She Treads Softly: The Baby Steps Challenge

Friday, October 19, 2007

The Baby Steps Challenge

I'm going to participate in the Nattie Challenge called The Baby Steps Challenge.

The three books I will read are:
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
The Chatham School Affair by Thomas Cook
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

1 comment:

Heather said...: I loved The Lovely Bones. Post-Birthday World is on my TBR List.; October 25, 2007 at 3:12 PM

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.