Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified

Going Gonzo with Tim Dorsey

Greetings, Friends and Detractors:

I apologize for my long delay between posts. So much going on, and yet so little! 

Have you all noticed how Amazon is now making more money by selling marketing space to self-published people than it is in selling books? The revolution continues. Meanwhile, the big publishers and agents are absolutely paralyzed, unwilling to take on ANYTHING new, different, interesting, or exciting, and churning out the same tired stuff from writers who outsource their plots (we all know who I'm talking about) and other big names.

I shouldn't say this, but I've found that it makes no sense to buy any new hardcover by a best-selling author. All I have to do is wait three months for it to be remaindered. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for the writers I like, because the print runs aren't that large. Curses!

But I must not let myself get too down about the state of the industry, as we independent publishers are still doing fabulous things. Our theme song is "Tubthumping" from Chumbawumba: "I get knocked, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down..."

I've read some pretty good stuff lately, and when my wife asks me for reviews, I've found myself saying, "Decently written, good plot, fast-paced, like the characters." That's the equivalent of a rave. But there are still some books out there whose writing knocks me on my rear-end.  I want to share some of it here on Mysterious Matters (and I hope I won't forget to keep sharing these tidbits).

If you're not familiar with Tim Dorsey, let me put a plug in for him here. The word most often used to describe him is "gonzo," and that's a fair description. His "hero" (note the use of quotes) is Serge Storms, a total psychopath with a lovable twist: He's a serial killer who kills only the worthy -- specifically, the many, many scam artists who call Florida home. Serge is known for the highly creative ways that he dispatches the ne'er-do-wells. His sidekick, Coleman, is a Stoner with a capital S. You can't call these books "mysteries" as much as "bat-shit crazy capers" in which Serge spouts gonzo philosophy and Coleman looks for his next joint to light up. So, you have to be pretty open-minded to this kind of stuff before you purchase your first Dorsey opus, which have titles like Gator-a-Go-Go, Pineapple Grenade, and When Elves Attack.

Sometimes I get so giddy when reading a Dorsey book that I lose sight of the fact that the dude can write.  I want to give you a sample from Tiger Shrimp Tango that shows what this guy can do:

The name's Mahoney. I get lied to for a living. The sign on the door says I'm a private eye, but I mainly keep bartenders and bookies in business.

My best friends--a rumpled fedora and bottle of rye--sat silently on my desk, waiting anxiously for the next case like a weasel-beater in a peep-show booth with incorrect change.

The day began like any other, except it was a Tuesday, not the other six. One of those pleasant days, real nice, right up until it kicks you in the Adam's apple like a transvestite in stilettos. The air coming through my window was heavy with heat, humidity, and double crosses.

Down on the street, people's lives bounce off one another like eight balls in Frankie's billiard joint, until one of them lands in the corner pocket of my office. They pay two hundred clams up front to spill their guts about frame jobs, missing identical twins, and alimony. Most of them just stink up my oxygen with alibis that are as shaky as an analogy that doesn't fit.

But this next one was a broad. She knocked on my door like knuckles hitting wood. I told her to have a seat and gave her a hankie. She blew her nose like a British ambulance, and her sob story had more twists than a dragon parade in Chinatown. But I have a soft spot for the farmer's-daughter types who take a wrong turn out of the dairy barn and end up in Palooka-ville. This dame didn't know from vice cops on the take for back-alley knobbers, which meant not having that uncomfortable conversation again, and that was jake by me.

My gut said this bird was on the level. She had no priors, skeletons, or known associates. A regular Betty Crocker life in the burbs. It all started simple enough with an out-of-the-bye phone call from some mug she'd never heard of. An odd kind of threat. Clearly a wrong number. And some easy green for me. I planned on dishing it for the usual kickback to an off-duty cop named Mccluskey who put the arm on such jokers to knock off the funny stuff, and I'd still have time to make the eighth race at Gulfstream.

The joker had other ideas...

