Three Reasons Why “Low Brow” Novels Are Worth Reading

Well, I thought that I’d talk about “low brow” novels today. This is mostly because, although I have read a few “high brow”/”middle brow” novels since I got back into reading regularly again a few weeks ago, I seem to be going through a bit of a phase where I just want to read novels with a clear plot, an informal writing style and a slightly faster pace. The kind of untaxing books that are just fun to relax with.

And, although my recent experiences with watching/reviewing films made me notice that I was beginning to turn into a bit of a “film snob” ( and hopefully this is only temporary), I luckily don’t really seem to have the same feelings about books. So, I thought that I’d look at a few of the reasons why “low brow” novels are worth reading sometimes.

1) They keep you reading: This is the most obvious reason to read “low brow” novels sometimes – they are easy and fun to read. Since they are designed to thrill and to entertain and are also often written in a fairly “matter of fact” way that doesn’t take too much effort to read, it is very easy to pick up one of these books and lose yourself in it.

This can be incredibly useful if you are either an inexperienced reader or if you are an experienced reader who is worried about losing interest in reading and/or enthusiasm about reading. These are books that show you how much fun reading can be. These are books that are designed to be difficult to put down, whilst also telling a streamlined enough story that you won’t have to take extensive notes in order to keep track of what is happening. They are books that are unashamedly entertaining.

If your only experience of books has been having to study “classics” at school, then “low brow” novels can also show you how much fun books can be. They will show you why people actually read books for enjoyment. Because, yes, books can be really fun to read. Imagine an excellent TV series – but with twice the atmosphere, more personality, better characters and a much greater feeling of immersion and this should give you some vague clue about what reading even a “low brow” book should feel like.

2) They’re less “low brow” than you might think: Even the most “low brow” novel will still be more sophisticated than the average blockbuster film, thanks to the strengths of the written word.

Because novels are a non-visual medium, they have to rely on things like characterisation, plot, writing skill and atmosphere in order to keep everything interesting. They can’t just rely on special effects or famous actors. So, you’ll get a better experience with a “low brow” novel than you will with a “low brow” film. After all, it actually has to tell a coherent and interesting story using nothing but words.

For example, Matthew Reilly’s “Area 7” is the literary equivalent of a cheesy action movie from the 1980s/90s. It is filled with an incredibly “over the top” mixture of explosions, derring-do and “action hero” characters. It will also provide you with a much more spectacular, gripping and satisfyingly fun experience than you will ever find in an actual action movie. Why? Because Reilly can only use words. Because the story itself has to be interesting, coherent and well-planned enough to stand on it’s own two feet.

This sort of thing is especially true with older “low brow” novels too – which, thanks to the greater popularity of novels in the past, will also be more well-written than you might expect too.

Back when I was a teenager during the early-mid 2000s, I used to read a lot of old “low brow” 1980s horror novels that I found in charity shops and second-hand shops. They were just a “fun” and “cool” type of book and I didn’t really think too much about the writing in them. Of course, when I ended up revisiting a few of these books during the past couple of years, I was always surprised at how complex and formal – yet still easily readable – the writing was when compared to more modern novels. So, yes, “low brow” books can be more well-written than you might think.

Likewise, because novels are usually written by one author, they also tend to have a lot more imagination and personality than films or TV shows do. This automatically makes even the most “popular” novels feel intriguingly unique and different compared to, say, a blockbuster movie that has been designed by committee to maximise audience revenue. Authors have their own quirks and personalities that lend every novel a uniquely human element that you’ll often only really find in “high brow” things like art films, indie games etc…

So, “low brow” books are a lot less “low brow” than their equivalents in other mediums.

3) Progression: One of the great things about “low brow” books is that they will often set you up for reading more “high brow” books. Not only will the feeling of confidence gained from – say- blazing through a fast-paced thriller novel at top speed put you in a better frame of mind when it comes to grappling with slightly more complex books, but most genres of fiction will also contain a more well-integrated blend of “high brow”, “middle brow” and “low brow” novels which not only makes the transition from one to the other easier but also much smoother too.

For example, if you’re interested in vampire fiction, then reading a fun and relatively fast-paced gothic thriller novel like Jocelynn Drake’s awesome “Nightwalker” might mean that when you find something a bit more complex and “literary” – like Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Armand” – you’ll be able to jump into it more easily because you’ve had experience with the genre and because both “high brow” and “low brow” vampire novels will often have a common fan base, will be stocked on the same shelf and will contain enough similar elements (eg: atmosphere, themes etc..) to make the jump from one to the other easier than you might expect.

And it really isn’t a one-way street either. “High brow” novels can be a refreshing change when “low brow” novels begin to feel a bit monotonous, and “low brow” novels can be a refreshing way to relax when you don’t feel like putting the effort into reading something more complex. Because the boundaries between these two things are a lot more blurred than they often are in other mediums, you’re probably going to end up reading something “high brow” if you start reading “low brow” novels, and vice versa.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Novels Are Pure Storytelling – A Ramble

Well, although I’d planned to write an article about the detective genre (no prizes for guessing what I’m reading at the moment), it didn’t really work out that well. So, I ended up going back to my original idea for today’s article – which is yet another ramble about why novels are such a brilliant storytelling medium.

Anyway, one of the main reasons why novels are so amazing is their simplicity. They quite literally just consist of symbols printed onto sheets of paper. In a novel, there is literally nothing but story. There aren’t actors, fancy computer graphics or anything like that. There is just the story, pure and unvarnished like the underlying source code of a videogame or the script for a film. Yet, unlike both of these things, they are explicitly designed to be read directly by a typical audience member.

Almost all novels are – or were- designed for an ordinary person to pick them up and start reading them. This is, for example, why modern novels often tend to use a more informal and/or “matter of fact” writing style – since they are designed to be read directly by people who, for example, may be more used to watching films or TV. It’s also why older novels can sometimes be a bit more “difficult” to read, since they were often written with the assumption that the reader would be more experienced or have a larger vocabulary.

