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Monday, July 08, 2013

50

it just has to stop

another month rolls by and my local sainsbury's book chart and book display has yet another james patterson co-authored book in it's top sellers.
why?
why?
why?
why?

it isn't that i have anything against genre fiction. i love it.
it isn't even if i can claim to have some sort of touchstone of quality; i don't.

yet somehow the success of the patterson and friends juggernaut offends me. sure some of that is tinged with jealousy: how come it isn't me making money from badly written books (and boy can i write badly).
at least two books a month will drop out of the patterson stable - lots of short sharp chapters, chapters that are only chapters because they have been titled that and by no sense of imagination are they.

but there has to be something there or else people wouldn't keep reading him and in the large numbers that they do.

my two attempts to read his books have ended with me having a headache and promising myself never again - yet each time another one appears in sainsbury's there is a spilt second when i think 'maybe this one is good,'

i have the good sense not to try.

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