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someone who said he wasn’t going to buy your book before he’d read the reviews in the papers. No, that’s not how he put it, before WE have read the reviews in the papers. As if personality was the last shred of a worn rag: We, the united pedants, who have no personal opinion about your books, wait till the reviews have given you at least 6 out of 10.
— Oct 28, 2025 02:19PM
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Katia N
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Be yourself, but learn from this that ideals go to pot through your fault and mine, but most of all through the fault of those who invented idealism in order to make some money out of it.
— Oct 26, 2025 08:51AM
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Jan-Maat
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Oct 29, 2025 12:25AM
As a pedantic pedant, I am happy to admit that I rely heavily on book reviews , mostly to know which books to avoid!
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Jan-Maat wrote: "As a pedantic pedant, I am happy to admit that I rely heavily on book reviews , mostly to know which books to avoid!"As usual, you've made me smile and also think at the same time, Jann. I am really not sure what I do. And it sounds embarrassing :-) With the classics it is easier. On the other hand, I know that the new books that are getting very high rating and very positive reviews are not for me. It is almost 100% negative correlation. And I tried:-) But other than that it is trickier. I tend not to read anything about the book before I read a book. But that assumes I am already interested in the book. And the question is how I am getting to this stage? There is of course a handful of people whose taste I trust. More often than not by reading a sample or discovering a book in a bookshop or by knowing the publishing press and like their previous output. All of it of course if I have not heard of an author before. And this is becoming rarer. It is much easier with non-fiction; I just need to be interested in the topic. Plus on this front, I am pretty open to recommendations.
Not reading anything about a book before reading a book sounds interesting. It sounds as though when you take a walk in the park the wind rustlibg the leaves of the trees advises you which books to read.Sticking to a publisher is relying on rbe consistency of that publisher, it seems to work for you though. I think you are happy with the books yiu write about on goodreads, although of course maybe you don't write about the ones that you throw out the window in a cold fury for the dogs to rip apart?
Jan-Maat wrote: "Not reading anything about a book before reading a book sounds interesting. It sounds as though when you take a walk in the park the wind rustlibg the leaves of the trees advises you which books to..."'you take a walk in the park the wind rustlibg the leaves of the trees advises you which books to read' - haha:-) Well, sometimes almost like that - there is this podcast 'beyond zero'. The host talks to the people, mainly writers, translators or critics about their favourite books. Normally they do not go into details. So I walk and learn about what others consider their all time favourites:-) But more on other occasions it is more idiosyncratic. For example with this book. Of course Ilse and Jeroen-) But it has started with me reading Penguin short stories by the Dutch writers (never mind Flemish or even French-Belguim) and realising I do not know anything about them. So I started looking, asked Ilse and Jeroen and found this one is a classic. Similar with Yourcenar etc.
I do occasionally write about the ones I want to throw out of the window, but much rarer recently. The main reason I either end up throwing them before I've finished or I am exhausted and do not want to spend even longer with them:-) The last book I ended up reviewing 'scarcely' was an essay collection A Horse at Night: On Writing. I've just could not restrain myself with that one:-)
The most tricky situation in terms of reading (and reviewing sometimes as well) is when some parts of reading experience is closer to a torture, but while you are getting through you find something that you would have missed if you wound not subject yourself to this:-) Example is the book ive just finished by new Nobel prize winner for literature. I loved his three earlier novels; did not like at all the forth one. And this Seiobo There Below is about 30% brilliant, but the rest is though factually rich but close to window territory based upon the ratio of reading effort/to author's insight:-) Now I am trying to write a review and try to see whether I still think what I thought when I was reading.
A quote especially for you:
‘unwished-for gentle breeze of recognition strikes him as he departs, it is as if he already suspects that the Alhambra does not offer the knowledge that we know nothing of the Alhambra, that it itself knows nothing of this not-knowing, because not-knowing does not even exist.’
That keeps me occupied:-))