Of course, since reading is a skill, this lack of a “middle layer” (like a computer, a DVD player, a games console etc..) between the reader and the story also means that you quite literally get better at reading with every novel that you read. Because you – the reader – have to put in the effort in a way that you don’t with other mediums, there’s a real feeling of gradual progression and “levelling up” that you won’t always find in many other storytelling mediums.

Yes, videogames require skill too – but, with the possible exception of some rather “standardised” genres (eg: the common control scheme used in almost all first-person shooter games on the PC), the skills you gain from playing one game won’t always help you with other games. Because novels all use the same format and because you’ll probably be reading novels that are written in the same language as the novels you have previously read, the slightly increased reading skills you gain from reading one novel will help you read subsequent novels. The more you read, the better you get at reading (and writing).

In addition to this, there is something honest about books too. You quite literally see everything there is in a book. They are a completely open and known format. If you buy a paperback or hardback book, you can easily see how it works and what is inside it. This keeps books honest. Unlike some computer games, there is no hidden DRM that can ruin paying customers’ experiences or make unreasonable arbitrary demands (eg: a constant internet connection for a single-player game). Unlike some computer operating systems, there are no random mandatory “updates” pushed onto you. Unlike many pieces of technology, there is no artificial planned obsolescence either. A book is a book and it works as you would expect it to because it is a “simple” and limited piece of technology.

Books are also a more direct and reliable storytelling medium because enjoying one requires just two people – you and the author. The author describes everything and you have to turn it into mental images and think about it. It has the intimacy and simplicity of a very small team, both of whom are doing something that they know how to do. Compare this to the large teams of creative people needed for things like games or movies and you can see why there is much less room for things to go wrong with a book. Best of all, even when errors happen, they are much less damaging and much easier to handle in books than in other mediums.

Yes, modern books sometimes have a reputation for not being as thoroughly proof-read as older books, but this is much less of an issue than it is in other mediums. If you see a misspelled word in a book, you can probably make a good guess at what word it is supposed to be from the context it is used in and/or how it sounds. For most readers, it is a brief annoyence at most (see what I did there?). However, if a programmer makes even a small error in their code – it can end up completely wrecking a game. Because the programming of a game is hidden and because most players don’t understand programming languages, they can’t easily correct it themselves. So, the simplicity of books mean that errors aren’t the big deal that they are in other mediums.

In addition to this, books are – in some ways at least- also a fairer and more meriticratic storytelling medium than anything else is. Because they consist of nothing but words and paper, the main thing that determines the quality of a novel is the author’s skill. If an author is good at writing, then you’ll probably want to read more of their book. If an author is bad at writing, you’ll probably end up reading something else instead. Now, compare this to films or videogames – yes, skill is still a very important thing here, but money also plays a much larger role too.

If a film or game has a larger budget, it can do more impressive stuff more easily. More experienced actors, directors and/or staff can also be hired too. Yes, this is certainly no guarantee of quality, but it often means that “richer” films or games automatically have very noticeable advantages over “poorer” ones. With books, authors are on a slightly more level playing field in this regard. It costs exactly the same to write a spectacular large-scale thriller novel as it does to write, say, a small-scale historical novel. The only thing that really matters is how good the author is at writing. So, because of their simplicity, novels are fairer than most other mediums.

The simplicity of novels also helps to spur creativity and innovation too. After all, whilst films and games can “innovate” by including better graphics or special effects than the competition, the limitations of a novel mean that all innovation has to be focused on the story itself and how it is told. In other words, because novels can’t just use fancy visual effects, they will often give you a much more varied, personality-filled, interesting and/or unusual experience than you might be used to if you mostly watch films or play games. And this is so refreshing! It will show you just how limited and set in their ways many major film studios and game companies can be.

So, yes, novels are quite literally pure storytelling. They are more honest, more innovative, more direct, more error-resistant, more fair, more intimate and they will also make you at least fractionally better at reading any other book too. They are storytelling in its purest and most basic form – and this gives books all sorts of cool advantages over more complicated storytelling mediums.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Three Things The Film Industry Can Learn From Novels

Well, although book reviews may or may not appear as often as they used to, I finally found myself getting interested in reading novels again after taking a break from reading for a couple of months and watching films instead. Initially, this break was a really refreshing and relaxing experience but, after watching about thirty films, I started to find myself really missing books once again.

The simple reason for this was because I realised that it was much easier for me to find a good book than it was to find a good film. But, I thought that I’d look at this in more detail – because there are some lessons here for the film industry.

1) “Classics” And Reprints: One of the really great things about books is that a lot of copyrighted 20th century “classics” are very easy to find inexpensively. Whether it is the fact that publishers bring out new editions of them every few years or the fact that they have been reprinted so many times in the past that second-hand copies are fairly easy to find, if someone wants to read an influential or well-regarded novel from a few decades ago, then they can often do this easily and reasonably cheaply.

For example, during my previous run of book reviews, I read modern reprints of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting Of Hill House“, Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon” and Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes“. I wasn’t restricted to modern reprints either – I could easily find and read older second-hand copies of novels like Walter M. Miller’s “A Canticle For Liebowitz” and Joan D. Vinge’s “The Snow Queen” too.

On the other hand, when I was in the mood for a “high brow” film – I eventually had to watch “Citizen Kane” because all of the other art films that piqued my interest were either only available in relatively expensive new editions or were rare, expensive second-hand DVDs. Don’t get me wrong, “Citizen Kane” is a brilliant film – but the range of easily-available and inexpensive “classic” films on DVD was restricted to the relatively small number of well-known ones (eg: Kubrick, Welles and a relatively small number of popular movies from the 1970s-2000s). It even took a bit of research just to find the original theatrical versions of the first three “Star Wars” films on DVD.

When I first got back into reading regularly a couple of years ago, I started with mainstream thriller novels by Clive Cussler and, although I still mostly read “fun” thriller, horror, detective, sci-fi, historical, urban fantasy etc… novels, I sometimes found myself wanting something with a bit more depth every now and then. And, whenever I did, the “classics” of these genres were very easy to find.

