How to find a good book

Nowadays, it is hard to find a good read. I struggle to find the rare hidden gems amongst the piles of trash. First of all, for fiction to be good, I need to be able to identify with the time, the setting. It is harder to come up with a compelling mystery in 2007, that is set in fifteenth century Europe, say, where the priorities are different, the tools are not even identifiable, and the mystery could have been solved if only the protagonist had a cell phone at hand. The author has to do an excellent job at mapping the era into the modern mind, and a rare few have succeeded at that. However, I would much rather read a mystery that could really have happened in the last week. I do not care so much for books which focus on branding either, such as trying to come up with catchy themes for all the books - say, like mystery books themed around cats or food or flowers or birds. Even though the content may be great, the purity of the work has to be compromised to some degree to wrap it around a totally baseless limitation of the forced theme. With that out of the way, we are left with a somewhat smaller set of books to choose from - books which could have happened in the current period, which are written purely around the characters and or/the story there is to tell. Assume that I have a library now with only such books in them. There are three further criteria that go towards picking a gem out of these - novelty, realism and the first paragraph test.

In simplest terms, a great book is one which touches the reader as deep down the mind/soul as possible. A book where the reader is taken into the character, the plot and the setting is far superior to one, where the reader feels like an external observer. That is why fantasy of all kinds is less appealing to me, unless done well enough to strike a deep chord.

I have been deeply impressed by the school of thought that the best writing is one that comes from deep within the writer's subconsciousness. In Janet Burroway's fantastic book on writing fiction, which I consider equally to be a book on how to filter good reads from bad, the example is quoted of Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison where she describes her own disturbing experiences from her childhood. By writing things that you are afraid to tell (even yourself), you connect with something deep within a reader.

To continue our elimination process to find a great mystery, I look at the synopsis of the book. Most synopses say nothing in many words, because they have nothing to say. It is a textbook book, based on an old oft repeated plot, but just packaged with minor changes to setting, character, etc. What sounds like an oft repeated plot may vary by reader -if you have never read a story of a retiring cop being pulled into a case on his last day, then it may seem like a new plot to you. If you have, then move right along.

Once I have synopses which seem different at least in some form, then I perform the sampling test - read the first paragraph, and glance at a random paragraph in the middle of the book. Does the style of the first paragraph seem calm, undramatic, and yet create the right tension to draw you further? Or does it sound cliched, or just dramatic for the sake of being dramatic? Again, the results may vary depending on your taste of what you may consider cliched or dramatic, so follow your judgment. While reading the inner paragraph, make sure that the style hasn't slid into sloppiness a few pages into the book. If the book passed these tests, then you are probably holding a potential great read in hand. To clinch the deal, I do look for recommendations - if the author seems interesting, and reminds you of a past favorite, then see (either in the book itself or on the web) what your favorite author has to say about this new author or book.

For example, I loved Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, easily one of the best psychological thrillers out there.He is also the writer of Mystic River, which was later made into a wonderful award winning movie. That is the only book of Dennis Lehane that I have not read yet, partly because I saw the movie before I came across the book.

When I chanced upon Keith Ablow's mysteries in a random search, I found that Dennis Lehane had this to say: "Ablow is king of the psychological thriller...The pages will singe your hands." I was not disappointed. I went on a reading spree through Keith Ablow's fiction, and by far, the latest one, that I just finished today, Psychopath , is one of the best psychological thrillers ever. Frank Clevenger, the forensic psychologist in Keith Ablow's Frank Clevenger series, is as realistic and believable as any character I have ever read about. I have also picked up Harlan Coben's Tell No One, which also has a great review from Dennis Lehane. Yet to read it.

But this is still just scratching the surface. For many more complex insights on what makes good writing good, do check out Janet Burroway's book Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. It is used in several courses on creative writing, one of which I was fortunate enough to take, but it is much more about creative reading than writing. Since I read this book, I have been able to find so many great books, that I had missed out on before. Margaret Maron's Bootlegger's Daughter, Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, T Jefferson Parker's California Girl, Keith Ablow's Frank Clevenger series: Denial and Psychopath, to name a few. I have also some great new territories to explore. I found several people whose works Keith Ablow admires in his acknowledgements, whom I can now explore. And the chain will go on.

