Over on LibraryThing I maintain a catalogue of what I read. As I finish each book, the first thing I do is add it to my catalogue and then I rate it. I’m not especially a fan of crude rating systems. But I have found, over time, that it can serve a use, at least personally.
LibraryThing uses a 5-star system and, I have recently discovered, half-stars are also possible. Although my rating gets added to the pool of ratings for the book in question, I tend not to pay too much attention to other ratings. My rating method is idiosyncratic, and I suspect the same is true for others. What the ratings do provide, however, is a trigger to remind myself what I thought of a book.
Looking back over, say, the last twenty-five books I have read, I can see patterns emerging. There may be three or four books in a row with fairly low ratings. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in my rating scheme. Sometimes a book with a very high rating will be followed by one with a very low rating. Then I begin to wonder whether the second book suffered unduly by comparison to its predecessor. I have on occasion adjusted a rating for a book that I thought I had been too hard on, or too lenient.
I will tend to give one star to almost any book. Sometimes this means that I have thoroughly not enjoyed the book. But there aren’t many books that I would bother reading to the end which would receive such a rating from me. So, sometimes one star just means that the book didn’t live up to what I think is the potential for that author. Two stars, by contrast, tend to be books that I may have enjoyed but which I probably wouldn’t recommend unless I knew someone’s reading taste very well. Here is where a genre series might find a home and provides the source for some of those one star ratings previously mentioned.
Three stars, for me, is a book that is competently written but not outstanding. There are some writers I read who nearly always end up with three stars. I’m never disappointed reading their work, but they never surprise me or take my breath away. I am not averse to recommending such a book to anyone.
Four stars stands out far about the usual fare. I tend to find myself talking about such a book and continuing to think about it long after I have finished reading it. Such books are not especially rare. I engage in a fair bit of pre-selection and perhaps this skews the curve. I also have a habit of wanting to think well of an author, so if she or he is at least reaching for something difficult to attain, I will tend to be generous. Looking back over the sixteen books since 2008 to which I have given four stars, I see a couple that on reflection I now think may be slightly over-rated by me. But I’ll let those stand because I want to remind myself of how I felt at the time.
I have read 166 books since I started keeping my catalogue. Only three have attained a five star rating from me: W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and Jane Austen’s Emma. For these I have no hesitation. Each one is a great piece of literature. That doesn’t mean I don’t think discussion might ensue. It does, it should. Great literature needs to be argued, needs to be lived. I only wish that I could read more books that belong in this group.
I’m glad, however, that the Recent Reads feed from my catalogue that I show on this blog’s webpage does not include the rating I’ve given the book. I don’t think it would be informative. And if a book is worth talking about, I will tend to be talking (and writing) about it in any case. Perhaps I should be doing more of that in this blog. For example, I don’t think I have mentioned anywhere what a great pleasure it has been to read Lisa Moore’s short stories. High time.
I’m looking forward to what I read next.