It's not safe or milquetoast, is it? If Dorsey wasn't already successful, I bet most agents and editors would clutch their pearls and decree Dorsey the second-biggest male chauvinist pig in the world, next to you-know-who. But guess what ... Dorsey likes women; it shows in the books. Give him a try, if you dare.

 

Please Don't Do This to Your Book Jackets

I try to keep it positive here on Mysterious Matters, except for the occasional potshots at writers and books who can well weather any small bits of criticism from my pen. However, today I am here to take to task publishers who make terrible mistakes on their book jackets, and jacket designers who should know better.

Look at these two covers. One is a book by David Mark, who is absolutely one of my favorite among the newer crime novelists, and whose books I've gushed about here before. The other is by Scandinavian crime writer Arne Dahl, whom I haven't read yet (though this book is in my pile):

What do these cover designs have in common?  Both look as if they have been remaindered, due to those slashes through the type.

When you buy former best-sellers at a great price, often in Barnes & Noble but now increasingly on Amazon, you will usually see what is called a "remainder mark" somewhere at the top or bottom of the book. The remainder mark is usually made with permanent ink, often in red or black. Often it is a slash mark, though sometimes it is a large dot. The remainder mark indicates that the book has been remaindered--in other words, too many copies have been printed to justify the ultimate level of sales.

There is no shame in being remaindered, as it happens to many great writers. The more copies of a book you print, the better your unit cost, and the higher your profit if you sell out your print run--so publishers have bizarre incentives to produce more books than they think they can sell. When the warehouse gets cleaned out, Barnes & Noble (or other outlets like Edward R. Hamilton) get the books at insanely low prices, sometimes paying only a few cents per pound. (Yes, remainders can be sold by the pound.) These books then get shipped out to off-price outlets and other unexpected places. I bought a terrific Joyce Carol Oates book for $3 at a local Staples, a Robert Harris book for $1 at a dollar store, and a Mary Higgins Clark at Barnes & Noble for (I think) $4.98.

So, even though there's no shame in being remaindered, I wouldn't say you necessarily want to advertise that fact; and you CERTAINLY do not want people looking at a book jacket to think the book is so bad that someone has slashed through it. This kind of slashing is happening as part of jacket design way too much lately, so I hereby use my bully pulpit to say: PLEASE STOP.

However, for every rule there's an exception. Here are two versions of the jacket/cover for Renee Knight's Disclaimer, which I read about a year ago and loved.

 

The original U.S. hardcover's on the left. I thought this was a particularly effective use of the strikethrough technique, because it's clear that was what the book designer intended. Placing the words "A novel" within the redacted material was a design coup, so all due props go to the jacket designer, Milan Bozic.  The softcover version on the right has a good tagline, with a generically spooky image, but it doesn't grab me as much as the jacket on the left. Both covers are wrecked by reference to that goddamned Gone Girl, of which I am sick unto death, but I can't blame the publisher for trying to sell some books. 

By the way, when I finished Disclaimer in bed one night, I turned to my wife and said, "Wow."  Check it out if it seems like your kind of book, and if you're sick to death of Gone Girl, too, don't let the comparison put you off.

 

 

Battle of the Books: I Am Radar vs. Version Control

I had this idea for a new type of blog entry, to try to infuse some fresh air into it. I hope to do this a bit more often.

What I am thinking of is ... BATTLE OF THE BOOKS, in which I compare two worthy books and declare a "winner."  So, here goes.  

This week's battle is:

 

 I AM RADAR, by Reif Larson

versus

 

 VERSION CONTROL, by Dexter Palmer

These are two stunning novels by bright lights in the literary sky (how poetic).  

I AM RADAR is the story of Radar Radmanovic, a black child who is born to white parents, and the lengths his mother is willing to go to, in order to change her son's skin color. Let's just say that her decision takes her to the fringes of science and has lifelong effects on her son. But there is much more to the novel, which is also about a sort of traveling art installation/"event" that pops up in odd places at odd times, including Cambodia and Yugoslavia as it is falling apart.

