Novelish

ISBN: 0307238512 | Pages: 338 (hardcover)

The two things that drew me most to Katharine McMahon’s novel were the cover (besides an attractive image, there’s no shortage of gold foil) and the title (which, well, sounded interesting). Not the best way to judge a book, is it? But I figured I had nothing to lose if I read the library’s copy.

So, where to start?

In eighteenth-century England, protagonist Emilie Selden lives in a secluded country house and studies natural philosophy with her father - but, consequently, knows next to nothing about basic human emotions. When Emilie is nineteen, she falls in love with a man called Aislabie, who shows up abruptly one day. The plot marches on for the next three hundred pages or so, and it’s not without a few unexpected twists.

It was an okay book overall, if perhaps not as good as I’d expected. It’s fairly short and fast-paced, and while lots of people would love that, I prefer long stuff. I liked the writing itself well enough - none of it struck me as exceptionally beautiful, but certainly not bad. And the references to Sir Isaac Newton amused me, because I’m accustomed to him as a character in Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver.

I think the biggest problem with it is that to understand Emilie’s actions, I had to constantly remind myself of the time period and of her ignorance in certain areas. For example, early on when Aislabie rapes her - then asks her to marry him - she goes right on obsessing over him. (”I want to marry him, baby or not,” she tells Mrs Gill the housekeeper at one point.)

Throughout the rest of the book - even up to the very end, though I won’t spoil the ending by going into that - there were times when I had to ask myself, “What the hell was she thinking?!” But perhaps I’m only finding it difficult to accept because I haven’t read enough historical fiction of this sort.

I was peacefully reading my RSS feeds when I came across something called Miss Snark is retiring. What, I wondered, could this mean?

Then I realized it meant exactly what it said. Miss Snark IS RETIRING. And that really, really shocked me. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always thought that Miss Snark was one of those things that will always be around - something that couldn’t be taken away from me.

I only started reading her blog regularly late last year, but it’s easily been my favorite since then. I never sent in a question of my own, because I was waiting until my novel was closer to finished. I wish I had, now. I’m going to miss it all - the information on agents and publishing, the writing tips contained in the irregular Crapometer sessions, even George Clooney.

Sean at 101 Reasons to Stop Writing has created some I Love Miss Snark badges, like this one (which I’ve placed on my index page sidebar):

He explains:

I love Miss Snark. You probably love Miss Snark, unless you’re a nitwit. Time to show her a little of that love.

Here are some web badges I’ve whipped up so you can let Miss Snark know that you miss her, without seeming like an email stalker. Feel free to use them on your blog. You can copy and paste the code below each image into a post, or your blog template.

Get one for yourself here.

I’m not sure what else to say here - “Oh shit” is kinda inadequate. On the bright side, I still have two years worth of archives to go through.

It might be reasonable to think that there are more efficient ways to find books than to look at another book - Amazon has a massive number of recommended reading lists created by its users, sites like LibraryThing have recommendation systems, and if your friends are anything like mine they’re always giving suggestions.

While all of that may be true, Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust was still really helpful. I jotted down around 65 titles without even realizing it. So, if you’re looking for something to read, I’d suggest borrowing it from the library. (I don’t see the point in buying a copy - there’s not much you can get out of it after you extract the titles you want.)

A few months ago, I wanted to find novels set in an academic setting, preferably British. I made several postings on internet forums and did hours of searching on online booksellers’ systems. I finally dug up several titles. Book Lust listed every novel I’d found on my own plus several I hadn’t (on page four,

Obviously, not everyone will find all of the book lists useful, but that doesn't really matter. I skipped over more than half of them and only read sections that caught my attention (which is why I'm not adding it to the Read in 2007 page) and I still found plenty of titles. And I think that’s probably how it’s meant to be read.

My one complaint would be that I grew somewhat tired of seeing the “Too good to miss” listings (of which there are 18 in all) throughout the book. These sections are about the work of one author that Nancy Pearl considers especially good - except I found them much less useful than everything else. Probably because they’re not as varied, so if I don’t happen to like the sound of one author’s work I’ve got to skip to the next part.

I’ll be reading More Book Lust (a continuation) and Book Crush (recommendations for children and teens) at some point. For now? I think getting started on some of the titles on my newly-expanded reading list might be smarter than working to lengthen it further.