The Books on my Summer Reading List
And the joys of IDGAF DNF
Friends. I’m back from my writers’ festival. (See a jaunty recap here.)
Would you believe out of all the fantastic pearls of wisdom sprinkled – showered! – throughout the three days of brilliant talks and classes with best-selling authors, my favourite Master Class was on editing? I mean, really.
In only 90 minutes, Scottish crime writer Doug Johnstone not only clarified common writing mistakes, but also, bizarrely, made editing fun. He treated the class to a fantastic exercise, boldly offering a page from the first draft of his novel, The Space Between Us. I went through his words, mad with power, giddily slashing sentences and paragraphs. If I had a moustache, I would have twirled it. Doug next handed out the same page of his second draft to compare his edits with ours, and finally, the published version. Fascinating to see what came back, what stayed out, what changed all together. Some changes were subtle: dropping a word here, a comma there. Some were bold: entire sentences annihilated.
I’m someone who tends to wang on, and struggle with killing my darlings; thanks to Doug’s encouragement, I endeavour to be a better editor. Not today, I’m up against it since I was out all weekend learning from the experts, but next time.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, I don’t have time to write a short letter, so long one, it is.
I am a proud DNF-er.
I just did it last week.
A book I had on hold forever finally came through. People gushed over this novel. Headlines screamed about how compelling, and smart, and stylish it is. The author, who already has an enviable career penning deep thoughts and erudite observations for The New York Times magazine and The New York Times newspaper, is lauded as “sharp and talented” with “a keen eye.”
I made it through 20% before punching that “return early” button.
Twenty per cent is my rule.
Life’s too short and my TBR pile teeters on psychopathic, so if a book doesn’t hook me by the time we round the 1/5th mark, it’s end scene for me.
I used to be more patient. I used to have the generosity and stamina to grind it out to the finish. But I was young then, and time and collagen were on my side.
Speaking of time, there’s none like the present, so these are the books I’ve got lined up for summer. Some are new releases and some have been around for a while but I’m just getting to them now.
Alright friends, this is where the curtain falls.
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