Strangely enough, the book is not about race. It doesn't explore racial issues or race relations; and there isn't much of a plot, per se. But the writing is absolutely gorgeous, and the set pieces are as fine as anything I've ever read. In Radar, Larsen has created an under-the-radar hero not unlike a Tolkien hero--one who keeps going in spite of his fears and the challenges that lie before him.

When evaluating a book, I often use "world building" as a criterion. That is, I look at how well the author has succeeded in immersing me in a fictional world whose veracity I do not doubt for a moment. Larsen creates a world and populates it with unforgettable characters, making I AM RADAR one of my favorite reads of the last year. However, those looking for plot twists, a consistent narrative thread, and the staples of genre fiction will not find them here. In other words: Read this book if you are a patient reader who does not need instant gratification.

Next, we have VERSION CONTROL, a novel ostensibly about time travel. Every character in the book (most of them physicists) get quite annoyed by the phrase "time travel." The author is on to something here, because almost every time I describe this book to someone as concerning "time travel," that person rolls his/her eyes, as if to say, "Oh God, not another one." I see the dismissive glance, the hint of "Oh, it's science fiction. Pass."

Those who decide to "pass" on VERSION CONTROL are missing what I think will be one of the most important books of this decade. There's more plot here than in I AM RADAR (there'd have to be, what with the time travel angle), but this is more of an epic observation of what technology has wrought upon our society in terms of friendship, courtship, family relationships, the workplace--indeed, every facet of our existence. Anyone who has watched in despair as some jerk behind the wheel texts while driving, or observes friends at a restaurant on their phones for the entire meal, or who has listened to some braying ass talking loudly into a cell phone in an otherwise quiet place, will read VERSION CONTROL and think, "I am not alone." Dexter Palmer is such an extraordinary writer that the details of particle physics read so clearly and elegantly that you wonder why anyone's confused by the Large Hadron Collider. 

I have to take off a few points because the book uses the trope that I detest more than any other: the dead child--the most overused conceit in fiction, second only, perhaps, to those insidious "girls" showing up in titles on a nauseatingly frequent basis. Parts of the book read more like an essay, or a philosophical treatise, than a novel. But I was so entranced by this book that I gladly rolled with the author's ideas, admired his craftsmanship, and yes, found a kindred spirit in his sense of humor, which I can only describe as piquant.

So, which novel wins this week's battle of the books? VERSION CONTROL. I think I AM RADAR is a flight of fantasy for the right reader, probably the type of reader who loved Kate Atkinson's LIFE AFTER LIFE. VERSION CONTROL is 500 pages of THE WORLD NOW (even though it is set in the not-too-distant future). If Dexter Palmer was running Facebook instead of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook would be a force for good, instead of a playground for idiots. I don't know how to give the man any compliment greater than that. I absolutely bow in awe to Dexter Palmer.

 

 

I Still Exist + Random Thoughts

Greetings, and apologies for the long time between blog entries. Where does the time go?

I think I have been a bit depressed lately. 2015 was a very good year for my company. So far, 2016 hasn't been great. I had three books on the spring list, and none of them have hit. It's hard for me not to take this personally, since I have to advocate to get them to the contract stage, and then I edit them with my own red pencil (so to speak). So far, there's been very little traction. One of my favorites, and (objectively speaking) the best of the three, missed reviews in a couple of the key journals. I can't even tell you how painful that is.  I want to grab people by the collar and shake them, but their jobs aren't easy.  It's just the biz, folks. We have good seasons and bad seasons, and one of the benefits of working for this smaller press is that the owners are devoted to keeping it going over the long haul, meaning they ride out the ebbs and flows instead of panicking about shareholders, firing everyone in sight, and cancelling contracts.

Unfortunately, this only makes me feel worse about not having delivered good- or excellent-sellers. Maybe things will pick up later this year. It does happen; I believe Anita Diamant's The Red Tent was basically ignored for the first year after its publication, and then became a massive best-seller. Hope springs eternal.

