What Makes a Novel “Good”? Quote of the Day (Tom Wolfe)

What makes a novel “good”? Tom Wolfe once gave this answer:

“To me, it’s a novel that pulls you inside the central nervous system of the characters … and makes you feel in your bones their motivations as affected by the society of which they are a part. It is folly to believe that you can bring the psychology of an individual to light without putting him very firmly in a social setting.”

Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities and other novels, in an interview with George Plimpton in Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews: Ninth Series (Viking 1992). Edited by George Plimpton. Introduction by William Styron. Reprinted from the Spring 1991 issue of the Paris Review. You can read more from this and other interviews in this acclaimed series at www.parisreview.com.

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

www.janiceharayda.com

Win a Copy of One of the Best Memoirs of 2007, Peter Godwin’s ‘When a Crocodile Eats the Sun’

Would you like to win a copy of Peter Godwin’s acclaimed memoir of life under the Mugabe dictatorship in Zimbabwe, When A Crocodile Eats the Sun? Here’s how you can:

1) Link from your blog to this post or any other on One-Minute Book Reviews (or add One-Minute Book Reviews to your blogroll).

2) Send an e-mail message that includes the link to the address on the “Contact” page on this site. Include your mailing address.

3) If you’re the first person to send a link I can verify and you live in the U.S., I’ll send you the book. (I’ll pay the postage.) This is the copy of When a Crocodile Eats the sun that I used to write the review and reading group guide posted on this site in June. I don’t mark up books, so this is in good condition.

4) You must be age 18 or over to enter. You may not link from a porn site or have won another contest on One-Minute Book Reviews within the past 30 days. I decide what’s “porn.”

Because links can be slow in showing up on Word Press and Technorati, you must send an e-mail message to the address on the contact page to win. I’ll judge the winner by the times on the e-mails.

A review of When a Crocodile Eats the Sun appeared on One-Minute Book Reviews on June 6, 2007 www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/. A reading group guide appeared on this site on June 8, 2007 www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/. Read an excerpt from the book at www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Coming This Month … Good Books With Under 200 Pages

Maybe it’s because I’m still trying to get to that 759-page Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Or maybe it’s because this is the season when a lot of us are trying to pare down what goes into our carry-on luggage. For whatever reason, I’ve been thinking about worthy but short books — specifically, those with fewer than 200 pages. I’ll have some ideas on this later this month and, in the meantime, if you can suggest titles for visitors to this site, why not leave a comment?

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Authors for 49¢ on Amazon: John Lithgow, James Lee Burke, Melissa Fay Greene and Others

Fed up with the alpine cost of books? Amazon.com sells previously unpublished short stories, essays and other works for 49¢ through its Amazon Shorts program. The online bookseller requires that all sellers have at least one book for sale on Amazon. And some of the authors who have posted their work may surprise you, including actor John Lithgow, journalist Melissa Fay Greene and mystery novelist James Lee Burke.

But you could easily miss hearing about the program, because it isn’t listed on the home page for www.amazon.com. You have to use the search bar to look “Amazon Shorts” or go to the pull-down menu that says, “See All 41 Product Categories.” I knew nothing of the program until a writer friend persuaded me to post my “A Year in Cleveland,” a parody of A Year in Provence, there. So you may want to check this section of the Amazon site if you enjoy short fiction, nonfiction and poetry. You can read the shorts by downloading them, having them e-mailed to you, or following an HTML link.

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

www.janiceharayda.com

Backscratching in Our Time, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Safran Foer

Jeffrey Eugenides on Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated: “Great humor, sympathy, charm and daring … Every page is illuminated.” Jeffrey Eugenides on the dust jacket of the hardcover edition of Everything Is Illuminated

Jonathan Safran Foer on Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex: “Whatever you might be expecting, Middlesex will surprise you … a roiling epic … the kind of book that urges to be read in one day, then reread.” Jonathan Safran Foer in Bomb www.bombsite.com/eugenides/eugenides.html
and quoted in the front matter of the paperback edition of Middlesex

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Backscratching in Our Time, Tina Brown and Holly Peterson

Tina Brown on Holly Peterson: “Holly Peterson writes about the rich with acute understanding and a drop-dead eye for detail. The funniest, sexist ride in the limo lane since the The Bonfire of the Vanities.” — Tina Brown on Peterson’s The Manny on the dust jacket the novel

Brown also offers “thanks and appreciation” to Peterson, among many others, in the acknowledgments of her new biography, The Diana Chronicles (page xv).

