Everyday Canvas

Good Books...for me

Prompt: "You know you have read a good book when you turn the last page and feel like you have lost a friend." Paul Sweeney
Do you agree?

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A good book? I think that is a slippery phrase, since what is good in a book depends on its reader. A good book for the prim and the prude would not have sex scenes in it, for example. For the adventure-loving reader, something in the literary genre such as a Paul Auster novel would be boring. Those high-brow readers who admire the literary genre, on the other hand, would snub at a Harlequin romance.

A good book for me is something I would enjoy reading and from which I would surely demand good grammar and use of the language, in-depth characterization, and an original plot or even a used-up plot that is re-hashed in an original fashion. An interesting setting would help, too. The genre doesn’t matter, as long as the sex or violence is not overly emphasized just for the titillation factor and not for its role in the plot or character elements.

Then, a book also stays with me for a while if something in it has meant something private or emotional to me, regardless of what I consider to be a good book. I am biased that way, and I suspect most readers are. In short, my good book assessment will depend on the fact that whether something in the story comes alive and speaks to me or not.

I don’t feel, at the end of any book, that I’ve lost a friend, especially if the ending has been to my satisfaction. That lost-friend feeling would be there if I were to feel disappointed in the ending. This happens sometimes. I read a book with great delight until the ending, but the ending is a flop. That to me is a lost friend.

Quite a few books exist that have stayed with me after I’ve finished reading them, but it is a long list and it starts with Saint Exupery’s Little Prince, which I’d read when I was seven or eight. That book never left me. When I was in my teens, I read a lot of Russian and French literature. Of those, Dostoyevsky stayed with me, and to a degree, it still does, as dark as his writing is. Then, there are some others that I mulled over from a few days to a few years. At no time, did I consider them as lost friends, but more like gained ones.

Three days ago, I finished reading Kristin Hannah’s latest, The Nightingale. It is still staying with me, regardless of how dark it is. I think the book is this author’s best work, and even its darkness is meaningful. On the other hand, I am partial to good World War II novels. Another recently read book that still stays with me and has to do with World War II is the Storyteller by Jodi Picoult. This is not a surprise though. Of the contemporary fiction, Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve, Pat Conroy, Ian McEwan, and a few other authors’ books have a way of staying with me at least for a few days.

I never feel, at the end of any book, as if I’ve lost a friend. The feeling I get has more to do with the elation of being uplifted and having used my time in the best way possible.