In other news, you may be interested to know that I and the two other senior editors here have made the decision to reject, instantly, any manuscript that comes to us with the word GIRL in the title. This is an irrational business, and while I do pride myself on being a rational person, it's time to take a stand. GONE GIRL was 2012; GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was 2008. It's time for us to move on and stop trying to clone past successes by treating readers like idiots who think the word GIRL in a title signifies a fabulous, can't-put-it-down, amazingly perfect book with an amazing perfectly ending that you just can't believe!!!  Over lunch we decided that, just as the media made a decision not to cover Paris Hilton back in her heyday, we are drawing a similar line in the sand with GIRLS. Maybe that means we won't get the next best-seller. Fine. 

I'm having trouble getting excited about any submissions these days. Everything seems so blah. I keep thinking, "This sounds stupid," or "This has been done a million times," "You've got to be kidding me," and "You're serious--you're really submitting this to me, with a typo in the first line?"  This too shall pass. One of my colleagues thinks people/agents who would have submitted to us in the past are just bypassing us straight for the vanity-publishing route. Who can blame them, with Amazon implying that they (the writers) will make millions by doing so--as long as they invest in Amazon marketing campaigns?

Speaking of which--Amazon has now imposed a 4% annual fee on all sales through our distributor, to cover its "marketing costs." Next step: We sign over the deeds to all of our houses, plus the lives of our first-born, to feed the Amazonian beast.

I was going to review a few recent books (not mysteries), but I think I'll save that for next time. 

Yours in mysteriousness,

Agatho

 

 

Maddening Things That Reviewers Say

The conversation about reviews and reviewers is tired and boring, with the same things being said over and over, ad nauseam. However--

Lately, as I have taken note of reviewers' casual cruelties, I have noticed a couple of things. And I must get them off my chest.

Those two things are the MOST MADDENING THINGS THAT REVIEWERS SAY. Here they are:

1. IT ALL TIED UP TOO NEATLY.  Excuse me? Do you have any idea how many novelists get raked over the coals for leaving a single thread hanging or a tiny plot point unresolved?  You can be sure that any book where the author has not dotted every I and crossed every T will get criticized for being "unsatisfying" or "unfulfilling" or some other un-word. I drive my authors crazy, reminding them of tiny questions left unanswered that they must answer in the final draft. The whole point of a genre mystery is TO TIE THINGS UP.  Anyone who complains about a plot being resolved needs to read more Thomas Pynchon and fewer genre mysteries.
2. IT WAS CLEARLY SETTING UP THE SEQUEL (said with disdain). You're kidding, right? Everyone knows that this industry is completely and ridiculously mad about series books, recurring characters, and all that. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with setting up a sequel AS LONG AS the book resolves its key plot and subplot. Character arcs and mini-plots can move from book to book--are, in fact, an expectation of the genre. Yes, we have all read books that resolve nothing and force readers to pick up the sequel if they want to know how it all turns out. Such books are an abomination. But there is nothing wrong with SETTING UP THE SEQUEL as long as the book you are holding in your hands (or reading on your screen) is satisfying in and of itself.

Off soapbox.

 

The Enduring Appeal of Mary Higgins Clark

There are those who say, "Agatho, you are such a contrarian." To them I say, "No, I am not."

But seriously ... Every so often somebody posts a snarky comment about Mary Higgins Clark on DorothyL, the listserv for "mystery lovers" that often feels like a nonstop publicity engine for those who post endlessly.  I think the days of DorothyL being able to get anyone onto the best seller list ended with Polly Whitney in the early 1990s (and where is Polly now?), but hope springs eternal.

Anyway, the Snarkmeister (not limited to one person) usually makes an offhand comment dismissing MHC as ... oh, too commercial, or too goody-goody, or not dark/deep enough, etc. To these folks, I note that Mary is not posting to social media a dozen times a day in a desperate effort to find readers.  What Mary does do is turn out one best-seller after another. I have been to MHC book signings. The line stretches around the block, probably because Mary has a nice word to say to every single person waiting in line.

