Francine Prose wrote a wonderfully useful book called Reading Like a Writer. I read it a few years ago and I think it is time to dip into it again. Recently I have been experiencing the frightful pleasure of having my own writing read by writers. Shortly after the demise of my previous writing group, I was lucky enough to join in with a dedicated group of writers who are forcing me to raise my game. There are two poets, two novelists, and a creative non-fiction writer plus me. Every one of them is a careful, perceptive reader. What’s more, they all read like writers. So the feedback I’m getting at the moment is precise, constructive, and inspiring.

I fear that my own contributions are not nearly as helpful, though I try. Fortunately they all write well and are unlikely to be harmed by my weak observational feedback. I spot a word or two that I think might be replaced by a better one. I fact-check. I speculate on what an action or event commits a writer to. I test the believability of described facial expressions. I don’t imagine I’m helping all that much.

Surprisingly, perhaps, I find providing comment on the poems to be the hardest. That’s only surprising to me because there was a time when I thought of myself as (and probably was) a poet. More than 25 years ago now, of course. In those days I was passionate about poetry. The group I hung with as an undergrad would argue long into the night about the placement of a word or a line’s scansion. We didn’t wear black, but our writing was dark and driven.

These days I’ve got out of the habit of reading poetry. It’s one thing to read like a writer, but reading like a poet is even harder. I see it in the commentary from the poets in my current group. They can be so observant about the weight of a single word.

I’m feeling very lucky to be in with this group of writers. And hoping that I can one day be as useful to them as they are for me.

Over on LibraryThing I maintain a catalogue of what I read. As I finish each book, the first thing I do is add it to my catalogue and then I rate it. I’m not especially a fan of crude rating systems. But I have found, over time, that it can serve a use, at least personally.

LibraryThing uses a 5-star system and, I have recently discovered, half-stars are also possible. Although my rating gets added to the pool of ratings for the book in question, I tend not to pay too much attention to other ratings. My rating method is idiosyncratic, and I suspect the same is true for others. What the ratings do provide, however, is a trigger to remind myself what I thought of a book.

Looking back over, say, the last twenty-five books I have read, I can see patterns emerging. There may be three or four books in a row with fairly low ratings. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in my rating scheme. Sometimes a book with a very high rating will be followed by one with a very low rating. Then I begin to wonder whether the second book suffered unduly by comparison to its predecessor. I have on occasion adjusted a rating for a book that I thought I had been too hard on, or too lenient.

I will tend to give one star to almost any book. Sometimes this means that I have thoroughly not enjoyed the book. But there aren’t many books that I would bother reading to the end which would receive such a rating from me. So, sometimes one star just means that the book didn’t live up to what I think is the potential for that author. Two stars, by contrast, tend to be books that I may have enjoyed but which I probably wouldn’t recommend unless I knew someone’s reading taste very well. Here is where a genre series might find a home and provides the source for some of those one star ratings previously mentioned.

Three stars, for me, is a book that is competently written but not outstanding. There are some writers I read who nearly always end up with three stars. I’m never disappointed reading their work, but they never surprise me or take my breath away. I am not averse to recommending such a book to anyone.

Four stars stands out far about the usual fare. I tend to find myself talking about such a book and continuing to think about it long after I have finished reading it. Such books are not especially rare. I engage in a fair bit of pre-selection and perhaps this skews the curve. I also have a habit of wanting to think well of an author, so if she or he is at least reaching for something difficult to attain, I will tend to be generous. Looking back over the sixteen books since 2008 to which I have given four stars, I see a couple that on reflection I now think may be slightly over-rated by me. But I’ll let those stand because I want to remind myself of how I felt at the time.

I have read 166 books since I started keeping my catalogue. Only three have attained a five star rating from me: W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and Jane Austen’s Emma. For these I have no hesitation. Each one is a great piece of literature. That doesn’t mean I don’t think discussion might ensue. It does, it should. Great literature needs to be argued, needs to be lived. I only wish that I could read more books that belong in this group.

I’m glad, however, that the Recent Reads feed from my catalogue that I show on this blog’s webpage does not include the rating I’ve given the book. I don’t think it would be informative. And if a book is worth talking about, I will tend to be talking (and writing) about it in any case. Perhaps I should be doing more of that in this blog. For example, I don’t think I have mentioned anywhere what a great pleasure it has been to read Lisa Moore’s short stories. High time.

I’m looking forward to what I read next.