Holly Peterson on Tina Brown: “I read mostly non-fiction books. My all-time favorite is Tina Brown’s new book on Princess Diana called the Diana Chronicles … She was my boss.” — Peterson on Brown’s The Diana Chronicles on her My Space page www.myspace.com/hollypetersonthemanny. I can’t get the direct link to work but you can find the blurb by going to www.myspace.com and searching for “hollypetersonthemanny.”

Peterson also writes in the acknowledgments to The Manny: “Thank you to those who assisted in the delivery room in various forms and reincarnations of this whole concept, including Tina Brown … ” (page 356).

For more examples of authors who love each other’s books, click on “Backscratching in Our Time” under “Categories” on this site. If you know of other candidates for this continuing feature, please use the e-mail address on the “Contact” page of One-Minute Book Reviews to submit their blurbs.

A review of The Manny appeared on this site on June 26, 2007 www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/. Page numbers for bad sex scenes in The Manny appeared on this site on June, 27, 2007 www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/. The Diana Chronicles is scheduled to be reviewed on this site during the week of July 8.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

I Can’t GIVE Holly Peterson’s ‘The Manny’ Away

Did I make the book sound THAT bad? Or should I have said that if you win it I won’t publish your name and tell people you actually wanted to read its bad sex scenes?

On Saturday I announced the rules for a contest that would let you win Holly Peterson’s novel about a male nanny, The Manny, and nobody has claimed the prize. I can’t say I blame you. But this book probably won’t be out in paperback until 2008. So if you’re worried that you’ve been reading too much high-toned intellectual material lately, here again are the rules: www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/.

Here are the links to the review www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/ and to the page numbers for some of the worst sex scenes in the book www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/.

I’ll be having more contests that let you win bestsellers and other books this summer, announced between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Saturday if there’s a contest that week. So check back then if you’re interested. You can see some of the books offered in past contests by clicking on the “Contests” link at right.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

What’s Unique About One-Minute Book Reviews?

One-Minute Book Reviews recently passed its six-month anniversary, and I celebrated by redoing its FAQ page. Here’s the revised version. If you enjoy the reviews and readers’ guides on this site, I’d be grateful if you’d forward this post to others who might enjoy them.  Thanks for visiting One-Minute Book Reviews.

Jan Harayda, the One-Minute Reviewer

What is One-Minute Book Reviews?
One-Minute Book Reviews is an independent blog devoted to short reviews of new, evergreen, and forthcoming books. The reviews are written by the editor-in-chief of the site, Janice Harayda, who has been the book columnist for Glamour, book editor and critic for The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, and vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle www.bookcritics.org. The site is the home of the Delete Key Awards for the year’s worst writing in books, published annually on March 15 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/03/15, and the Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guides. You can find all the guides by clicking on “Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guides” in the “Categories” column at right.

Why have a blog just for short book reviews?

The number of Web sites and blogs about publishing news, trends, and gossip recently has surged. There are far fewer independent sites or blogs just for reviews. And publishers pay for the reviews on some sites, so they’re hardly objective. I wanted to help to close the gap with sophisticated and witty reviews, including artful takedowns of overrated books and appreciations of underrated books, that aren’t influenced by all the hype.

Can you really read any review on this site in a minute?
You can read my one-sentence summaries of each book in less than a minute — maybe two or three seconds. You can find the summaries by clicking on the “Books in a Sentence” category. I also try to keep the regular reviews short enough so that you can read them in a minute or so. But I include extra text for people who have more time. At the bottom of each review, you’ll find my choices for the best and worst lines in the book. You can skip these and the other extra material.

What kinds of books do you review?
All kinds. That includes new and older fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and books typically bypassed by the review sections of newspapers, such as self-help manuals. Nothing is off limits.

How often do you post reviews?
As often as possible. On days when I don’t post a review, I often post a quote on a literary topic. Reviews of books for children and teenagers appear on Saturdays.

Why do you post readers’ guides, too?
Publishers haven’t created guides for many books that groups might love. For example, they often don’t publish guides for new hardcover nonfiction or for classic works of fiction. The guides they do post are part of a marketing plan intended to sell books. They may appear to be objective, but they are far from it. Publishers’ guides do not quote unfavorable reviews, encourage you to compare a book to others suggest that you are reading anything other than a flawless work. On that level, they don’t promote the lively debate about the merits of books that most book clubs enjoy.

How can publicists and others submit books to you for review?
They can’t. I don’t accept books or promotional materials from editors, publishers, literary agents or book publicists.