At a guess, this is also how “film buffs” are made. If 20th century “classics” are as easy and inexpensive to get hold of as more popular or modern films, then film fans will be more inclined to check them out whenever they want something a bit different or more complex. So, the lesson for the film industry is not only to preserve “the classics” (which, to be fair, they already do a much better job of than the videogame industry does), but to make them more easily and widely available to the average viewer.

2) Variety is the spice of life: In short, films need to take more creative risks. Yes, films are collaborative efforts that cost more to make – but many of the really interesting and memorable films that I watched during my series of film reviews were notable because they did something different. Because they used slower pacing or focused more on interesting characters or even just had a slightly unusual premise, they stood out as something interesting and unique. Something memorable.

As you can probably guess, this sort of thing is a lot more common in novels. Because of the reduced “production costs” and the fact that one person is in charge of the creative process, authors are constantly trying to innovate and do new things. For a great example, read Becky Chambers’ 2014 novel “The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet” – this is a sci-fi novel that focuses on “humanities” subjects (eg: languages, cultural knowledge, emotional intelligence etc…) in the same way that traditional sci-fi focuses on STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths). It is a different, creative, refreshing, unique and memorable novel because of this. It’ll probably be a “classic” in a few decades’ time.

And I could list numerous other examples of novels that try something a bit different – A zombie story set in Roman times , a fantasy epic set inside an old carpet, a detective story set in Tudor-era Hampshire, a “film noir” story with a vampire detective, a surreal horror story set in a shopping centre etc… I could go on for a while, but novels are constantly trying to innovate and do different things.

One thing that also helps is that, although the publishing industry still isn’t perfect when it comes to publishing a wide variety of authors, there is at least a larger total number of authors getting published than there are directors making films. Yes, some of this is probably for practical reasons (again, films are expensive collaborative projects) but more people writing books means that readers have more choice and there is a wider range of unique and creative stories for them to enjoy too.

So, what can the film industry learn from this? Not only does giving directors more creative control result in more unique and interesting films, but lower budgets also mean that creative risks are easier to take (since more films can be made and there’s less of a loss if one fails) and that there should be more directors too. The sad thing is that the film industry used to be well aware of at least one of these points – just look at the sheer number of interesting mid-budget films from the 1970s-90s. Yes, there were “blockbuster” films too back then, but lots of smaller mid-budget films as well. These days, it’s often just “blockbuster or nothing”. And films are less creative as a result.

3) Stick to one format: Thankfully, the DVD format seems to have some staying power. Like traditional books, it is a fairly open format (eg: small and large companies alike can make them, and some of the patents have apparently expired) that relies on widely-available hardware that most viewers have access to. It has survived unchanged for more than two decades and this is a good thing.

It means that – if I want to watch a slightly random film from the early-mid 2000s, like “Ghost Ship” or “High Heels And Low Lifes” , then I can. The original DVD editions of these films will still play on, say, a modern computer with both a DVD drive and
DVD player software installed.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way with films. Before DVD, there was VHS – and people have been trying to replace DVDs with Blu-Ray discs (with higher hardware requirements) or, even worse, corporate-controlled “streaming” services that heavily restrict what can be watched (due to contracts, licensing etc…), that take control of ownership (and therefore historical preservation) out of the hands of paying audience members and control over distribution out of the hands of smaller studios. Of course, DVDs are fortunately still around – but I still sometimes find myself worrying about the future of the format.

Yes, novels aren’t perfect in this regard – there are proprietary corporate-controlled DRM-filled e-book formats – but they do have a much more well-established “basic” format (eg: traditional books) that can be printed by smaller and larger presses alike, that does not include any kind of planned obsolescence (read a book printed in the 1960s. Now try watching a VHS tape from the 1980s) and that has very low “hardware requirements”. Traditional paper books confidently endure the ages because they are a single, well-established format that isn’t linked to any one publisher or company.

So, the lesson for the film industry is to stick to DVDs. Or even Blu-Rays. Just find one physical media format and stick to it. We can still read old books from decades or centuries past because the technology hasn’t changed, we can have thriving smaller presses (because they use the same format as the larger ones) and audience members have a much greater degree of choice when it comes to books (because they’ve been printed for many years). If film eventually wants to gain the same grand sense of history that books have, then it needs a single well-recognised physical media format that doesn’t arbitrarily change just for the sake of making a quick buck. A hundred years into the future, someone should be able to walk into a library and watch a film – any film- made today on the same physical media format it was originally released on.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Why Are Novels “Edgier” Than Film Or TV?

Well, I thought that I’d talk about one of the things that I’ve noticed again after I got back into reading regularly a year or two ago – novels are often at least slightly “edgier” than equivalent pieces of film or television usually are. Of course, back when I was a teenager, this was quite literally the coolest thing in the world. And, although it was a little bit of a shock when I got back into reading regularly again, it is still one of the most interesting elements of the medium.

So, I thought that I’d look at some of the reasons why novels can be more shocking, more salacious, much grittier and just generally “edgier” than pretty much every other storytelling medium out there.

1) History: Although many countries have their own different version of this history, I’ll focus on the British one. I am, of course, talking about the Lady Chatterley Trial in 1960. This trial, revolving around the reprinting of D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover“, was a pivotal test of a newly-introduced artistic merit exemption in the literary censorship laws of the time. The after-effects of this trial were that novels are literally the only storytelling medium that is exempt from any kind of official censorship 🙂

About two and a half decades later, the “video nasties” moral panic of the mid-1980s led to much stricter home video censorship in the UK. This, combined with traditional film censorship in cinemas, gave writers a giant advantage over the competition when it came to giving audiences the “edgy” content that was popular at the time.

Plus, although there are still sporadic literary controversies these days, books often seem to be exempt from major moral panics thanks to the fact that they are no longer the popular entertainment medium they once were. People are more interested in streaming, smartphones, politics, social media and videogames than reading these days. One good side-effect of this is that it lends novels a refreshing degree of relative privacy, where writers have a little bit more creative freedom because they don’t have to worry so much about the reactions of a mass audience.

