Book Review | How to Be Well Read
500 Great Novels and a Handful of Literary Curiosities
In October 2024, I was visiting family in Boston and one of the things on my to do list was to hang at the Boston Library. I allotted time to check out the older part of the Library I must say, it was WAY more cool in person than what the photo’s could take. One of my favorite spots in the Library was the Bates Hall. The Bates Hall is the study room; no talking, no phones and no snacks; perfect place to read and study. I pushed the door into the Bates Hall, stepped in to the serenity of a study hall.
Literature is the human mind at the very height of its ability to express and interpret the world around us ― John Sutherland, A Little History of Literature
I was on a holiday in Boston - I didn’t bring any books!, Okay fine, I decided that I would go into the Bates Hall, find a book on the shelves there and read it. After looking at 2 whole shelves of books filled with law, constitutional reviews and mathematics, I was getting despondent. I don’t want to read law and math’s! Then my eye glanced over the title of this book and I decided to pick it up, take it to a table and skim through it.
The book was *deep breath in* How to be Well Read: A guide to 500 Great Novels and a Handful of Literary Curiosities *deep breath in* by John Sutherland1
And, the title is a lie – there’s MORE than 500 books he’s done a summary on. At the end he’s got a list of honorable mentions with about a dozen more books.
This book is from John Sutherland2 who is an author and Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. And that is what makes this book to intriguing; it’s a whole bunch of summaries of many books. Let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly of How to be Well Read.
The Good - You’re getting succinct and real summaries of a plethora of books. Straight to the point with each book, he’s amazingly succinct, covering the main ideas without giving away too much meat. All the summaries are around 700 words and it felt as if he was speaking casually to the reader, no pretense or flaunty writing. He did a review of War and Peace - how do you compress that 1,225 page story into 700 words? I think that Sutherland has done magic with words to cover so many stories with complex and deep ideas.
The Bad - Pride before a fall as they say. Going through the pages, I realized that my reading focused on english language authors and what’s considered traditional European Classic authors. Some names I recognized like Leo Hugo, Stephen King, Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoyevsky. But there were names from around the globe; Iran, Africa, Spain, Japan and Russia. Names that are new to me; Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Kenzaburo Oe and Haruki Murakami. There were authors in this book that would not have been on my radar at all. I can only say that the Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu has caught my eye. The only reason was because of the TV adaptations from from Tencent and Netflix. Sutherland’s book highlighted how narrow my scope of reading has been. Having that highlighted hurt my pride yes, but also, he’s got recommendations on where to start to expand your horizons.
The Ugly - You can satisfy your curiosity through this book. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is considered a classic but the topic of hebephilia makes my guts churn. It’s a classic, why not read it? The review of Lolita confirms that Lolita is a good read from a language and story telling perspective. It also confirms that Nabokov doesn’t hide from the hebephilia theme. I am glad I read the review of Lolita, because I realized that if I read Lolita, I would be sick while reading it. It would take me months to read, I would regularly reflect, overthink and obsess over the decisions and treatment of the characters in this story. I suppose it is upsetting that I won’t pick up this ‘classic’ book. But for me, I think it’s good so that it won’t fester in my brain space.
"One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world."
- from Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai (2017)
It’s a good coffee table book, a good reference book and a good read. The books that John Sutherland has selected is extensive. If you’re wanting something to read but undecided on it, you can find a quick summary in there for whatever your fancy might be. And, as in my ugly section, if you are curious about a book, maybe read the summary from Sutherland and you can discern for yourself if that’s a book that you might want, or not want to read.
And hey, John Sutherland is someone who can absolutely recommend a book for someone to read; but how about me? I don’t know if I can call this a review as I really just skimmed through the book while in the library. All I did was want to experience the space and read a good story. Turns out, I got more than I bargained for when opening this book.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-be-well-read-john-sutherland/1118957824
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sutherland_(author)