Why don’t you accept free books from publishers?
I agree with that pillar of newsroom ethics that says that journalists shouldn’t just avoid conflicts of interest — they should avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. If I accepted free books from publishers, how would you know that the reviews on these pages hadn’t been influenced by the freebies?

If you don’t accept books from publishers, where do you get them?
Sometimes from the library. Those of us who live in New Jersey get a fantastic benefit for our tax dollars. You can walk into almost any public library, fill out a card asking the staff to buy a book, and get your wish as long as you want a title that would enhance the collection or appeal to others. If I can’t get a book from the library, I may try to borrow it from a friend or buy it online or elsewhere at half price.

How can people bring books to your attention if they can’t send them directly?
They can’t. Getting reviewed on One-Minute Book Reviews is a little like winning a MacArthur Foundation grant. You can’t apply. You just have to get lucky.

You can find out more about the blog by reading the “About One-Minute Book Reviews” page on the site.

The reviews on One-Minute Book Reviews may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author except for brief quotations that do not violate fair-use provisions of copyright laws. Publishers who quote from reviews in ads or elsewhere should credit: Janice Harayda, One-Minute Book Reviews. For permission to reprint longer passages or full reviews, send an e-mail message to the address on the “Contact” page on this site or write to: Janice Harayda, 41 Watchung Plaza, #99, Montclair, NJ 07042, and enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. If you send e-mail, please mention your request in the subject heading so you don’t get mistaken for a spammer.

If you would like Janice Harayda to speak your book group, please visit http://www.janiceharayda.com and click on the page labeled “For Book Groups.”

Home page photo credit: (c) Michael Stahl

(c)2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Win a Copy of Deborah Garrison’s Poetry Collection, ‘The Second Child’

Is buying poetry a luxury on your budget? Would you like to win a copy of Deborah Garrison’s The Second Child (Random House, 2007), one of the most talked about poetry collections of the year?

This book deals with the everyday experiences of a working mother of three and is available only in hardcover. Here’s how you can win a copy:

1) Link from your blog to this post or or any other on One-Minute Book Reviews.

2) Send an e-mail message that includes the link to the address on the “Contact” page on this site. Include your mailing address.

3) If you’re the first person to send a link I can verify and you live in the U.S., I’ll send you the book. (I’ll pay the postage.) This is the copy of The Second Child that I used to write the review that was posted on this site on March 12, 2007 http: oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/03/12. It’s also the copy I used to write the reading group guide to The Second Child posted on the same day But it has no marks on (except for a bookstore sticker on the back) and is in very good condition.

Because links can be slow in showing up on Word Press and Technorati, you must send an e-mail message to the address on the contact page to win. I’ll judge the winner by the times on the e-mails.

This is the third in a series of book giveways that I’ll be having on Fridays or Saturdays on this site this summer. There may not be a giveaway every week, and not all giveaways may require a link. Some may involve writing contests that ask you to tell why you want the book.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does ‘The Secret Work’? Update on 30-Day Test

Yes, I’m still doing the 30-day test of The Secret begun on May 2 when I asked “the Universe” for a seven-figure advance for my next book or a comparable movie deal for an earlier one. Are you surprised to hear that Steven Spielberg still hasn’t called? No? Check back at the end of the month for the full results. Spielberg’s still got a week.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does ‘The Secret’ Work? Day 10 of 30-Day Test

Day 10
No closer to getting a seven-figure advance for my next book than I was on Day 1 of this test. So why, you might wonder, didn’t I ask for something more reasonable? Why not one of the Caribbean vacations that my favorite radio station here in New Jersey is giving away when it’s not playing “Little Deuce Coupe” or “Here Comes the Sun?” Or – to make it even easier for the Universe – one of those great Alice Roi purses (only $250) shown on the fashion page of yesterday’s New York Times?

Answer: The Secret says that the mysterious “law of attraction” will “manifest” what you want, regardless of its value if you just “ask, believe, and receive.” Or, as Rhonda Byrne puts it on page 63: “It is as easy to manifest one dollar as it is to manifest one dollar.” So why shouldn’t I give the Universe a chance to show what it can do?

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

A Review of ‘Acceptance,’ Susan Coll’s Satire of the College Admissions Race, Coming Next Week on One-Minute Book Reviews

One of the books I’ll be reviewing next week is Susan Coll’s Acceptance, a send-up of the college admissions race, which I’ve just started. My favorite line so far? A mother named Nina boasts to a neighbor, Grace, that her daughter got straight A’s. Grace flinches: “Didn’t grades fall into the zone of private information, along with age and weight and financial net worth?”