2) Non-visual storytelling: Books take a lot more effort to enjoy than many other storytelling mediums do. They require readers to quite literally translate words into pictures. Reading a book is an active activity that requires your full attention, unlike sitting in front of a screen and watching something. It is something where you, the reader, have to co-create the experience that the author has planned out for you. Unlike a film playing in an empty room, a book cannot “work” without a reader.

What all of this means is that the reader has more control over their experience of reading a novel than the viewer of a film (or even the player of a videogame) does. If you read something that shocks or repulses you, then you can just imagine it in less detail, skim those parts of the novel or stop reading. As such, novels have a built in psychological safety mechanism that visual mediums don’t really have. Likewise, because reading fiction is an introspective activity that requires both thought and empathy, the audience is more likely to know themselves and to be better prepared to deal with anything they encounter on the page.

For example, the “edgy” late 1990s horror novel I’m reading at the moment (“Warhol’s Prophecy” by Shaun Hutson) contains at least one especially horrifying “gross out” chapter that could probably never be faithfully adapted to film without major censorship or controversy. Yet, when I read the chapter and recoiled in horror, I was not only able to imagine some parts of it in less detail but – thanks to lots of reading and introspection over the years- also had the level of self-awareness to think: “It’s a horror novel. I’m supposed to be horrified by it. Being horrified is a good thing in this context. It would be a lot more disturbing if I wasn’t horrified.”

Plus, because novels are a non-visual medium, they are much more clearly in the realm of the imagination. They are very blantantly something that someone made up. Yes, all readers temporarily mistake printed symbols for reality whenever they pick up a novel, but there is still a very clear separation between the page and reality. Words are not pictures.

3) Individuality: Film, music, videogames and television are usually collaborative mediums. They require a team of creative people and, because this costs money, they often have to aim for the largest possible audience. Likewise, because they are a team effort, no one individual person’s view is paramount. These things are the product of meetings, discussions and stuff like that. And, whilst this can result in great things, it also means that these things don’t have the level of individuality that books do.

This individuality is important for fiction because it is what sets novels apart from other mediums. We quite literally get to look inside someone else’s imagination, to see their thoughts and their perspective on the world. And, although popular culture might be becoming increasingly standardised these days, anyone with the imagination to write a novel is probably still going to be someone who thinks for themselves.

And, in an increasingly standardised world, individuality is – by its very nature – “edgy” and “rebellious”. Including things like nuance, ambiguity, complex thoughts and other stuff that is often absent from popular media is a rebellious act in it’s own right. Thinking for yourself and trying to see things from different perspectives (inherent parts of both reading and writing fiction) are deeply subversive acts.

So, novels are inherently “edgy” because they are the work of one author, rather than a crowd of people.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Do Plot Spoilers Really Matter? – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about plot spoilers today (so expect a couple in this article). This is mostly because I was introduced to the novel I’m currently reading (“A Canticle For Liebowitz” by Walter M. Miller Jr.) by a really interesting “Extra Sci Fi” Youtube video which pretty much spells out every major plot point and theme of the novel. Yet, despite these major plot spoilers – or rather because of them – I actually tracked down a copy of the novel and started reading it.

But why would I want to read a novel when I already know how it is going to end? Well, in the case of this book, it is more about the journey than the destination. I was so intrigued by the descriptions of the setting and the general concept of the book that I wanted to learn more about it, to see it “in action”, so to speak. Yet, with some other types of story, I’d probably find too many plot spoilers to be incredibly annoying.

In short, plot spoilers tend to matter more when there are twists or mysteries in a story. The whole point of – say – a detective novel or a thriller – is to uncover a mystery, to be astonished by new information and to follow every unpredictable direction that the plot might take. This is also why these novels tend to be a little less re-readable than novels in other genres. Because their stories rely so heavily on the reader not knowing things, they tend to lose some of their impact if you already know what will happen.

Yet, even then, a certain level of spoilers can actually make these stories more interesting – provided that the spoiler raises more questions than it answers (and therefore deepens the mystery).

For example, I binge-read a copy of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” about eleven years ago, purely because someone pointed out that it is a detective novel that ends with all of the main characters dying. I thought “how is this even possible?” and was curious enough to read the whole book in a single night.

Because I’d heard a major plot “spoiler”, but didn’t have any information about how or why it happened, I wanted to find out more. Without this intriguing spoiler, I probably wouldn’t have even thought about reading this brilliantly creepy mystery novel.

But, going back to what I was saying earlier, spoilers are at their very best when they are for stories that aren’t entirely about the plot. In other words, novels with intriguing settings, interesting ideas/concepts, an interesting writing style, fascinating characters or unusual subject matter. These are stories where a mere description of what happens doesn’t really do justice to the actual experience of reading the novel for yourself. Here, a spoiler gives you an intriguing idea of what to expect and then says “Go on, find out more”.

In other words, the more creative a story is, the less that spoilers matter.

When a story is more about the journey than the destination, then spoilers act more like a “teaser” trailer than some kind of horrible, mean-spirited thing that drains all of the joy from the story. They give you a hint of what kind of things to expect and then make you actually want to see it for yourself.

So, yes, spoilers aren’t always a bad thing. Yes, major spoilers should often be avoided in the detective and thriller genres, but – with many other genres – they can actually make a story more interesting, especially if it is a rather creative one. Still, it’s usually polite to include some kind of warning before spoiling a story, since I’m sure that my views on the subject aren’t shared by everyone.

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Sorry for the short, rambling article – but I hope it was interesting 🙂

Four More Reasons To Read Older Novels

Well, although one of the things I’ve discovered since I got back into reading regularly a year or two ago is that modern novels are better than I’d expected, I thought that I’d talk about some of the reasons to read older novels today.

This is mostly because this was what really got me interested in reading during my teenage years in the 2000s was finding lots of older novels in second-hand bookshops and charity shops. Whether it was the gruesome 1980s horror novels, the 1940s-1980s dystopian novels and the “edgy” 1960s-90s literary novels that first showed me that books could be cool, the 1950s/60s science fiction I enjoyed in my mid-late teens or even a phase I went through when I was about seventeen where I read lots of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft, I read quite a few older novels back then.

