WHY ARE BOOKS SO BORING?

WHY ARE BOOKS SO BORING?

For a long time, I have pondered why most books - textbooks, nonfiction, fiction - are so boring, regardless of any prizes they may have got.

I think most writers start dreaming of becoming a famous writer even at a very young age and start contacting book agents and after heartbreaking rejections finally get publishers who are willing to publish them and then the pathetic writers keep on revising and re-revising their manuscripts and typescripts which go back and forth between the authors and publishers' editors in a funny way, and finally, if the books are eventually published, the poor publishers and sympathetic kind literary reviewers advertise the books as "bestsellers" that have sold "millions of copies". I feel like crying (yes, Crocodile tears).

The main reasons why most books are very boring and sleep-inducing are:

1. The authors have not read good fiction.

2. The authors have not read books on how to write well. Two excellent guides to composition are:

(i) SHEFTER'S GUIDE TO BETTER COMPOSITIONS by Harry Shefter, Professor of English, New York University, published by Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster. (It may be out of print. Contact ALIBRIS and BETTER WORLD BOOKS, sellers of used books, who have millions of used books in stock.)

(ii) Dr. RUDOLF FLESCH: "How to Speak, Think, Write Effectively" (Signet)

Best of luck!

Kishalay Sinha [G]