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does ‘The Secret’ Work? Day 9 of 30-Day Test

Day 8
A miracle. No e-mails today from Nigerian letter-fraud scammers trying to con me out of my bank account numbers. Did the Hot Mail spam-blockers finally kick in … or was it The Secret?

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Enid Shomer’s ‘Tourist Season,’ Short Stories About Women in Unfamiliar Territory

Female characters explore places that include Tibet, Florida and Las Vegas in a collection by a winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award

Tourist Season: Stories. By Enid Shomer. Random House, 256 pp., $13.95, paperback.

By Janice Harayda

Enid Shomer is a thoughtful and intelligent writer whose Tourist Season is nonetheless hard to love. One problem is that Shomer lacks a strong voice. You might recognize her stories as hers only because she tends to write about current or former residents of Florida. This isn’t enough when so many other writers, like Carl Hiaasen, work the state with voices you’d know anywhere.

Here are the first lines of “Chosen,” the first story in Tourist Season: “It was a Tuesday afternoon in early June. School had been out for a week.” You can begin a story with writing that flat – sometimes – if you move on right away to more promising material. But “Chosen” is about a 59-year-old Jewish speech therapist who gets an unexpected visit from two monks who say that she is a reincarnated Buddhist lama, and who not only invites them into her home while she is alone but follows them from Florida to Tibet. The story is so implausible that it throws the pedestrian beginning into higher relief. And that implausibility has less to do with plot than with Shomer’s lack of a distinctive voice. The plot of “Chosen” is much less bizarre than some that have worked brilliantly in stories by writers with stronger voices, such as Flannery O’Connor and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

A related problem is that Shomer often gives you Cliffs Notes to characters instead of development. She writes of a Florida sheriff in “Sweethearts”: “A star high school quarterback who’d married a cheerleader and gone to Vanderbilt on a football scholarship, he had always been something of a local celebrity.” Change the name of the school (or “cheerleader” to “Homecoming Queen”) and those words could apply to anybody from Archie Manning to the most successful insurance agent in your hometown.

Shomer started out as a poet, turned to short stories and is writing on a historical novel. And there’s nothing wrong with working in several genres. But in Tourist Season, she doesn’t seem to know who she wants to be. She deals in realism in one story, semi-realism in another and magical realism in a third and with characters who range from a high school student to retirees. If the women in her collection resemble tourists in their own lives, Shomer comes across a tourist in literature, carefully mapping out journeys but still casting about for her ideal destination.

Best line: From “The Hottest Spot on Earth,” a story set in Las Vegas: “She regarded the pastel haze of downtown Las Vegas. A pyramid-shaped hotel prodded the sky. Beyond it the suburbs twinkled in a grid, like a busy switchboard.”

Worst line: From the title story, whose characters live in a condo building on Florida’s Gold Coast: “The directors were a bunch of bullies who couldn’t pass for businesspeople if they had ticker tape coming out of their butts.” I can’t quite see this one, can you?

Editor: Anika Streitfeld

Published: March 2007

Caveat lector: This review was based on the advance readers’ edition. Some material in the finished book may differ.

Furthermore: Shomer won the Iowa Short Fiction Award for her first collection or stories Imaginary Men (University of Iowa Press, 1993). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and other publications.

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Janice Harayda is an award-winning critic who has been the book columnist for Glamour, book editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle. At least 50 percent of her reviews deal with books by women. Reviews of books by female authors typically appear on Mondays and Wednesdays and books by male authors on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the sexes up for grabs at other times.

Does ‘The Secret’ Work? Day 7 of 30-Day Test

Day 7
I think my messages to the Universe are being intercepted. Since starting my test of The Secret, I seem to be getting more e-mail from con artists peddling variations on the famous Nigerian letter-fraud scam, though it’s coming from Burkina Faso: Somebody tells you that you can have millions of dollars in unclaimed funds if you provide your own bank account number so the cash can be deposited.

I try not to open these. But my e-mail from One-Minute Book Reviews goes to the address these people use, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the con artists from visitors to the site. Today I got an e-mail message with the heading: FROM THE DESK OF ADAMS SMITH. A fan of my review of For One More Day, noting that Mitch Albom is writing at a third-grade level? No, “Adams Smith” is the “Bill and Exchange Manager” of the “African Development Bank.” He has $15 million in unclaimed funds and will give me a third of it if I send him the number of my checking account so he can deposit the money in my name.