But, having read much more of a mixture of older and modern novels over the past year or two, I can compare the two in a bit more detail than I could when I was younger. And, yes, although modern novels do have some advantages over older ones, I thought that I’d look at some of the good things about slightly older novels.

1) Complexity, atmosphere and detail: Books are the literal opposite to computer games in this regard. If you want a computer game with ultra-realistic HD graphics and lots of detail, then you choose the most modern one you can find – and just hope that your machine meets the sky-high system requirements. But, if you want the literary equivalent of this, then it is usually worth reading an older book. You’ll need to be a slightly more experienced or skilled reader, but it is well worth it if you are.

Modern novels are often written in an efficient and readable way that is designed to grab the reader’s attention and to compete with the distractions of the internet, smartphones, boxsets etc… This isn’t an entirely bad thing, but it means that they can often have slightly less linguistic or descriptive detail than older novels do. They often have shorter sentences, slightly simpler vocabulary, more informal narration etc…

On the other hand, even “low brow” horror and thriller novels from the 1970s-90s will often use more sophisticated/formal vocabulary, sentence structures etc… than you might expect. People had less distractions back then and they read more books, so there was more of an incentive for writers to show off a bit more and to really use the written word to its fullest extent.

Yes, this means that older novels can be a little slower to read and that you might have to work out the meaning of some unfamiliar words from their context (or just look them up online). But, not only does this result in a much richer and more “high definiton” story (with more atmosphere, precision, depth, character etc…), but it will also help you to expand your vocabulary, increase your attention span and help you become more adept at reading complex texts.

2) Cost and serendipity: Yes, some older books (even relatively recent ones) can go out of print and become ridiculously expensive. However, this isn’t the case with most older books. If you are looking to build a personal library on a budget, then many paperback novels from even just a few years ago can be found incredibly cheaply second-hand. Likewise, if you want to go back even further, then many out-of-copyright 19th century/early 20th century novels can often be found in inexpensive “classics” editions or as free e-books.

[Edit: The original draft of this article, prepared several months ago, included a passage about finding interesting random books in second-hand bookshops. But, given current events, visiting physical shops isn’t something that I can recommend at the moment.]

So, being willing to read older novels can broaden your horizons, surprise you and allow you to build up a “to read” pile at a fraction of the cost.

3) Time travel: I’ve mentioned this in previous articles, but it’s worth repeating. Another cool thing about older novels is that they allow you to directly step into the past in a way that things like modern historical fiction, historical dramas etc… won’t allow you to do. After all, when you read an older novel, you are not only reading something written in the past but you are also reading exactly the same thing that people in the past read for entertainment. In other words, your experience of reading an older novel will be at least slightly similar to that of someone from the time it was published.

Although this will sometimes show you how backwards and narrow-minded the past can be, it’ll also help you to see the past in a more “realistic” way too. And the past can often seem more “modern” than the stylised nostalgia or re-creations that you’ll see in the media these days might lead you to believe. Older novels weren’t written with the thought “in 20-50 years time, people will think this is retro“, they were written to entertain people at the time they were written. So, they will depict everything and everyone in a more “realistic” way than you might expect if you’ve only seen modern TV shows, movies etc… set in the past.

This is kind of hard to describe well, but it not only gives you a more accurate look at (and understanding of) the past but – thanks to the immersive nature of books – it can feel like you are actually travelling back in time too. It’s really cool 🙂

4) Books mattered more: One of the cool things about older books is that books used to matter to everyone more in the past than they do today. They were read more, they were respected more and they were more popular. Not only does this mean that older books will usually be edited/proof-read to a higher standard, but it also means that they have a level of intensity and gravitas that you don’t always find in more modern novels.

People read more in the past than they do now, and older books will often reflect the fact that books mattered more. They weren’t some obscure hobby or trendy “sophisticated” activity – they were ordinary everyday entertainment. Which, of course, is still the best way to read and view books.

For good example of how books mattered more in the past, look at articles about the reactions to the Armed Service Edition novels that were issued to US troops during WW2, look at the sheer level of importance the Lady Chatterley Trial had in 1960s Britain (because book censorship affected a lot more readers back then) or look at how 19th century readers reacted when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “killed” Sherlock Holmes. Books mattered to people more in the past.

And you can often see this in older books. Whether it is 1980s British horror novels that tried to out-shock each other because horror fans read them as an alternative to the heavily-censored films in cinemas at the time. Whether it is how 1970s-90s literary novels will sometimes try to be a bit edgier or more controversial, because people read and discussed books more (and books were respected enough that calling for book censorship was rightly seen as an evil or totalitarian thing to do). Whether it is how older dystopian novels will almost always use the dystopian setting as a way of making a point about something – rather than just as a dramatic backdrop – because they were writing for a much larger audience who thought about what they read etc…

Even the cover art is usually better in older books, because it had to be dramatic in order to stand out. Without the internet to help potential readers find books and because people could only buy physical books (to read in public, to leave lying around at home etc…), cover art had to be cooler and more artistic in the past – because it mattered more.

So, one cool thing about older novels is that they show you what books were like when everyone cared about them and read them a bit more.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Three Tips For Choosing A Book To Read Next

Well, I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before, but I thought that I’d talk about choosing books to read. After all, there are literally millions of books out there and it is impossible to read everything that has ever been written. So, if you’re reading regularly, then you have to be selective.

However, whilst I’ll probably talk a bit about buying books, I also want to write this guide in a way that will also be useful if you just want to choose a book from the ones you already own or from a library etc… too. Plus, this guide is mainly aimed at people who are new to reading novels – since, if you’re an experienced reader, then you probably either know most of this stuff already or have worked out your own methods of choosing what to read next.

1) Try it out: I’ll start with the most obvious way of choosing a book. In other words, reading the first few pages of a book to see if it is something that you want to read more of.

