50-Book Challenge: The Forest for the Trees

For the fourth book in my challenge I selected Betsy Lerner's insider look into the publishing world: The Forest for the Trees.

People choose books to read in many different ways. My mother, for example, will read every single James Patterson book within a month of its publication date. So reliable is she that Patterson's publisher could save time and money by simply sending my mother the latest Patterson novel with a bill attached. Some other people scour the few (far too few) book reviews that are still published in the paper. Still others listen to NPR or BBC radio and choose books based on author interviews. Some only borrow books from friends. And others - those who only read one or two books a year - read only the books that other people give to them during the holidays.

What do I do? I'm a browser. Now that doesn't mean that I don't engage in one or all of the other methods of book selection. But for the most part, I find my books by wandering for hours on end through book stores. It's people like me who will ensure that books are always published on paper, stacked in large rooms, and accompanied  by coffee, scones, and overstuffed chairs. As a creature of habit, my trips to the book stores are almost indistinguishable. First, coffee; then new fiction, new nonfiction, NYT bestsellers, staff recommendations, biographies, art, writing, law, reference, and (finally) the bargain bin. During a recent trip to the Union Square Barnes & Nobel I bought Ms. Lerner's book.

So what was my impression? To start with I finished the book, and that's a good sign. I'm prone to send crappy books flying across the room, against the wall, and into the charity donation bag. Ms. Lerner is a veteran of the editorial division of some large publishing houses, and she's now a writer's agent. (Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner: Literary Agency). There's a temptation to fault the writer for grammatical mistakes in the book - particularly if the writer is an editor who's writing about writing - but, frankly, the fault lies more with the copy editors than with the writers. And I'm not inclined to hold an editor who's trying to write a book to a higher standard that a career author who's publishing her seventh novel. Though noticeable, the writing mistakes were only occasional and not particularly distracting. The rest of the book, however, ran hot and cold. There were a few times that I found myself skimming pages and hoping to find the end of the chapter. Yet, there were other times that I found myself underlining passages and writing comments (undoubtedly pithy and insightful) in the margins.

This book's greatest attributes, and the reasons that I recommend this book, are its tone and content. It would be incredibly easy for a writer with Ms. Lerner's background to become preachy and boorish. (After all, the book is subtitled: An Editor's Advice to Writers). For the most part, she sticks to her promises in the beginning of the book that she'll not "repeat the most common piece of writing advice, "write what you know" nor will she "Strunk you over the head with rules about style and grammar."

Instead, she promises and insightful look at the writer's struggle from the editor's point of view. She talks about established writers, struggling writers, neurotic writers, writer's spouses, writer's agents, editors, publishers, publicists, submitting  manuscripts or proposals, and dealing with criticism. And by the end of her book, she's delivered on her all her promises.

If you're an aspiring writer, editor, publisher, or writer's agent, you can probably learn something from this book. And the trip - though not altogether smooth -  isn't unpleasant. I think Ms. Learner deserves her book-jacket praise, even considering that I now know that book-jacket endorsements are really just self-licking ice-cream cones.

Comments

[Betsy Lerner]

Self-licking ice cream cones! That almost sounds dirty. Thanks for picking the book. A lot.