There is a serious chance that if this test of The Secret continues, my bank account will end up in the negative numbers. Is it possible that hackers could break into your messages to the Universe and redirect them to people being investigated by Interpol?

Requested from Universe on May 1: $1,000,000
Received so far: $825 (hard labor) + $58 (lottery) = $883
Universe owes me (according to The Secret): $999,117 (at a minimum)

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does ‘The Secret Work’? Day 3 of 30-Day Test

Day 3
Have just recovered from a flirtation with madness. Went to the UPS store to get my mail and see if the Universe had sent more of the $1,000,000+ requested on Day 1 of 30-Day test of advice in The Secret. (Had to agree with comment on this site by P that $825 check yesterday was hardly encouraging, especially since it covered freelance work I did before starting the test.) Got to the store too late and was locked out.

It didn’t seem fair to blame the Universe for not coming up with the $999,175 it still owes me when, if I’d arrived earlier, it might have paid in full. So I decided to pick up $10 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets on the way home from the UPS store. I don’t usually buy these and realized, when I found a shop that sold them, that I had no idea which to get. There are 24 instant games, all displayed on rolls like shiny toilet paper, with incomprehensible names like “The Duke.” (Why did the New Jersey put John Wayne lottery ticket? Why not Bon Jovi or – for those of us with literary inclinations – Edmund Wilson?) I asked a clerk which game he would suggest. He said that a lot of people seemed to be winning modest amounts — $50 to $100 – on one called Big Money Spectacular. I handed over $10 for five $2 tickets and won $25 instantly.

I wondered if Big Money game was “hot,” so I pocketed a $15 profit and reinvested my original $10. I won $17, $50, $22 before I got a set of cards that had no winner. From five games I won $25 + $17 + $50 + $22 + $0, or $114, minus the initial investment of $50, for a $64 profit. I played once more to make sure my streak had ended, lost $6, then quit with a $58 profit. This doesn’t count the dry cleaner’s bill for getting the blizzard of silvery specks from all the scratch-offs off my clothes. So now the tally is:

Requested from Universe on May 1: $1,000,000
Received so far: $825 (hard labor) + $58 (lottery) = $883
Universe owes me (according to The Secret): $999,175 (at a minimum)

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does ‘The Secret’ Work? Day 2 of 30-Day Test

“You do not have to ask over and over again. Just ask once. It is exactly like placing an order from a catalogue.”
– Rhonda Byrne in The Secret, the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller

Day 2
Just realized I may have made a mistake yesterday in asking the Universe for seven-figure advance for my next book. Forgot to say that I would also accept a) seven-figure movie deal or b) seven-figure paperback deal for one of earlier novels or other writing project. But The Secret says you’re supposed to ask only once for what you want. Should I revise my original request? Or should I assume the Universe knows I would accept a check from DreamWorks or a paperback house? Could not find an answer to this anywhere in The Secret.

But I did get an $825 check for a freelance project that I completed before I read the book. Hooray! Maybe it’s a sign from the Universe that DreamWorks will kick in the other $999,975 during the 30-day test?

Requested from Universe on May 1: $1,000,000
Received so far: $825
Universe owes me: $999,175 (at a minimum)

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does ‘The Secret’ Work? Day 1 of 30-Day Test

“We have received thousand of accounts of The Secret being used to bring about large sums of money and checks in the mail.”
– Rhonda Byrne in The Secret, the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller

Day 1
Oh, joy! I’ve just received a seven-figure advance for my next book. I am so happy and grateful that the check arrived. Now I can afford to live in one of those fantastic condos going up down the street instead of a modified garret in building also inhabited by black-and-white psycho ferret owned by downstairs tenant. Can also keep posting on One-Minute Book Reviews because advance has more than replaced all income lost since starting blog. The Delete Key Awards live!

Actually, I don’t have the advance yet. Or even a contract. Or even a finished book. [Note to literary agent: Only kidding, Carol! I don't owe you a minimum of $150,000.] But The Secret says you create your own reality through your thoughts, a process it calls “the law of attraction.” This includes acting as though you already have what you want. The Secret suggests that you start by writing, “I am so happy and grateful now that … ,” then fill in the blank. This sends “a powerful signal to the Universe” that you’ve received what you want “because you are feeling gratitude for it now.” You’re supposed to turn yourself into a kind of human radio transmitter beaming messages to the Universe.