Art Bench

This is a short story I wrote:

The day was a bright green. The first rains of the year had just let up, pushing down the smog curtain to let in the sun and dispersed the faintly metallic smell of fresh wet land. The trees lined both sides of the T junction. The leaves looked like pretty elves dressed in green hats for a party. The elves frolicked in bursts of euphoric dance, swayed by the playful wind. First, they shuffled towards the office complex. Then, they twisted towards the factory across the street, saluting the tall flues. Finally, they waltzed towards the single bench at the apex of the T.

A cigarette glared with its single red eye, disturbed from its slumber by the wind, and calmed down only once the wind had subsided. Ben put the cigarette in his mouth, inhaled deeply. He coughed slightly, and passed it to his left. Ben wore his customary white sweatshirt. He got up and stretched his long wiry arms and legs. He removed the huge plastic sheet that had covered them all morning. He rolled up and set the sheet under the bench along with the awkward bamboo poles that had held them up. He sat down and looked at Fiona. He ran his fingers through her blonde-brown hair. The hair was knotted, but to his fingers, still felt quite soft.

“Nice sunny day, no?” said Fiona, clutching the cigarette she had taken from Ben between her fingers. Her fingers trembled, and it took her a long moment to steady the cigarette and get it up to her mouth. Immediately, she dropped the cigarette, doubled over in cough, and a thick lump of blood and sputum oozed down her chin. Jake pulled a Kleenex from the bag at his feet, lay Fiona on his nineteen and half inch left biceps, and wiped her chin clean tenderly. He tossed the Kleenex into the trash bin a couple of yards to his left, and missed. He gently tilted her head over to rest it on Ben’s shoulder, picked up the cigarette from the floor, and puffing on it, he walked over to pick up the tissue and drop it into the bin. He pulled out another cigarette, lit it with the previous one, and dropped the older one into the trash. He looked at the bus stop a few feet away.

A crowd had gathered there, mostly from their college. Some looked their way. Others talked to each other and to the reporters and cops and firemen and medical nurses that stood on call. Some nibbled on their lunch of burritos or hot dogs from the stall around the corner. On one corner, Jake’s parents sat guarded by their friends. Ben’s parents had left earlier to feed the kids. An occasional reporter managed to slip by and get a question through, only to be steered away by Paul or Libbie or Diana. Jake’s mother was crying into his father’s brown coat. He smiled and waved. His father nodded back. A fair crowd for a fair cause, Jake thought, as he walked back and handed the cigarette to Ben. The pity was, he actually liked the smoking, and didn’t quite understand what the fuss was about, but he loved Alex more. A lot more than the smoking, he told himself.

A murmur began and rose, and the heads turned, a few at first and then all of them, towards the gate of the office complex. A tall gray haired man in a slightly glossy Prussian blue suit was walking from the gate towards the bench. A group of reporters dashed towards him, but he ignored them. He stopped by the bench, and smiled at Jake. “I believe you wanted to see me?”

Ben stood up and blew smoke into his face. “You know what we want.”

Diana walked over to the bench, and waved the file in her hand at his face, the wind from the file disheveling his kempt gray hair . “Did you even read any of this?”

“I get a lot of letters from a lot of people. I might have read it, I am not sure. But that is besides the point. I am here becau…”

Fiona’s face was red and her muscles twisted, as she forced herself up to shout, but barely managed a hoarse whisper. “Conceited bastard! A letter everyday for sixteen years. From Alex…Alex! He was a professor of philosophy at the university, not a bum! And you’re not sure?” She clutched her chest and fell to the floor. People lifted her gently, and laid her out on the bench. She vomited blood into a plastic bottle. Ben picked up the bottle and walked over to the man in the blue suit.

“Jim! She doesn’t have much time, do you see that? What more do you need to stop? How do you even live with yourself?”

Jim looked at him. His eyes still stared blankly, but Ben detected a flicker of something warmer deep below. Jim turned to the reporters to make sure they were getting his every word, and then back to the bench. “I am sorry that Alex died due to complications that may have been aggravated by smoking. I applaud your courage and love for your teacher, but am also sorry that you kids are deluded enough to throw your life and bright futures on this futile effort. Smoking until death demanding for the closure of Pristine Tobacco! What will it be next? Shooting as many people as possible till they stop manufacturing guns? Is this how you plan to change the world? Look, I run a business here, like anyone else. If the government deems this illegal, I am willing to accept what they ask of me. But until then… I suggest that you stop this charade, as that girl over there, she doesn’t look too good. I have a daughter about her age, and… this is not the age to...’

