The Unfettered Critic – October 2021

Trade magazine Publisher’s Weekly reports that book sales are climbing for the second year. This news can be traced directly to the pandammit. Statistics show that people have remembered that nothing’s more comforting than a good book.

But with thousands of new books being published, how does one choose? We want to enjoy our encounters. We want to vicariously follow fascinating characters/events/phenomena through trials/joys/adventures/romances. We want to read something . . . good.

Well, allow us, if you will, to lead you into the stacks.

We were attracted to the best-selling novel The Plot, because it’s about a writer (we identify!), and because Stephen King praised it as “breathtaking.”

We also heeded Oprah Winfrey’s assertion that The Other Black Girl, a bestseller that takes place in the publishing world (we identify!), worked “thrillingly.”

Alas.

The Plot—about a writer who steals another writer’s plot—didn’t take our breath away. And while The Other Black Girl’s marketing suggested we’d love it if we’d liked the twists of the creepy flick Get Out, we weren’t thrilled when they were duplicated twist by twist.

Which led Paula to grumble, “Picking a book is like going on a blind date!”

It matters little if a friend insists you’re made for one another. Sometimes it’s marvelous and you can’t wait to meet that author again. Or you realize quickly that it’s not your kind of partnership, but you stick around to see how the evening will end. And sometimes it’s just: “Uck! Why did I spend the money!”

We’re probably getting carried away. There’s no reason to take it personally. The cover price didn’t make it that expensive a date. In fact, you could probably pick it up at the library, or grab a well-thumbed copy from a “Little Library” on your street. Pick it up, take it for a spin, bring it back. No one is pressuring you to live together, happily ever after.

Of course, every date isn’t a dud. So now we’re going to kiss and tell. Here are some recent encounters we enjoyed. You might, too.

A confession: we’ve been on several “dates” with Stephen King. He’s a smooth talker—insanely readable, although we have grave concerns about his proclivity for scaring the bejeebers out of us. But his latest, Billy Summers, which follows a hired killer embarking on his “last job,” is not horrific. Suspenseful, yes, yet with a surprising amount of humanity. Best of all—no killer clown waiting in the sewer!

And we loved David Benioff’s City of Thieves. Set in desolate Leningrad during WWII, a young Russian Jew is arrested for looting—a crime punishable by death. He’s thrown into a cell with a personable Russian deserter—another crime punishable by death. But the Soviet colonel in charge has a daughter about to be wed. He wants a dozen eggs so she can have a wedding cake. If the mismatched pair somehow finds those precious eggs and brings them back by Thursday, he’ll let them live… Thus begins their journey.

An even odder journey is the nonfiction tale of Franklin Roosevelt’s program to create employment for writers during the Great Depression. (Note: writers again!) Republic of Detours by Scott Borchert details how a motley assemblage of scribes, thousands of them, embodied the Federal Writers Project. Their mission: pen a series of “guidebooks” to assist the expanding community of tourists motoring across our nation. Colorful and engaging, it’s the best “documentary” we’ve read in years. In fact, it has all the elements necessary for adaptation into a great Broadway play . . .

If anyone happens to know of any writers.