So, when I see Ms. Clark dismissed, I in my contrarian way feel the need to pick up one of her books and remind myself why she is so successful.

I hold in my hands the 1975 hardcover of WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?, from back in the days when books were not puffed up and overly wordy, when you could tell a hell of a story in 200 pages. And I distinctly remember the shock I felt when reading 1980's THE CRADLE WILL FALL, when I happened upon a chapter that took only one page. WTF?  But methinks James Patterson took notice, too, and took it to another whole level.

I just finished 2014's I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN. I think the early books were MHC's the most suspenseful -- A STRANGER IS WATCHING is exquisite -- but this one was a good, solid read. I see Mary's technique more than I used to. Gather a bunch of people with secrets (some believable, some not), toss in a psycho, and let the tale unfold. It's pretty impossible not to like Clark's Irish-Catholic heroines, who are good girls from start to finish -- educated, professional, pretty, feminine, and kind. I'm forever moaning about readers wanting the hero/ine to be their best friend, but I can see where Clark's heroines fit the bill. Key #1 to her success.

Key #2 is the fact that the average teenager can read these books. No parent would object to the content--you see much worse in prime time and on cable. The always competent writing serves the story. Few literary flights of fancy and absolutely zero pretension.  I think Mary writes as the person she is, and the reading public responds to this.  

Key #3, and something that a lot of aspiring writers seem to forget, is that plot still matters. A lot. If you can't tell a story--and a good one at that--you shouldn't be writing in this genre. Show me a writer who gets by on character alone, and I'll come back at you with an argument that s/he can also tell a story.

Keep 'em coming, Mary.

 

 

 

The Book Sixth Sense

It's been too long, I know - but I suppose I haven't been thinking about anything in depth lately.  With the holidays over and the new year starting to feel real, it's time to get back into the swing of things.

So, a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I had to thin out our bookshelves. There's only so much room, and as painful as it is to get rid of books -- well, it just has to be done. I now understand why it's so tough to find a good book at yard sales -- those are the books that people are getting rid of, because they didn't like them very much and didn't see the need to keep them!

Anyway, during these clean-outs I always manage to find books that I purchased a while back, with every intention of reading. Somehow they fell to the bottom of the TBR pile, and then the pile got too big and they got moved to a shelf, and then they got pushed to the back, only to see the light of day again many years later.

I found books that I bought in 1985, 1992, and 1993 -- good hardcovers that never got cracked open. The 80s and 90s are an interesting period -- the genre started to change around then (not necessarily for the better, but that's a different story). Like most book buyers, I spend my book dollars carefully, so all of these had to be books that I thought worthy of the price at the time.  

It was a bit like finding a buried treasure, and I started reading them with gusto.

I just finished the third of the three, and guess what? They all SUCKED! One was just dull, with a ridiculous, convoluted plot that made no sense.  It was only 150 pages, but it felt so much longer. The second was a late entry in a police procedural series that seemed utterly phoned in. The third was by a writer -- actually quite famous and successful -- whom I have somehow managed not to read. It was the worst of the bunch. Too long by 200 pages, too obvious, too trite.

All of this made me wonder -- Do we readers have a sixth sense about books? I can't remember exactly what I was doing in 1985, 1992, and 1993 (probably yelling at my kids), but I do know that when a book grabs me, it takes on a certain urgency. For some reason, these books never took on that urgency. Did I look at the covers (two of which are quite bad) and think -- "I don't have a good feeling about this"?  Did I read the first page or two and think, "Hmm, this doesn't seem promising -- better save it for later?"  Did I remember hearing one or two people say that Famous Author was totally overrated, which put me off reading that book because I respected the people who said that -- only to find, decades later, that they were absolutely right?

I'd been hoping that those three books were hidden gems lurking in the bookcase. Turned out they were mouse turds. 

Still, it was worth a try.

My 2016 Reading List

Dear Readers,

It's been a while since I posted. Not much to say lately. Slow manuscript season and I haven't read anything stellar that I need to recommend. 