He turned to the cameras. “I have worked in the tobacco industry for the last twenty two years, but I have never smoked a single cigarette myself. You know why? Because I have chosen based on the information presented to me that it may harm my health, and I care about my health. Everything out there is known to have ill effects if used in excess – chocolate, alcohol, burgers, even videogames. So, moderation and abstinence are the recommended choices. A few people ignore the warning and take it to excess, and they meet the consequence of their actions.” He cleared his throat, and turned back to the bench. “I came out here to let you know that I am sorry about the death of your professor, Alex. However, we cannot accept or act on your demands for two reasons. One, because the right people to respond to this would be the government. As long as they allow this, others will do this, even if we give up, and we don’t see any reason to give up. More importantly, if we even acknowledge this, or act on it, this would set a precedent for more dangerous, severe demands in the future, which we cannot have.” He turned to leave, stopped in indecision for a couple of seconds, and then walked over to Fiona. He laid his hand on her forehead and said softly, “I’m sorry for you, child. Please rethink your decision. I don’t think life is worth throwing away, for any cause.” He wiped his brow with a silk white handkerchief and turned to the reporters. “This will be my only statement. All the people here are adults, and they have the right to choose their actions, and also have the responsibility to bear the consequences of their actions. It is their choice that is harming them, and Pristine Tobacco accepts no responsibility for the consequences. ” He turned around and walked back to the office, ignoring the reporters who surrounded him, drowning him in mikes and cameras and questions. The reporters walked back slowly, and then, as if to make up for lost ground, gathered at the bus stop for a fresh round of questions.

A middle aged man wearing a jacket with DCBA TV on it in large yellow letters, spoke into his camera.

“… to recap, earlier today, the sheriff of Langlow County talked to the students’ lawyers demanding that they stopped this demonstration or they would be arrested. The lawyers retorted that it was perfectly legal for all the students to smoke as much as they wished. They had no intentions of killing themselves. They were just enjoying their smoke. They also refused the medical help that the sheriff offered, as they said they had the right to choose when they needed medical help. Of course, if the factory was shut down, they would stop immediately. The sheriff hasn’t been available for comment since. And now, just moments ago, Jim Dougall, the CEO of Pristine Tobacco stopped by to make his statement. Here is a recording of that statement…”

Diana stood by a tree, and nodded at another camera. She leafed through her file. “They’re all letters that Alex wrote to Jim, and range from single lines to many pages. Ah,” she said, having found the one she wanted, “this is a good one from a month ago - a couple of weeks before he died.”

Hi, Jim
I think I can call you by first name, seeing how much I have written to you over the last sixteen years. How’s the family? I heard you had a new baby grand daughter. Congratulations to you and your family! May that provide you with a joyous reminder of how beautiful life truly is.

Now, in case you haven’t read my previous letters, let me, as I have done several times in the past, remind you of what I talked about.

I am Alex Houghton, professor of philosophy and a big fan of your top selling brand of cigarettes, Hickories, of course. I must tell you, in spite of all that they say, that even after smoking Hickories for a quarter century, the first puff of the day definitely packs a punch. It relaxes my eyes, and the world looks somewhat, I don’t know, friendlier?

Anyway, I have news for you this time. I am writing this time to tell you that my doctor has confirmed that the blood I am coughing up is lung cancer, and has given me about three months at the most to live. I had been warned before by my doctors, thank their souls, but I believe in the government and in great law abiding citizens like yourself. I believe that if you sell this freely while blocking the sales of marijuana, then surely this must be more fun and less harmful to the people. Or maybe you have a greater goal, which I am not aware of, but I trust you. I know you will withdraw this from the market if there is any true danger from this. Maybe the lung cancer that is eating away my life and soul is a result of the air I breathe on my early morning walks.

Let me assure you that I am a man of infinite will power (it is my job to talk about will, and I believe in controlling it), and I can quit this anytime I wish. However, I would like to reassure my students, who are either confused or who lack the will to stop smoking, by continuing to smoke. Unless of course you find with renewed research that this is in fact sufficiently injurious to health and addictive as well, and decide to stop making this available.

In case you had missed these, I have provided all the research there is on the subject. With my meager knowledge of the subject, I am unable to find the error in the research results. For instance, this report claims that addiction to smoking is genetic. If someone with the genetic predisposition gets introduced to it, then they have to fight against their own tendency to give it up. But I am sure I am missing something there, even though this result is based on a double blind study by a renowned panel of experts performed on a large fairly random sample. There must be some error here, and with al these reports. You are the expert, and if these have not been worthy of your comment, I am sure that these results are somehow flawed.

