It was a little more than three weeks ago that I sat down to read Freedom with the highest of hopes. I loved the title. I liked what I’d heard about The Corrections. I liked the flap copy and loaded the novel onto my Kindle hoping that this was one of those books that would hold me spellbound from page one and take no more than a day or two to get through so I could get back to this infatuation I have going with the talented (but sometimes maddening) Henning Mankell. 

While I wouldn't say that I was outright disappointed by Freedom as a story, I was surprised by it, and not entirely in a good way. Franzen is an intelligent and very engrossing writer, whose insights on human nature I quickly came to enjoy and value. But Freedom to me in some ways felt too much like a vehicle for his thoughts and observations and too little like the gripping story I had hoped for. That said, it’s a very interesting book, in part because of the ways it manages to entertain and engage while going against the grain of many solid points of novel craft. 

As a book editor and guitar player, few things get my attention like memoirs from my real-life guitar heroes.  I was excited when I heard rumors of a pending seven-figure book deal for Rolling Stones guitarist and songwriter Keith Richards, but only to a point.  The first reason for my hesitation to expect too much of it was that I had just read Eric Clapton’s memoir, which I found perfectly pleasant and entertaining but ultimately pretty disappointing. The second was that it sounded like Keith was going get a mega-bucks kind of deal for looking back on a life that no one had any confidence he’d be able to remember much about.

Like many little kids, I went through a fierce Egyptology phase. It culminated with me building a miniature City of the Dead in my backyard (okay, so maybe most kids don't go that far), and died a quick, painful death involving a book about embalming and a bowl of beef stew. I had, up until that point, enjoyed a thoroughly satisfactory relationship with beef stew: it wasn't my favorite food by any stretch of the imagination, but unless my parents forced the issue of carrots, I ate it without complaint. When the Incident (as I later came to think of it) happened, I was fourteen and had already developed the extremely rude habit of reading during dinner; on that particular day, I was plowing my way through a new book about the life and withered remains of Tutankhamen. It never occurred to me that eating and reading might not always be compatible until I got to the part where the author described removing the brain by poking an instrument up through the nostrils and then pulling bits out.

I looked at the description.

And then I looked at my food.

And then I put the book down, shoved the plate away, and spent the next decade or so dodging beef stew.

We're all avid readers here at The Editorial Department, and while reading for entertainment is a favorite pastime, it never hurts to take a more critical look at the pages (or e-ink) in our hands. This review of the First 50 pages is an exercise in analyzing story craft, but also contains a special offer on editing services. Be sure to click the "read more" to find all the details.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Flap Copy: He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likable: He only kills bad people.

Ross's Take: Though Darkly Dreaming Dexter was a book that for me left a lot to be desired from a craft standpoint, there's a good deal the author does really well in terms of pacing, story setup, drawing readers into the world of this story and setting the stage for a series of books that later became a successful TV series.

Chapter 1: The book opens with this:  Moon. Glorious Moon. Full, fat Reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy.

First, a confession...Had this book not been recommended to me I probably would have stopped reading right there. The last thing I want out of a crime thriller/dark comedy hybrid is something that felt like a labored effort at literary style. But fortunately, this line isn't really reflective of the tone of the narrative. The writing is, in general, much more straightforward and down to earth. Prety darn readable, actually.

A more important point is that by one page into the scene, readers see that protagonist Dexter Morgan is in serial killer mode and stalking his prey. It looks like things are likely to end badly for Father Donovan and though readers don't yet know of the golden rule the flap copy alludes to, it becomes pretty clear pretty quick that this priest is no saint and may well deserve what seems like an inevitable demise. A tense scene follows as Dexter ambushes the man and brings him back to some kind of lair, where the rotting corpses of seven children are waiting. It's not stated explicitly but the implication is that Father Donovan killed and perhaps sexually abused these children and probably others. The 13-page chapter ends with Dexter telling readers simply that he "went to work."

There are a number of books that come out any given week that reflect what has happened in the world, commenting on history, whether recent or ancient.  The nature of publishing means that a manuscript was turned in as many as 18 months before a book hits stores,  so by the time you open the front cover, the ideas within reflect a reality the author was considering quite a while beforehand.  What ends up being rare is a book that's prescient, that ends up being about a time that hasn't yet been realized when the author is first putting the words on a page.

Jacqueline Gum's Confessions of a Corporate Slut (released in 2008) managed to reflect universal themes about men and women, but also tell a story that will sound familiar to anyone who has heard the last names Spitzer, Sanford or Woods. Written as a memoir, but one composed by a fictional character named Roberta who gives up her identity for her husband's success. Confessions... is a really interesting book, and we're happy to have it on our bookshelf of titles we had a part in. Jacqueline puts the mirror up to society, and anyone who has any familiarity with the corporate world or the culture of success will find something on nearly every page that rings true. She's witty, insightful and great fun to read. In fact, there's been interest from producers in turning the book into the seed for a TV series.

You might have more self-confidence than I, but on the bookshelf across from my desk at home, there's a line of books on writing.  From the beat up copy of Strunk and White I accidentally kept from my high school journalism class to a few I'm not even sure I've ever opened, I suppose I think one of these books has a secret formula that makes bad writing good, but that really isn't the case.  From any book, you hope to learn a few things and reach the last page a little better for the trip.  Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools isn't some sort of miraculous gift from the writing muse, but it does manage to have something useful on nearly every page for any writer, regardless of your level of experience, and that might be all you can ask for a book of this sort.

You say you don’t like historical fiction? You say descriptions of technical nautical details bore you silly? You say if you wanted to read a novel with turn-of-the-19th-century dialogue you’d read Jane Austen?

Fie, I say. And possibly pshaw. I'm here to tell you why you should consider reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, and in order to keep myself from going on ad nauseum, I'm going to do it in list form.

When you're the sort of person who spends your days wrapped up in books, in whatever manner that might be, the seemingly back-to-back deaths of historian Howard Zinn and famed recluse J.D. Salinger were likely a little hard to take.  Your opinion of Zinn likely is determined by your particular political bent, but Salinger's death was a little more universally felt.  Who hasn't read Catcher in the Rye, at very least?  In the Editorial Department office, the day following Salinger's death was one where we talked about his books for awhile and shared a laugh over The Onion's amusing Caufield-like obit.  However, as a group of people well removed from the age of Catcher's main character, we had to wonder...do teenagers still care about Holden Caufield?

When you hear that a forthcoming novel is an examination of one of the rich investment bankers who ruined our economy last year, I wouldn't blame you for grimacing a bit.  First of all, while it's somewhat pleasing to consider a serious of awful things happening to a symbol for the declining value of your 401-k, it seems like it might be a little too soon to go back to that bad place.  However, Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic might just end up being the lens we see this time through.

We love books here at the Editorial Department...even the ones we weren't personally involved with. However, with dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites covering new releases, it can be difficult to keep track of what people are saying about books newly on shelves. To try to resolve that dilemma, we offer our Tuesday Review Wrapup, using the last sentences of prominent book reviews as literary tea leaves to discern the trends guiding our industry. This week, we're looking at Julie Powell's followup to her Julia Child experience, Cleaving.