I'm reminded that "good" bloggers find a way to blog whether they want to or not, and I think I've gone way too long between posts. So, herewith the books on my reading stand, to be read in no particular order in 2016.

If anyone has read any of these books and has anything non-spoiler-y to say, please hit the Comment button and tell me what you think.

 

VIXEN, by Bill Pronzini

I'm a longtime fan of the Nameless series. I believe this book was published in much shorter form as Femme Fatale a number of years ago. It's next on my list.

 

 

 

 

 

SERPENTS IN THE COLD, by Thomas D. O'Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy

Saw this one in a bookstore and it spoke to me. I think the setting is 1950s Boston, and a serial killer is loose. I don't usually go for serial killer books, but I do like the Boston area and its rich history. We shall see.

 

 

 

 

 

THE ONE I LEFT BEHIND, by Jennifer McMahon

Mrs. Agatho is a big fan of McMahon's and has been on me for a while to read one of her books. I don't know what to expect because Mrs. A. won't say anything about a book to me until I'm done reading it. I think this falls into the category of "women's suspense fiction," whatever that means... 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WATER KNIFE, by Paolo Bacigalupi

I like a good dystopian novel (loved William Gibson's THE PERIPHERAL, which I read in 2015), and this one looks intriguing. It's a big book--what I call a "winter book" to be savored when the weather outside is frightful. 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BAZAAR OF BAD DREAMS, by Stephen King

I like short stories (though I'd never publish a short-story collection - ack! impossible to publish successfully unless the writer already has millions of fans who will buy anything s/he writes), and in many ways I think King is a better short-story writer than he is a novelist. I know I'll find at least a few stories in this collection that I'll love.

 

 

 

 

THE DEVIL'S DETECTIVE, by Simon Kurt Unsworth

This promises to be something different--a detective story set in hell. So many ways for this to be fantastic--and so many ways for it to fail miserably. Only time will tell...

 

 

 

 

 

Happy new year to all, from Mysterious Matters.

 

The Book Marketing Business: Sheer Bullshit

Yesterday I walked into a local bookstore (indie) that I like, to do some browsing. I was immediately confronted with a full stack of Stephen King's latest collection of short stories, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Great title and great cover - and while I'm not particularly a fan of King as a novelist, I do think he is a terrific short story writer.  So I bought the book, along with a few others, and went on my merry way.

But ... there is a dark side to all of this (fitting, because we're talking about Stephen King, after all). My initial reaction upon walking into the store and seeing that book was, "Why didn't I know about this?" After all, I'm pretty up on what's going on. I get all the emails, am on all the major listservs, read all the industry rags. And somehow the fact that this one was coming passed me by. I don't even remember seeing it mentioned in Library Journal's emails, and I read every one of those start to finish.

It made me start to wonder if we, as an industry, have given up. Yes, Harper Lee's GO SET A WATCHMAN was released with the kind of fanfare that we should see more often (I can only imagine what it cost -- then again, I bet a lot of the publicity was free due to the media loving the mystery of Harper Lee and her one best-seller). But so many books come and go with no publicity, no fanfare ... on the shelves today, gone tomorrow, before anyone's had a chance to look at them or discover them. I know for a fact that I've found some great books solely because I was in the bookstore at the right moment. A week or two later, those books were gone, and I never saw any further chatter about them. Which means that if I hadn't been in the bookstore at that exact moment, the book would have completely passed me by.

The publishers may not be publicizing books - maybe because it does so little good and costs so much money, in an era where most of our major publications no longer bother to review books. That depresses me -- that we realize that our only hopes of a big success are a book going viral (a la GG--and everyone who reads this blog will know which book I'm referring to), so we just sort of sit back and pray. With writers like Stephen King, we know the sales are guaranteed, so again - we sit back and let it happen.

I get depressed, too, because I feel like we, as an industry, aren't taking chances on great writers and books. So many books feel so safe, as if written by committee. Reading the flap copy in that indie bookstore, I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again.

