The first runner-up for the 2007 Delete Key Award for the year’s worst writing in books is …
For One More Day by Mitch Albom
Yes, it may seem unfair to give an award to a novel that’s already been named one of the five worst books of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly www.ew.com. Why not spread the embarrassment around? First, because most other bad books aren’t written at a third-grade level, according to the readability statistics on Microsoft Word. (You can learn how to find the grade level of Albom’s and other books, or your own writing, in the Nov. 16 review of For One More Day, “Does Mitch Albom Think He’s Jesus?”, archived with the Nov. 2006 posts.) Second, the bad writing in other books at least makes sense. For One More Day teems with inane lines like: “A funeral is no place for secrets.” At no time do secrets have a more respected – and needed – place than at funerals, where common decency requires us to withhold the truth to avoid causing further pain to the mourners. Bury this one with all those classics of pseudoprofundity like The Bridges of Madison County and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Original review on One-Minute Book Reviews: Nov. 16, 2006, “Does Mitch Albom Think He’s Jesus?”, archived with the November posts and in the “Novels” category.
© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
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Comment by heehler — March 15, 2007 @ 7:00 pm |
So glad you liked the award. While I was entering passages from “For One More Day” into my computer to determine their reading level, I had moments when I wondered, “Why I am doing this?” (If you think reading Albom is tough, try typing his prose for hours onto a Microsoft Word “New Document” form — well, it seemed like hours.) It’s heartening to hear that the effort may have had an effect.
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — March 16, 2007 @ 10:05 am |
You need a scanner Jan. Then you could simply copy and paste in seconds. Maybe if you’re good – for your birthday…
Comment by heehler — March 17, 2007 @ 3:40 pm |
Oh, my God, why did nobody point this out before you? I actually have a scanner, I think, built into my HP printer. But I’ve never used it, so I don’t know how it works, and it didn’t occur to me to scan in all those words by Nora Ephron, Stephen King, and Danielle Steel that I spent hours typing in with my ten fingers. I have to go read my instruction manual for the printer right now …
My consolation is that I got my first link from Wikipedia today, or at least the first that somebody has used (to a review of a collection of essays I love, about Vermont, by Noel Perrin). I have linked to Wikipedia a lot of times from O-MBR but didn’t expect any links back. Hooray!
Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — March 17, 2007 @ 6:17 pm |