Congratulations again, and good luck to the new mother and baby in the family.

If you haven’t gotten a gift for the new parents, may I suggest a lifetime supply of Hickories – definitely a pleasant gift to calm their nerves with the new stresses of bringing up a baby.

As I have done for the last sixteen years, I hope eagerly to hear your comments on the matter.

Warm regards,
Alex

Diana’s voice rose hysterically as she read the letter, until, in the end, she screamed out ‘Warm Regards!’. Paul came around and held her close. He held his hand up to the cameraman, who was about to turn the camera on.

Paul said, “Once we knew he was dying, we went to his house everyday. He allowed that on one condition. We would not force him to stop smoking. He said that he wanted his death to have meaning, and dying a few days earlier by smoking to the end could go a long way in influencing the cigarette companies. So, we agreed and went everyday. He used to say that at his core, man’s rational and emotional self are in perfect harmony. It was only at more superficial levels that there was conflict. And so, the secret to connecting with a man’s soul was to talk to that core, ignoring the shallower layers.”

A shapely woman with oversized glasses asked, “Excuse me, but isn’t the sarcasm in that letter an example of the shallowness he condemned?”

“No, in fact, the question did come up in class, though in a different way. The approach may vary as long as you address the core. A violent person may use the means he knows best, an intellectual may use sarcasm, but the point is to sincerely target the core, the person.” Diana gently moved his arm, letting Paul continue, and excused herself silently to get lunch.

At the bench, Fiona coughed fitfully, into her bottle. Paul turned to the camera. “Fiona was very close to him. She used to live alone with her father, who would drink and beat her up everyday. She stayed at friends’ most of the time. One night her father pushed her out the apartment window. She fell three floors, fractured her ribs, one lung was badly infected. Alex had her father arrested, and then visited her everyday at the hospital. He then took her under his roof, and healed her, taught her at home, arranged for her to take the test. Some people at school thought that it was sex. We all knew that it wasn’t. She had been with Ben for years and they were dedicated to each other. Alex had gone through something terrible as a child, he never told us what. Once, he was delirious with high fever, and he mumbled that Fiona reminded him of those days, and he repeated again and again, “Fiona is Alex. Alex is Fiona”. He was too muddled to say much more clearly, but I gathered that he had an abusive uncle as well, who might have hurt him. Also, he rubbed the scar that ran across his right cheek several times that night, so maybe that was from his uncle hurting him.” He paused and looked right through the camera into the distance. “I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

Libbie came over, and patted Paul’s arm. She was a warm looking slightly plump girl, with her brown hair tied up in a bun. She continued, in a matronly tone, “Fee…Fiona, the dear child, had barely recovered from her injuries when Alex was given three months tops to live due to lung cancer. She had just begun to see new hope after years of abuse by her father, and now…” She looked at Fiona, now lying calmly on Ben’s lap, too weak to hold her own cigarette. “She somehow inherited her stubbornness from her few months with Alex. She knows she has weak lungs. We all tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted that she would go on as long as she was alive or they shut the factory. Earlier today, she passed out, and when she woke up she went berserk that the others hadn’t forced her awake to take her turn. Poor Ben. He loves her so much. I almost think he is here more because he can’t talk her out of it, but he can’t bear to live without her either.”

A man from the back of the crowd yelled, “What about the other boy, the He-Man…Jake is it? Why is he involved?”

“That was just a draw of lots. We decided there had to be three going at a time. If anyone is taken ill or, you know,… then the next in line would replace that person. We have eleven people signed up so far.” He paused.

“We expected this response from Jim, probably thought it would be worse. It will get better. It can’t get worse, can it?” He paused, as if expecting someone to answer the question. “We are all ready to die, if needed. At the end, you will either have eleven dead students or a closed factory.” He smiled weakly, “Consider it a form of live installation art, if you will.”

And then, a scream from the bench. Diana held a spoon in one hand, a bowl of instant noodle soup slipping carelessly from the other hand to the floor below. Fiona lay on Ben’s lap. Her feet were braced on Jake’s legs, giving her body a ballet-like grace, even lying down. A thin stream of dark brown soup flowed down her pink chin onto her neck. Her lips were parted slightly, to take in the warm soup. Her lips were held in the beginnings of a smile, as if amused by a mischievous thought. She was beautiful.