I wrote this post last night and haven’t heard from the Universe yet. Maybe it was busy, or had to be taken to the emergency room? Would like to ask Universe to stop psycho ferret from going postal again, or at least giving tenants rabies, but this is a “negative thought” not allowed by The Secret.

[Note: Today's usual post appears directly below this one. Jan]

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Will ‘The Secret’ Make Me Rich? A 30-Day Test Starting Tomorrow

“When you think of the things that you want, and you focus on them with all of your intention, then the law of attraction will give you exactly what you want, every time.”
– Lisa Nichols, one of the 24 “teachers” quoted in The Secret, the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller

Will The Secret make me rich? Jerry Adler eviscerated Rhonda Byrne’s bestseller brilliantly in Newsweek (March 3, 2007), partly by quoting experts in history and psychology. But, you may wonder, what do experts know? Didn’t “experts” tell us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the Red Sox would never lose the Curse of the Bambino? Shouldn’t somebody actually test the ideas in The Secret instead of just accepting Newsweek’s word that they are scientifically “preposterous”? And what blog is bold enough to do that test except for One-Minute Book Reviews, home of innovations such as the Delete Key Awards for the year’s worst writing, the Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guides and the Books I Didn’t Finish category for books don’t deliver on the promise of their great reviews?

Starting tomorrow, I’ll test one of the ideas in The Secret every day until May 31 and write a post the next day about what happened. I’ll also continue to post book reviews, which will appear in the post directly below the one on The Secret www.thesecret.tv.

Remember: Some of the experts in the book said you can see amazing results in just a few days, so you may be reading remarkable things in this space by the end of the week.

To avoid missing these posts, please bookmark this site or subscribe to the RSS feed. To read the Newsweek article on The Secret, Google “Adler + Newsweek + The Secret.”

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Help for People Who Can’t See the Rhyme or Reason of Poetry

Books that make rhyme and meter / In our minds, so much neater

By Janice Harayda

Take a look at the list of top posts on this site on an average day, and you may say see something remarkable: The most popular post is often a review of a little-known book called How to Be Well-Versed in Poetry, a witty guide to understanding the different types of poetry. This post appeared than five months ago (Nov. 20, 2006), and since then it has repeatedly trumped reviews of newer and flashier books, including many bestsellers. And there’s some poetic justice in this: No book makes learning about poetry more fun than this delightful collection, edited by the British critic E.O. Parrott, which illustrates many kinds of rhyme and meter with self-descriptive light-verse examples such as, “A form with very tight parameters, / Heroic couplets use pentameters.”

But Parrott’s book, published by Viking in 1990, can be hard to find. So you may also want to consider John Hollander’s more widely available Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse (Yale University Press, $11.95). Like Parrott’s book, Hollander’s uses light verse to describe poetic forms: “A quatrain has four lines / As one can plainly see: / One of its strict designs / Comes rhymed abab.”

One difference between the books is that Parrott includes work by a constellation of poets while Hollander wrote all of his examples. Perhaps for this reason, How to Be Well-Versed in Poetry is wittier than Rhyme’s Reason and covers more poetric forms. But Hollander, a Yale professor, comments on some rhetorical issues that Parrott doesn’t. So many people will want both books. As Hollander says in another context, “Repetition is a powerful and diversified element of formal structures.”

You may also want to read … The Poetry Dictionary: Second Edition: 1) Defines key terms that should be in the vocabulary of every poet. 2) Includes over 250 illustrative poems from Homer to the present day. (Writer’s Digest, $14.99), edited by John Drury with a foreword by Dana Gioia. This reference book in the form of a dictionary has more information than casual poetry readers may need, including definitions of obscure types of poems such as the Fibonacci (which uses the mathematical Fibonacci sequence to determine the number of lines in each stanza). But The Poetry Dictionary may be useful to poets, critics and others. The landmark textbook Understanding Poetry by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, first published in 1938, taught generations of college students how read poetry by focusing on the text, not the poet’s politics or other issues that have become fashionable. Understanding Poetry has gone through many editions and remains widely available in libraries. Another warhorse is John Ciardi’s How Does a Poem Mean?, first published in 1959 and widely used in high schools and colleges in its day. This textbook, also available in many libraries, may be most noteworthy today for its six-page analysis of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which suggests the interpretation that has become standard — that the poem involves a death wish. A memorable third-season episode of The Sopranos in which Meadow explains the poem to A.J. may derive directly or indirectly from this influential book.

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com