…must surely be the Borders down near the White House at 14th and F. Here I am at Dupont Circle, betwen Books-A-Million and Kramers, but the two combined come nowhere near the size of Borders. But bearing in mind my extravagance in London the other week, I have been much more modest in my purchases here.
In other news, today’s conference was fun, but I can say even less about it than I can about yesterday’s. I was cast in the uncomfortable role of being both spokesman for my own organisation and explainer to some rather senior people of what the EU is up to. My energy levels had completely given up by the end of the meeting.
As with many things, I think it comes down to the indisputable fact that “well-written” and “entertaining” are distinct categories with less overlap than one might expect (or prefer). There are clearly lots of people who find books by e.g. Dan Brown extremely entertaining. Are those books well-written? Not particularly. But for many readers that’s not all that relevant.
The only book of Sawyer’s I’ve read is WWW: Wake, which I actually found to be tolerably well-written (at least until the last thirty pages) and not the slightest bit entertaining. So perhaps he’s one of those writers people vote for because they feel they ought to have liked his books and if they didn’t then it’s their fault for not understanding or appreciating them well enough.