Of course, as anyone will tell you, it all comes down to money. The publishers aren't making any money, but I know who is--all of these book packagers and marketers, like Amazon, who sell writers (some talented, many no-talent hacks) a dream that they can make millions and hit the New York Times best-seller list. I've lost track of all the emails we get from This One, That One, and The Other One telling us that they'll market the hell out of our books and make us a household name. We know better--but most people don't. Every day I see ads on Goodreads and Amazon--clear product placements that have been paid for by the writer. Many writers are fond of posting all over the Web about how many copies they've sold or how much money they've made, but the truth is: I think most of them are lying.

In this modern era, you have to be selling something that people want to buy. Most people -- and certainly the people who control the media -- don't want to buy Murder Book X by Jane Doe. They haven't heard of Jane Doe and couldn't care less. They're not going to give her any free press. Jane Doe pays good money to get her book placed on Amazon, Goodreads, and all these other "review" sites that promise the moon and the stars--and by the time Jane is done, she's deeply in the red. Meanwhile, nobody has bought her book because it sucks. Yes, my friends, that is the sad truth: There's more money to be made in these advertising and self-publishing Ponzi schemes than there is in publishing fiction in an era of piracy, book thieves, and general apathy.

Sorry. 

Should Favorite Books Be Reread?

I pose the question in the title -- Should favorite books be reread? -- after a few disappointing experiences.

Like a lot of readers, I find the quality of my reading materials to ebb and flow. Sometimes I hit a stretch where it's one great book after another, which only makes me hungry for more. Then I will hit a patch where it's one piece of crap after another. Like death, bad books come in threes. By that third book, my coping mechanism kicks in: I pick up a book by a writer who I know is reliable and trustworthy. I have my own ranking system in my head (it's more of the A, B, C, D, F variety than the 1-5 stars variety), and I find that, interestingly, a lot of my go-to novelists are solid B's. By that I mean, they rarely turn out something breathtakingly stellar, but they can always be counted on to deliver something good, suspenseful, entertaining, and well written.

I won't even mention these writers by name because doing so would be damning with faint praise, and they deserve much better than that.

After my most recent bad patch, I started feeling nostalgia for some books that I'd read and loved, and that had made a strong impression on me, 20 or 30 years ago. I went back to them, looking to relive the joys ... and found them lacking. One was a book that I remember as being one of the most exquisitely suspenseful novels I've ever read. This time around, it wasn't so suspenseful -- indeed, the middle of the book drags quite a bit, and the climax wasn't nearly as thrilling as I remembered.

Another book was one I'd raced through back in the day. Upon re-reading it, I found it full of psychobabble that made me roll my eyes. Back in the day, I considered it edgy and daring. This time around, I found it distasteful.

This all makes me wonder if the experience of a reading a book is indelibly connected to a time, a place, a mindset. Can it be better, I ask myself, to live with the delicious joy of a favorite read, rather than attempt to repeat an experience that can't be repeated and is doomed to end in disappointment? Maybe all of this has to do with the idea that a second reading is almost by definition a more critical reading--one in which the reader sees the patchwork; questions ideas, characters, motivations; and, as a more experienced reader, is better able to evaluate the quality of the writing.

I suppose this gets at one of the key distinctions between escapist genre fiction and literature. Literature often improves upon re-reading (the key exception I can think of is Wuthering Heights, which seems to me more ridiculous every time). Genre fiction--well, maybe, not so much. If my pile of books weren't so high, I'd love to go back and re-read some of the things I've loved, as recently as a year ago, to see if I still love them quite so much. Maybe I wouldn't.

I had to check on all of this with Mrs. Agatho. So I asked her to choose a favorite book and re-read it. She narrowed her eyes, knowing I had an agenda of some sort, which of course I refused to share with her, as doing so would have been the equivalent of a spoiler. She chose a favorite of hers from her 20s and reported that it seemed awfully dated and she couldn't believe she'd been so fond of such a vapid and mindless heroine. We commiserated a bit over a nice cup of coffee and crumbcake--two things that, for us, have stood the test of time.