Yes, this isn’t a perfect way to judge whether a book is worth reading (after all, some books only really get good after a few chapters or once you’ve got used to the writer’s style, and some books are only good at specific times in your life) but it’s a good first test and there’s no shame in putting aside a book that you’ve read a little bit of and looking for another one instead, if you’re going to get more out of another book.

After a while, you’ll get a knack for this kind of thing. For example, the novel I’m reading at the moment (“The Afterblight Chronicles: Kill Or Cure” by Rebecca Levine) wasn’t my initial choice of what to read next after I’d finished reading Clive Barker’s “The Damnation Game“. Originally, I’d planned to read an urban fantasy novel with an interesting title and a really cool-looking cover but, after reading the first few pages of it, I realised that I wasn’t really in the mood for it at the moment. So, I set it aside and went for a post-apocalyptic thriller novel instead.

So, although it takes a bit of practice and getting to know yourself, the best way to choose what to read next is simply to read the first part of a book and see if you want to read more of it. This is the best, and perhaps only, way to test out a book (and better than things like cover art, reviews etc..) that you are thinking of reading next.

2) Set rules: One good way to choose what to read next is to set yourself rules. However, these need to be rules that have a good practical reason behind them (so you’ll actually follow them) and should be made with the goal of increasing your own enjoyment. Making rules for the sake of showing off or anything like that won’t last for long and will result in a lot of bad book choices too. So, your rules actually have to mean something to you.

For example, when I got back into reading regularly a little over a year ago, I started by binge-reading eight thriller novels by Clive Cussler. By the end of the eighth one, I was so used to this author’s stories, writing style etc… that reading his books had gone from being exciting fun to being a dreary chore. Likewise, after reading the six main novels in Jocelynn Drake’s excellent “Dark Days” series within about a month, I found myself wishing that I’d spread these books out a bit more so that I didn’t feel the intense sense of loss that I did when the series was over.

So, I set myself some rules -in addition to my long-standing “If you enjoy it, read it. If you don’t, then don’t” rule – to avoid these problems.

To avoid getting bored with any one author, I initially started with a rule that I’d read a book by another author to the one I’d just finished reading and then, to avoid reading amazing book series too quickly, I also added a rule that I wouldn’t read more than one or two books by any particular author in the space of a month.

So, yes, making some rules can be useful for choosing what to read next. But, as I said earlier, you need to have a good practical reason for these rules because – if you don’t – you’ll either end up ignoring them or they will ruin your enjoyment of reading.

3) Serendipity: If you read a lot, then you’ve probably got a chaotic collection of unread books, including a few that you’ve forgotten about. If you haven’t got one of these, then look for a library or either a website or physical shop that sells second-hand books. The goal here is just to explore a collection of books until something catches your interest.

Earlier, I mentioned looking at second-hand books and this is important because these tend to contain a much greater variety of authors, genres etc… than shops selling the latest bestsellers do. They’re also cheaper too, which is good for building a personal library on a budget. Looking for interesting random books is a bit more difficult if you’re looking for second-hand books online – but things like going through several layers of recommendations (eg: “People who liked this book also liked…”) on sites that include them can give you something vaguely similar to it.

The advantage of doing this, rather than following a set reading list or anything like that (although these can be useful), is that it forces you to choose on the basis of quality. When you’re looking through a collection of random books then things like an author’s fame, awards etc… matter less than whether the book you’re looking at right now has an intriguing opening chapter, a fascinating blurb etc…

But, the key word here is “random”. So, this tends to work best when your book collection consists of chaotic piles of books (rather than neat shelves) or when looking through the shelves of a second-hand bookshop/charity shop.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Four Reasons To Read Older Novels

Well, I thought that I’d talk about some of the reasons to read slightly older books. This is mostly because, for most of my teenage years during the 2000s, I mostly read older and/or second-hand novels from the 1950s-1990s (in addition to the occasional 19th century/early 20th century novel or short story) and actually preferred them to modern books.

It also helped that, thanks to charity shops/second-hand bookshops, I was able to belatedly experience both the paperback horror boom of the 1980s and glimpse the golden age of sci-fi. These days, such books are unfortunately less common in these shops 😦

But, when I got back into reading regularly a year or so ago (after about 3-4 years of not reading much), I focused more on slightly more modern fiction. It was more readable, more fast-paced, more interesting in some ways etc… For a while, I actually preferred it to older fiction. But, every now and then, I’d find an interesting older novel or re-read one of the books I enjoyed when I was a teenager. And, since I’m doing this at the moment, I thought that I’d talk about some of the reasons to read older books.

1) They make you a better reader: When I started re-reading Clive Barker’s 1985 novel “The Damnation Game” a few days before writing this article, I was surprised at how formal and slow-paced the writing seemed to be. Then, I remembered reading this book for the first time when I was about nineteen or so. At the time, it had been just another ’80s horror novel – something I’d read for relaxation and enjoyment. I didn’t remember the writing being so elaborate or the pacing being so slow – it was just an “ordinary” older horror novel to me.

Of course, I read older books more frequently back then. So, I was more used to and well-practiced at reading this writing style. It was pretty much standard. I was, in short, a slightly better reader than I am today. Yes, some traces of this lingered in the vaguely formal writing style that I use for most of these blog articles ( I blame the many essays I wrote in school/college/university and discovering both Sherlock Holmes and H.P.Lovecraft at the age of seventeen for this. I actually find it easier/quicker to write non-fiction like this than to use a more informal style), but I was less used to this writing style than I was when I read older books more regularly.

Still, there are good reasons why modern books often use a more streamlined and fast-paced style. Not only is it even more relaxing and fun to read, but it also allows modern books to compete with the distractions of the internet, smartphones and other such things. Even so, reading older books still makes you a better reader – it’s kind of like a workout for your brain or something like that. Not only that, if you get used to reading older books (with their slightly slower and more complex narration), then modern books will seem even more thrillingly fast-paced by comparison too.

