patterson’s books ever again.

ON TO A COUPLE OF GOOD BOOKS:

I finished Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” last week, and although I can’t call it his best work, I’ll say that it was interesting enough to get me through 1100 pages, and had a decent ending. Not his strongest release, but a decent one, and I’d give it a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. I read “Duma Key” a month or two back, also by King, and enjoyed it; I recommend this one and give it a 7 or 8.

I also read John LeCarre’s “A Most Wanted Man” lately, and as with all of LeCarre’s books, found it well-written and worthy of note. I’m a huge fan of his books, having read all of them, and this is another that I enjoyed. Again, not his finest, but after “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Smiley’s People,” and especially “The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,” he’ll really have to outdo himself to top those great books.

Perhaps I need to start reading book reviews before I buy books by popular authors; it’s so sad to waste hours on a bad book. As the Italian proverb says, “There is no greater thief than a bad book.”

Got a great book that you read lately? Let me know about it; I’m always in search of my next favorite author!