How to Read a Novel : A User's Guide

by Sutherland, John

• ISBN13: 9780312359881
• ISBN10: 0312359888
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-10-31
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

There are two approaches: If you're a trusting soul, treat an endorsement as you would the icing on a birthday cake-dip your finger into it, taste and pay up. If you're a suspicious kind of person, treat it as you would the cheese on the mousetrap and keep your hand on your wallet. I'd advise suspicion. Book jacket.

Author Biography

John Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London and a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. He has published and edited numerous books.  He writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and also writes for The New York Times Book Review and London Review of Books. He was the committee chairman for the 2005 Man Booker Prize.

Table of Contents

chapter 1: So many novels, so little time	1	(13)
chapter 2: Declarations of independence	14	(13)
chapter 3: Every other thing has changed: why hasn't the book changed?	27	(16)
chapter 4: Fiction – a four-minute history	43	(7)
chapter 5: Targeting – first find your book	50	(6)
chapter 6: Preliminaries I	56	(7)
chapter 7: Closing in	63	(18)
chapter 8: Preliminaries II	81	(4)
chapter 9: Titles	85	(20)
chapter 10: Names	105	(5)
chapter 11: Worth a thousand words	110	(3)
chapter 12: Famous first words	113	(5)
chapter 13: Epigraphs, forewords and afterwords	118	(5)
chapter 14: Read one, you've read them all: intertextuality	123	(8)
chapter 15: On the rack: know your genre	131	(13)
chapter 16: Getting physical	144	(6)
chapter 17: See as well as read	150	(5)
chapter 18: Hardback or paperback?	155	(7)
chapter 19: What do you do with the novel? read it, listen to it, look at it?	162	(8)
chapter 20: Real world, fictional world — same world?	170	(11)
chapter 21: When worlds collide	181	(11)
chapter 22: Fiction — where the unspeakable can Be spoken	192	(7)
chapter 23: I'm a Martian: will understand Pride and Prejudice?	199	(14)
chapter 24: Can reviews help?	213	(7)
chapter 25: Bestsellers	220	(5)
chapter 26: The prize novel	225	(4)
chapter 27: Book of the film? Film of the book?	229	(9)
chapter 28: After all is said and done, what use are they?	238	(6)
Afterword	244	(3)
Notes	247	(4)
List of illustrations	251	(2)
Acknowledgments	253	(1)
Bibliography	254