The Autumn Star

Here's a question I ask every candidate I interview: What's the last great book you read? Catch: It can't be a business book. It always stumps them. Some of them are honest: "I don't read fiction. But, I just got done reading a new book about Jeff Bezos ...." Me: (Inward sigh) I wish this only happened when I was talking to young recruits, new to marketing, eager to show me their dedication to learning business from the greats. But it's not. I can't even tell you how many CEOs, presidents, entrepreneurs, managers, designers, developers, and even fellow copywriters that have confessed to me that they don't read fiction. They offer a variety of reasons why. All of which I consider bullshit. I don't like fiction.  Bullshit. Do you watch movies? Television? Those are fiction. (Even the "reality" shows are scripted.) If you don't like reading fiction, it's because you're not reading good fiction.  Or, it...

This is an old post (2008) from my now-defunct blog, A Life Edited. I’m reposting it here so my boss can read it. Yeah, I know. My job’s awesome. Here’s the deal: I am too old to read bad books. There are a lot of killer books out there, waiting for me to find them. I can’t waste my time with bad ones. Twilight is a bad book. At first, I thought I was being impatient. Then I thought I was being too critical, that I couldn't take off my Editor’s Hat. But 300 pages in I had decided. Twilight isn’t just poorly written--rife with repetitive, unnecessary adjectives and bland adverbs that add nothing to the action, with a bizarre mix of teenage sentimentality and Ivy League vocabulary--because if it was just poorly written, I would probably wade through it, and then write a review that talked about how editing a story to its best possible form, is a lost art and blah blah blah. No, Twilight is boring. 300 pages in, this is what I have learned: Bella Swan moves ...