2) They’re a really interesting type of history: Older books, by their very nature, are dated. Sometimes, this can be a bad thing (eg: dated attitudes etc..) but sometimes it can be a good thing. In short, older novels are one of the most intriguing types of history out there. Not only are they a completely immersive glimpse into the past, almost like a type of time travel, but they often present a more “realistic” version of the past than stylised modern historical films, pop culture nostalgia etc… do.

After all, these books were the “modern literature” of their day. They were new once. They were written about the “present day” in the way that modern novels are. And this provides a much more complex, interesting, nuanced and unvarnished glimpse into the past than you might expect. Sure, you can sort of do this with other mediums – for example, watching the first series of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and various Beatles music videos will give you a highly stylised glimpse of the general “atmosphere” of 1960s Britain – but, because books force you to use your imagination, they are a bit more vivid and immersive.

Not only that, there’s also something cool about experiencing exactly the same type of entertainment as people in the past used to enjoy too. And, unless you’re reading a modern reprint, it’s also interesting to think that the book you’re reading right now is exactly the same book that someone twenty, thirty etc… years ago also enjoyed too.

3) They can surprise you: Although books are one of the oldest storytelling mediums out there, they can often be further ahead of their time than films, TV, videogames etc….

For example, Dashiell Hammett’s 1929/30 novel “The Maltese Falcon” feels much more “modern” than films of the time. Even Mickey Spillane’s 1947 novel “I, The Jury“, a pulp novel that has otherwise aged terribly, is written in a surprisingly fast-paced style that wouldn’t be entirely out of place in a modern thriller novel.

Then there’s the way that Shirley Jackson’s 1959 horror novel “The Haunting Of Hill House” includes humour, a group of “misfit” main characters etc… in a way that is at least vaguely reminiscent of modern horror films.

Then, there is science fiction. Whether it is the way that Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk novel “Snow Crash” reminded me a lot of mid-late 1990s sci-fi films like “Ghost In The Shell” or “The Matrix”, the way that William Gibson’s 1996 cyberpunk novel “Idoru” almost seems to be a novel about the modern internet or even how Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is a satire of the 1960s that was written in the 1930s, it is absolutely amazing when you find an old novel that is eerily ahead of it’s time 🙂

4) You don’t have to read “classics”: One of the most off-putting things about older books is the whole idea of “classics”. You know, the boring old novels that you were forced to read when you were in school. Most older novels aren’t like this!

Seriously, reading older novels doesn’t mean having to trudge through “the classics”. Yes, some 19th and 20th century “classics” are actually really good books (and are well worth reading for fun), but one of the cool things about old books is that there are so many of them – most of which end up being forgotten. In other words, you can find some absolutely brilliant hidden gems if you are willing to look.

Of course, this was a lot easier a decade or two ago, when lots of mid-late 20th century literature was easily available in charity shops and second-hand shops. Yes, finding and buying books is ten times quicker and easier using the internet, but it lacks what made shopping for older books in the 2000s so interesting – serendipity. The fact that you don’t know in advance what old books will be on a shop shelf and end up accidentally discovering all sorts of great authors, amazing novels etc… because of this.

I mean, my interest in 1980s horror fiction (which reignited my love of reading when I was a teenager) was sparked because I happened to find an old Shaun Hutson novel on a market stall when I was about thirteen. I hadn’t expected to find it there, but I did. So, yes, finding hidden gems was a lot easier a decade or two ago than it is now, but there are a lot of hidden gems out there if you read older fiction.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Why Movie Novelisations Exist

Well, I thought that I’d talk about movie novelisations again, since I happen to be reading one at the time of writing. I am, of course, talking about Neal Barrett Jr’s 1996 novelisation of a gloriously cheesy late-night B-movie called “Barb Wire”. Although I’ll probably review the novel tomorrow (when I’ve finished reading it), what I’ve read so far is better than I’d expected. And this made me think about why movie novelisations exist.

Of course, the original reason for movie novelisations was that they allowed people to enjoy a film at home before VHS, DVD etc… were invented. After all, up until about the 1980s or so, once a film left the cinemas, it was pretty much gone (unless it was re-released, shown in a cinema club, shown on TV etc..). So, movie novelisations were what existed before home video did. Yet, although they unfortunately aren’t as common as they were in the past, they still exist these days. Why?

Well, there are probably several reasons. The first is, as shown by the novelisation of “Barb Wire”, they can be better than the film. Although I only have vague memories of watching the film on TV during the early-mid 2000s, it was a rather cheesy – and somewhat sleazy – “so bad that it’s good” mid-budget action movie. Of course, since the novelisation can’t rely on special effects or celebrity (after all, it just uses words), it actually has to focus more on the characters and the story.

In other words, film novelisations have to rely on substance rather than style. The characters have to be good characters, everything has to be described well, the story has to be an actual story etc… In other words, film novelisations tend to feel a lot more well-made and consistent than films can sometimes do. After all, a good film novelisation still has to work as a novel. It has to be something that, theoretically, someone who has never seen the film can still enjoy.

Secondly, film novelisations tend to have more depth than their source material – which is good for fans of the film. Since films are a visual medium that can only show time in a linear fashion (eg: one second of film takes exactly one second), they can often only show the surface of a story. The written word, on the other hand, can do things like showing people’s thoughts, showing backstory, describing things in detail etc… Which result in a deeper and richer story when films are adapted to the page.

Not only that, the events of a 90-120 minute film probably won’t fill that many pages when translated directly to the page. So, an author will usually have to add extra stuff in order to write something longer than a novella. Although this can sometimes just result in filler content, it usually means that stuff from the film is more well-explained, there are interesting extra scenes, there’s more detailed backstory, there’s more characterisation etc… Which all result in a much deeper and more satisfying experience when compared to the film. So, fans of a film will usually get even more out of it by reading the novelisation.

Thirdly, film novelisations are a safe bet. Although books are unfortunately less popular than they were even two decades ago (thanks to smartphones, social media etc..), publishers and readers alike choose film novelisations for one simple reason. You know what you are getting. If a publisher wants a book that will sell, then choosing a popular film will make people interested. If a reader just wants to relax with a book or choose one quickly, then one based on a familiar film is usually a fairly good choice.

