Cultivating the capacity to be delighted

   We had the silly side of Ron Charles on Friday, but here he is being (fairly) serious about the business of book reviewing at his newspaper, and I was very interested to hear what he had to say. The Washington Post gets 'a few' more books a day than I do (though the current average arrival rate chez Cornflower is far in excess of what I can possibly read), and then they make fairly snap decisions in order to reduce that to a manageable number. Of course they have several editors to do the whittling and many reviewers to do the reading and writing while here there is only me, but still some of the same sorting criteria apply to my small-scale operation as to their much larger one.

    I was glad to see that Ron Charles feels his team's aim is to help readers find books which they might want to read next, and that they make an effort to "reach" their audience and serve them in this way. In a longer speech he talks about the reviewer "cultivating the capacity to be delighted", using their judgement to select what is reviewed from the "rapidly rising sea of words", putting in front of the reader books worth reading. He has a point there - and a good ethos, and that's partly why I don't fill a great deal of space on these pages talking about books I feel have been poorly done, and why I'm not necessarily much in thrall to the bestseller list, but you should be able to find a lot of good things on this site, whether new books or older ones, famous titles or the less well known, and while I delight in talking about (most of) them, I hope you'll be similarly delighted to read them.

Comments

[LizF]

At the risk of sounding horribly sycophantic, that is why your blog is always my first port of call.
I have found a lot of books via your blog which I might otherwise have missed and I have enjoyed them all.
Keep up the good work!

[The Reading Ape]

"Delight" is such a great word here. For those of us who read a lot (and write about reading) surprise and pleasure can often become a casualty of speed and volume; there is so much that it is hard to revel in the excellent work that we come across.

[Michael Faulkner]

Someone told me about Ron Charles's video reviews but our internet connection on the island is too slow for video, so now that you mention him I'm going to grab a broadband connection on the mainland. Broadening my horizons as ever, Cornflower..

[Jo]

I have found many a book through your blog, that maybe I would have overlooked somewhat.

Your posts are always interesting and even if I do not comment all the time, I do read them.

[Cornflower]

Thankyou, Liz.

[Cornflower]

You are quite right!

[Cornflower]

Daft but fun, Mike (though pretty sharp, too!).

[Cornflower]

Many thanks, Jo.

[Cristina]

"Cultivating the capacity to be delighted" - what a wonderful sentiment and one that should be applied to one's outlook on life in general.
I appreciate how you present only books that you think are worth reading or that your readers may like. I am trying to do this with my own blog and my reading in general. There are too many unpleasant things in life already so we should at least be able to turn to books that, if not entirely for entertainment, fulfill and complete us as well.

[Cornflower]

I agree, Cristina; that sentiment has limitless possible applications.

[Dark Puss]

Cristina, some of us value thoughtful negative criticism of books that have not struck a chord with the reader too. I know it sits uneasily with many, including Cornflower, but I don't myself buy into the concept of only positive reviewing. Of course if you only manage to read books you like that's a different matter.