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| Why Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch might be the best-seller that nobody can finish | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The question most people ask when they find out you read books for a job is, do you finish them? It’s a good question, to which the short answer is yes, I do, because someone’s paying me to finish them. It would just be rude to take the money and review a book based on its first three chapters, or judge it for a prize and not make it past the opening pages. And some books – not many, but some – don’t begin well but end spectacularly. | The question most people ask when they find out you read books for a job is, do you finish them? It’s a good question, to which the short answer is yes, I do, because someone’s paying me to finish them. It would just be rude to take the money and review a book based on its first three chapters, or judge it for a prize and not make it past the opening pages. And some books – not many, but some – don’t begin well but end spectacularly. |
| But when I am reading for myself, I don’t have any such compunction. Reading a book shouldn’t be a chore, the carrots that must be eaten before pudding is allowed. Reading is – or should be – a pleasure in its own right. There is no novel so perfect that you have to finish it, or you’ve somehow failed as a reader. And I guarantee that no author is sitting at their desk wondering how to make their book more endurable. Not even Donna Tartt. | But when I am reading for myself, I don’t have any such compunction. Reading a book shouldn’t be a chore, the carrots that must be eaten before pudding is allowed. Reading is – or should be – a pleasure in its own right. There is no novel so perfect that you have to finish it, or you’ve somehow failed as a reader. And I guarantee that no author is sitting at their desk wondering how to make their book more endurable. Not even Donna Tartt. |
| Kobo – the e-bookseller – has released two sets of figures: for books bought this year, and for books finished. The Goldfinch was its 37th best-selling book, but only 44% of those who started it managed to complete it. Perhaps that’s no surprise: Tartt’s magnum opus is almost 800 pages longand plenty of us find very long books off-putting. But presumably most of those who bought The Goldfinch knew it was a long read and fancied it anyway. But partway through, they just lost momentum because the story didn’t engage them sufficiently. | Kobo – the e-bookseller – has released two sets of figures: for books bought this year, and for books finished. The Goldfinch was its 37th best-selling book, but only 44% of those who started it managed to complete it. Perhaps that’s no surprise: Tartt’s magnum opus is almost 800 pages longand plenty of us find very long books off-putting. But presumably most of those who bought The Goldfinch knew it was a long read and fancied it anyway. But partway through, they just lost momentum because the story didn’t engage them sufficiently. |
| Most-unfinished book of the year isn’t a title anyone would hope to win. But her core fans probably read the book to the end, as did a whole raft of new readers, which propelled her up the bestseller charts. And those readers who didn’t finish it still paid for it, so Donna Tartt can mop up those tears with crisp tenners, which will surely ease the pain. | Most-unfinished book of the year isn’t a title anyone would hope to win. But her core fans probably read the book to the end, as did a whole raft of new readers, which propelled her up the bestseller charts. And those readers who didn’t finish it still paid for it, so Donna Tartt can mop up those tears with crisp tenners, which will surely ease the pain. |
| Shock of the neurotic | Shock of the neurotic |
| It seems like only moments ago that people were “brain-training”, which was previously called “doing puzzles”, before it was rebranded into something theoretically improving, rather than fun. But I think I must have been doing a sudoku when electronic brain stimulation became something people did at home. So much so that experimental psychologist Roi Cohen Kadosh has well advised us against buying equipment online to give ourselves a brain boost with the odd electrical pulse through the skull. In other news, don’t stick your fingers in a wall socket for a startling new hairstyle. | It seems like only moments ago that people were “brain-training”, which was previously called “doing puzzles”, before it was rebranded into something theoretically improving, rather than fun. But I think I must have been doing a sudoku when electronic brain stimulation became something people did at home. So much so that experimental psychologist Roi Cohen Kadosh has well advised us against buying equipment online to give ourselves a brain boost with the odd electrical pulse through the skull. In other news, don’t stick your fingers in a wall socket for a startling new hairstyle. |
| Brain stimulation, according to this new study, might help a minority of us to solve some types of problem quickly, but it seems to hinder the brain performance of the rest of us. But this skates over the key question, which is surely: how did so many people get to a point where DIY brain-boosting seemed like a good idea? I frequently feel like my brain is full (I can remember plenty of facts but trip over my feet all the time, because I can’t seem to remember where they are). But it had simply never occurred to me to encourage it to try harder, other than with caffeine. That, and looking where I’m going. | Brain stimulation, according to this new study, might help a minority of us to solve some types of problem quickly, but it seems to hinder the brain performance of the rest of us. But this skates over the key question, which is surely: how did so many people get to a point where DIY brain-boosting seemed like a good idea? I frequently feel like my brain is full (I can remember plenty of facts but trip over my feet all the time, because I can’t seem to remember where they are). But it had simply never occurred to me to encourage it to try harder, other than with caffeine. That, and looking where I’m going. |
| Bullish in a bear market | Bullish in a bear market |
| It seems oddly inappropriate that nostalgia is so much more successful than it used to be. Most happy childhoods probably contained mention of Winnie the Pooh somewhere or another, so it’s no wonder that many of us feel so fondly towards him. But an EH Shepard drawing of Pooh and Piglet playing pooh sticks with Christopher Robin has just sold for £314,500. That would buy an awful lot of honey. As Paddington romps his way through the cinemas and Pooh marches through Sotheby’s, 2014 is turning into the year of British bear nostalgia. Time for Rupert to call his agent. | It seems oddly inappropriate that nostalgia is so much more successful than it used to be. Most happy childhoods probably contained mention of Winnie the Pooh somewhere or another, so it’s no wonder that many of us feel so fondly towards him. But an EH Shepard drawing of Pooh and Piglet playing pooh sticks with Christopher Robin has just sold for £314,500. That would buy an awful lot of honey. As Paddington romps his way through the cinemas and Pooh marches through Sotheby’s, 2014 is turning into the year of British bear nostalgia. Time for Rupert to call his agent. |