Fourthly, novelisations can be great for authors too. I mean, I can think of a few authors (eg: S.D.Perry, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Diane Carey etc..) who specialise in writing novelisations and spin-off novels. They usually have a fairly prolific body of work, regular publication etc… And they are good at writing these types of stories. So, if an author knows what they are doing, then they can have a fairly good writing career with novelisations.

Fifthly, they are good for reading and literature in general. Yes, they might not be the kind of “high brow” or “literary” fiction that people talk about when they lament the fact that people don’t read as much these days as they used to. But, they are a brilliant gateway into reading for people who might not otherwise choose to pick up a book. Because they tell a familiar story and are written to be entertaining, they’re more likely to tempt someone into reading a book (and, if they like it, maybe reading others) than a traditional novel.

Likewise, spin-off novels can do this too. When I was going through one of my “not reading much” phases in 2011/12, I ended up binge-watching various series of “Star Trek” on DVD. When I ran out of episodes, I vaguely remembered that there were spin-off novels. I ended up reading a few of these and really enjoyed them. In fact, when I got back into reading regularly a year or so ago, I was initially reluctant to read any “Star Trek” books because I considered them to be “what I read when I’m not reading”. Yet, I still ended up reading them occasionally again for the simple reason that they are just enjoyable, relaxing books.

So, in this age where books are less popular than they once were, novelisations and spin-off novels are absolutely great for showing people how much fun reading can be and for getting people to actually pick up a book.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Some Thoughts About Film Adaptations Of Novels – A Ramble

As regular readers of this site know, I tend to prepare these articles quite far in advance. So, very early this year, I was surprised to read that there is a modern US film adaptation of an “edgy” 1990s horror novel I’d reviewed quite a few months earlier called “Piercing” by Ryu Murakami.

Although I haven’t seen the full film at the time of writing, the trailer (which is probably “not safe for work”, hence the lack of a link) seems to have kept the disturbing premise of the novel and even seems to have kept a lot of the novel’s grim farce and unsettling psychological drama too. Yet, even though it looked like a good adaptation, I found myself reluctant to put the full film on my “to watch” list. This, of course, made me think about film adaptations of novels.

One of the strengths of the written word is that it makes the reader use their imagination. A novel is a personal experience. Every reader’s memory of a story – the compressed collection of images, moods and impressions that lingers long after the final page has been read – will be different. So, one of the problems that film adaptations can have is that they will inevitably be different from this. After all, cinema is a mass medium where everyone sees the one identical interpretation of a story.

This, incidientally, is why I refuse to watch some film adaptations – like “The Beach” or any of the “Jack Reacher” films – since I’m worried that they will overwrite my amazing memories of the novels they are based on. Yet, when I saw the film adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s excellent “Shutter Island” several months after reading the book, I found it to be a really good distillation of how I imagined the book – with the only problem being that I already knew the ending (which I won’t spoil here. You need to read or see it for yourself).

However, all of this also extends to everything surrounding a novel. Because novels are things that the reader has to co-create using their imagination, they are strongly linked to the time and place that they were read and to the imagination of the reader at that point in their life.

This is probably one of the reasons why I’m reluctant to watch the adaptation of “Piercing” since, although I only read the novel a few months earlier, I chose to read it as a way of feeling nostalgic for a time – about a decade earlier – when I read several other books by the author. Of course, even the best film can never quite capture that exact feeling of personal nostalgia.

On the flip side, reading a novel after seeing the film adaptation is actually a rather fun experience. In addition to being able to gain a deeper insight into the surface-level drama of what you’ve seen on screen, the fact that you will probably imagine the characters in the same way that you saw them on screen makes the process of reading feel a little bit more concrete. This is kind of hard to describe, but it’s strangely relaxing to read a story where you already know what the characters look like – it’s like part of your work as a reader has already been done for you.

Another difference between film adaptations and novels is how they are made. Novels are created by one author, the product of a single imagination given the freedom to be as unique, quirky and creative as possible. On the other hand, films are a team effort that cost millions to make. As such, there’s much more of an incentive for a film to have mass appeal or, at the very least, a wider appeal than the original novel. In principle, this is a good thing, but it can often end up losing or changing what made the original novel so interesting to read.

However, the best film adaptations actually use this to their advantage. For example, the 1980s cinematic masterpiece “Blade Runner” is both visually and stylistically different to the excellent novel that it is based on. These changes allow for a lot of amazing creativity that works really well on screen, whilst still keeping many of the core elements of the story.

And, this thing about the core elements of the story is probably one of the most important things about film adaptations. For example, although it would have been cool to see a cinematic version of the gritty late-night 1990s Toyko setting of Murakami’s “Piercing”, one of the surprising things about the trailer for the film adaptation is how well it seems to transplant the atmosphere, themes etc… of the story into what I presume is modern America. Yet, the trailer still seems to be very clearly based on the novel. If a story can jump from one time and place to another and still retain a lot of what made it so dramatic, then it is a good story.

So, in this sense, I can see why people often view a film adaptation of a novel as the ultimate form of praise. If a novel can survive the adaptation process and still result in a compelling film, then the underlying story is a good one. If all of the author’s uniqueness can be removed and lots of details changed, and it still results in something recognisable or compelling then this is a testament to the author’s skill.

But, at the same time, there’s something a little bit disturbing about seeing film adaptations as the ultimate literary award. Anyone who has read a lot of novels will probably find amazing ones that they feel deserve the full adaptation treatment and deserve to become a part of popular culture, yet never get adapted.

If adaptation was the ultimate award, then there would be a lot more novel adaptations in the cinemas. Yet, all of your favourite un-adapted novels still remain as brilliant as ever. They still remain things that linger in your imagination. Things that you judge all novels you read afterwards in comparison to. Things that make you want to write stories that are even half as good. Things that quite literally become part of your memories of a particular time in your life.

So, yes, film adaptations of books are complicated things.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